On December 26th, 2009, I killed my first ten-point Whitetail buck. It was very cold that morning, and I had hunted hard the first part of the season seeing only a few young bucks and some does. My family had decided to brave the crowds and hit the after-Christmas sale, which is an activity that I wanted no part of. This left me free to once again climb a tree and watch the natural world unfold before me.

I walked off the mountain to a shelf above a bluff in the early morning hours well before daylight. I had already hunted this area several times before during the season and had seen deer activity and sign but had just not been in the right place at the right time. Weeks before, I had placed a climber on a good, tall, straight tree and locked it on, sprayed it down with scent killer and left it so as to avoid having to pack it in and out every time I hunted this spot. The terrain is very steep here, and I’m not as young and agile as I once was.

There was deer sign everywhere here. Scrapes, rubs and trails all concentrated on the narrow shelf above the bluff and below the steep hillside. To the south and west of my stand are big woods with lots of unimproved, rough, steep, hilly terrain and a lot of land that nobody ever gets back into. To the north and east, the woods run out, and there are crop fields and pastureland. The deer were traveling along the top of this bluff and feeding in a large corn field and then returning to the big woods in the morning. Just a few days before, I had freshened a scrape within sight of my stand with some dominant buck urine and had watched later that same day as a button buck timidly checked it and then decided he had better be on his way.

On the morning of the 26th, I sat on stand at a height of about 25 ft. and watched as the woods came alive. The squirrels were painfully aware that the gun I had across my lap was not a .22 or a .17 and so were extremely willing to mimic the sound of footsteps on the crisp leaves all around me. The gun I had was one I had just bought right before the season opened. I had wanted an all weather gun and had saved and bought a New England Firearms stainless single shot in 30-06, topped with a Nikon Buckmaster 3X9, and it was dialed in and ready to put something down. I watched a young ’possum lumber along and even shared some of my apple with him. He probably thought that he was quite clever, finding a chunk of apple out here in the middle of nowhere.

A couple of does came up and over the bluff from the bottoms early in the morning, but nothing else showed till about 9 a.m. I noticed movement to my left and slowly turned in that direction to see a buck emerge from the thick brush. He was on a path that would take him directly in front of my stand at about 30 yards. As I watched him, I tried to accurately judge his age and finally decided he was a 3 ½ year old buck and would probably score in the low to mid 130’s. I had let several smaller bucks walk and was really looking for a mature deer, 4 ½ years or older, but I hadn’t fired my gun this season and had never taken a ten point so it was not his lucky day. At 30 yards and broadside, I pulled the trigger. He ran about another 30 yards or so and piled up. I watched him for a few minutes and saw him expire, then climbed out of the tree to get a closer look.

The buck wasn’t bad by any means. I was very proud of him and called my wife and kids right away to let them know what had just happened. I immediately started second guessing my decision and then began justifying taking the shot. Back and forth I went in my head as I tend to do. Maybe I should have let him grow another year. If I hadn’t shot him, someone else would have. He wasn’t as big as the 8 point I had on the wall at home, but he was a 10 point. If I had waited, maybe something bigger would have come along. I haven’t shot anything all year and needed some meat for the freezer. Finally, I resolved to be thankful and maybe do a skull mount as I didn’t think I wanted to spend the money on a full mount until I killed one better than the one I already had.

When I took the deer to the processor, I had them cut off the head right behind the ears. I also extraced the bullet from the off-side shoulder.  It was just under the skin, fully mushroomed and fully intact.  I took the head home and hung it on the side of a shed there at the house and thought maybe the flesh would rot away with time. I had heard about people boiling the skulls to remove the flesh and putting them in ant beds, but I still had a little over a month of hunting to do, so I just put that on the back burner. I ended up killing a bigger buck from that same stand on January 23rd. This buck was 4 ½ years old and scored 143 1/8. He was also a ten point, and I had him mounted, and he now hangs in my living room along with the big 8 point. I guess it was a good thing that I didn’t have the first buck mounted, but I hadn’t given up on the idea of a European mount.

I started asking around about how to go about de-fleshing the skull and there were lots of ideas, but by this time the head had really dried and the skin was stiff and was going to be extremely hard to remove. My taxidermist told me I may even have to chisel it off the skull! From this experience I learned that I would recommend skinning the head right away to any of you who want to do this yourself because drying the skin on the skull can present some problems. I looked into buying a plastic skull that the antlers could be mounted on, but still wanted to save the real thing if I could. I began asking for tips on TalkHunting.com and was rewarded with a wealth of knowledge from several of the fine folks who frequent this site. One of the regulars on the site, whom we all know as Puddle Jumper, suggested that I try to rehydrate the skull before skinning it. This turned out to be a very good suggestion. I had removed the lower jaw when I brought the head home, so on PJ’s advice I took the head and submerged it in water by lowering it into a five gallon bucket so that the antlers were still above the water level ,but the entire skull was down in the water, and then I waited.

For the next month, I occasionally checked on the skull. I usually looked through the window of the well house, where I placed the bucket, as I was more than a little apprehensive about what I would have to endure in order to remove the skin. Each time I looked in the well house, the rancid soup in the bucket seemed to be a little worse, and I was really beginning to dread the job ahead. The pinkish brown hue of the putrid concoction that now filled the bucket in no way made me want to even open the door, but after a month of peeking through the window, I knew I had to take a closer look. As I opened the door to the well house, the smell hit me like a brick, but I’ve never had a very weak stomach, so it wasn’t more than I could handle. I’ve always told my son that I could sit on a dead cow and eat sardines, no problem! As I lifted the head out of the bucket by the antlers, I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the skin had turned loose and had fallen off the skull. All of it was gone followed by the nose, the eye-lids, the ears,and everything else! The only thing left on the skull was a little bit of flesh around the eye-sockets, and the area where the neck was attached. That’s it! Everything else had either dropped into the bottom of the bucket or was gone.

I decided to put the skull back into the bucket full of dreadful liquid for another week or so to see if it would completely finish the job. After another week of peeking through the window at the mess I knew the bucket contained, I worked up the nerve to have another look. When I opened the door I realized that the smell was no better this time around, but at least it wasn’t any worse. This time when I lifted the skull from the bucket, the flesh was still around the eyes and at the back of the skull, but it looked mushy and about ready to fall off, so I took a stick and helped it along a bit by pushing off the larger pieces and ending up with only a small amount still clinging to the skull. I decided to put it back into the bucket for another week. When I took the skull from the bucket for the last time, there was very little flesh clinging to it.

At this point I decide to try and wash it off with the water hose and spray nozzle. I had been told by some that a pressure washer would do the trick, but I was warned by others that the nose bones were very fragile and that a pressure washer might knock them off. I didn’t want to take any chances on destroying these small, thin bones so I carefully used a regular spray nozzle and a garden hose to remove the bulk of what was still on the skull. After washing it as best I could, I took an old toothbrush, some tooth picks, and some bamboo skewers that were laying around and began to remove anything that was left. It was during this cleaning that I realized just how fragile the bones of the nose and the lower part of the eye-sockets were. I took great care not to break them as they were loose and would need to be glued in place when the bleaching was done.

After I had finished cleaning the skull, I rinsed it thoroughly until I was satisfied that it was ready to bleach. I hung the skull by the horns in an upright position from a small nylon rope inside my garden shed, so that I could begin bleaching the skull with peroxide without getting any on the horns. I had been told that the stronger peroxide that is used at beauty salons did a better job of bleaching the skull, but that the regular type used for cuts and scrapes would also work. I already had a large bottle of the regular stuff, so that’s what I used. I brushed the peroxide on with a one inch soft bristle paint brush. I wet the entire skull with the brush, taking care not to get the peroxide on the antlers, being sure to get in and around all the small, hard to reach places, and then repeated the process as often as I could. I did this sometimes twice a day, but as many as five or six times a day. I did this for about a week and a half, till I was satisfied with the results. I then used super glue to to strengthen the areas of the skull where any movement was detected. This included the bones of the nose, the eye sockets, the teeth and for good measure anywhere there was a growth seam on the entire skull.

The skull was clean and white, while the antlers had retained their color for the most part. I say ‘for the most part’ because during the time I had let the head dry on the wall of my shed, the sun had bleached the antlers a little, and they had lost some of their color. Once again, my friends at TalkHunting.com came through for me. Joey Bogus, known on-line as Bogo, suggested that I use linseed oil on the antlers to return some of the color and help preserve them at the same time. I bought a small can of linseed oil from the local building supply store and applied it to the antlers using a clean wash cloth. This took some of the white out of the bleached tips of the antlers and seemed to soak in. I’m sure it will help to preserve them as well.

The time to mount the skull in order to display it was my next task. I was still not sure that my wife would be as proud to have it in the house as me, so I mulled over a couple of ways to make this mount more aesthetically pleasing. I thought about an old, aged barn wood plaque to mount it on. This way I could hang it on the wall; then, I thought that it would look better if I could keep the horns pointed up and in order to do so, I would need some type of kicker for the skull to rest on if I used a hanging plaque. I began to look around at the many odds and ends I’ve collected over the years and came upon an old driftwood stump that had somehow managed to follow me around for several years. I had always envisioned a big ten pound largemouth mounted atop this particular piece of wood, but as yet haven’t met ‘Ol Bucketmouth, so I thought, “Why not?”. I knew I would need something with a sturdy base, or the weight of the antlers would make the mount very top heavy. As I wandered around the sheds and the barn, I found some ply wood and some trim that would do quite nicely as a base for the old stump. I cleaned them up, assembled and stained them, and with my son holding everything steady, I inserted decking screws through the back of the weathered ol hollow stump into the base of the skull and the roof of the upper jaw to hold the mount securely in place. Then I was able to present the finished product for my wife’s approval. Much to my surprise, she thought it looked pretty cool and suggested that I place it atop my gun cabinet. It sits there today. I plan on adding the shell casing, and the fully mushroomed bullet that I used to take the buck to the base as an added conversation piece. I guess that first ten point did earn his spot in the “Trophy Room” after all.

By Scott Cobbs

Scott "Copperhead" Cobbs was raised on a farm in rural Morgan County, Alabama. Born in 1966, he began hunting as soon as he could keep the gun off the ground, hunting sqirrels, rabbit, dove and quail with his father and grandfather.  Fishing for catfish and bream also consumed many hours of his youth.  In his early teens, Scott was introduced to bass fishing and whitetail deer hunting.  These became his passions and still are to this day.  He has fished and hunted over most of north Alabama and just two years ago had his first out-of-state hunt in Kentucky.

Although he lived and finished school in the small town of Arab, Alabama, the rural area where he was raised beckoned him back.  When he was married in 1989, he and his wife ,Marla, moved back to the country.  They bought his grandfather's house and there they still live today with their two children, Langston and Leanna.  They maintain a small farm and have recently invested in a few more acres to enable Scott to get his outdoor fix.

When he's not plotting his next hunting plans or planning his next food plot, Scott is managing an asphalt plant for Whitaker Contracting Corporation based in Guntersville, Alabama, where he has been an employee for the past 20 years.