Fishing and Thinking in Minnesota

Notes on DIY European Mounts

Preamble: for years, buried heads. Let the soil microbes and bugs do the work of layering away the soft tissues associated with large mammal head. That was a long time ago. It involved burying heads with antlers above ground; covering with metal smoker lid to ward off rodentia. Then, started shooting some bigger bucks. Wanted to pursue more perfect union; more perfect mounts. So started relationship with local taxidermist. He did five euro mounts, even after retiring he did a few. But this year, fully retired, was his reply. This prompted me to revisit the DIY approach, but look to speed it up a bit. Notes follow.

Step 1: outdoor propane burner connected to the 20 lb tank. After skinning the head best possible, SIMMER (not boil; not hard board; but simmer) the head for a while. Watch it. This burner was given to me by a friend who said his father in law bought it intending to deep fry poultry but then he realized that doing so cost many many dollars of deep fry oil so he saw the flaw in the concept and abandoned the equipment to the dreary storage; from which it was withdrawn and passed to me for this new purpose; thus renewal achieved. Note the forky cooked head in one pic; that's what looks like coming off the simmer.

If you need to pause the process, keep the head in water; not in the open air or even in the freezer (these dry out the residual flesh/etc and make it harder to remove later).
I removed the brain after simmering; I saw some youtube guys doing it before simmering; I'll prob try that next time. Put some high pressure water or air into the "brain hole" and be ready for brain to come out that same hole. After simmering, you may need to probe around and break up the now-cooked rubbery tissue; it looks like if you do so befor simmering the brain will jet out the hole in liquid state.

The most tedious step was using long-nosed forcepts to reach up the nose of the skull and break/twist/pull all the cartilage, wafer-bone and soft tissue from the nasal passages/etc. No easy way to describe in words; you just put in some workbench time looking up the nose and ripping shit out of there. This can be iteratively stepped with next key step which is to apply high pressure water (from pressure washer) to blast off the skin/flesh/etc. coming out of the simmer. Put the pressure washer very close to the stubborn points of clinging flesh. Put the pressure washer in the various "vents" and points of entry into the brain chamber and the nasal passages working forward and back just blasting shit out of there. Wear goggles etc. during this operation.

Set the skull up to dry, using a rubber band to hold the "nose" together so the bones dry well and in place.

If you have anything loose - consider clear gorilla glue as needed.

The youtube guys suggest spending $40 on salon whitening products. Didn't like that idea. I used hydrogen peroxide mixed with baking soda to make paste. Then just a cheap paint brush to apply everywhere. Cover the bases of antlers (including the burrs) with saran wrap to avoid bleaching them. See photo of "pasted skulls".

Rinse in the sink. Check it out. If it needs more whitening; okay; do so. Let it sit overnight.

Overall pretty happy. Keep iterating, improving. But I think base process pretty good.

Lake Michigan Water Level Update

Dashboard here

June of 2023: 579.72 feet

Predicted range June 2024: 579.2 - 579.79 feet

So ranging from "same as last year" to approximately half a foot lower.

Palm Beach tide reference

Thursday April 6, fished around both sides of the 4 PM low tide. Wasn't great. Water wasn't up in the mangroves so the fish couldn't situate there. Blind casting out in the greater flat didn't produce.

Friday April 7, fished a couple hours heading into the 10:24 high tide; approx 8-930 AM. This was a lot better; water had been up in the mangroves and there were fish up there tight. Saw some snook; caught some barracuda. This water level was idea for wading and fishing.