busted up bull - fix or not

[Hunter Henry]

   
     Ditto........know one said anything about fixing them to have them scored for any book or club :

[coachcw]

You see A lot of guys on vids and tv shoot animals with busted points , when they approach a great animal you can see there eyes shift to the broken points with disgust , kinda like  that guide let me shoot this , those guided hunters that hunt with there wallet disgust me . if that same guy busted his ass for a week in the high country and shot a old busted up bull he might have a different view. That bull went through some tough times and probibly lost his woman , leave him as you killed him . As far as fake boobs if you can make them better why not, If some other guy pays for it even better. Coach

[Hunter Henry]

   sound like your the one with money issues

[Craig]

I was asking because I will be hunting bulls in Utah in November. I hear there are some good bulls that would score pretty good but might be broken. I don't know if I would rather try and shoot a little smaller bull that is not busted or a larger bull that is busted.

I am going on a guided hunt. I don't consider myself someone that hunts from their wallet. I drew a great limited entry elk tag in Utah. I have  saved my money to have a great hunt and make the best of a tag. I am far from wealthy and 99 percent of the time it's DIY for me. 

[Pathfinder101]

That bull went through some tough times and probibly lost his woman , leave him as you killed him .

Love that line of thinking coach.  That's downright poetic. 

[Austrian Hunter]

Somehow or another my Dad managed to shoot the horn off the biggest of his two caribou bulls the year me and my brother and him went to Quebec, not sure if he was excited or what the hell happened, strangest damn thing I even seen him do, shooting that horn off, right above the bez tines.  Anyway, he fixed it, and I don't blame him for fixing it.  But if your gonna fix just plain old broken tines that the bull got or buck got naturally, then why not add a drop tine, or split brows, or that 7th tine you always wanted on an elk.  For me if it broke during the hunt, shot off, broke during the fall, something like that then it's fine to fix.  If you don't like the way he looks when you shoot him, then don't shoot him.

 

[bucklucky]

Personally I would take the biigest oldest bull I could find even if he was busted up, well depending on how busted up he was. Wether I would fix what waas broke that would be for you to decide, its your bull and your mount . Your the one that will be living with it for a lifetime.

[mrgoodwrench]

That fix came out very nice but I like them in their natural state....bulls earn those broken tines and they ought to be left that way.  I'd rather look at a busted up rack with some character than a perfectly symmetric one that looks like it came out of a high fence.

[Hunter Henry]

  Well put Craig!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[heavy hauler]

natural  huh??? they naturaly grew it.epoxy is from the earth.what could be more natural??   do what you want. i dont get any elk mounted

[kirkl]

ive got a 330 bull and hes missing his G3 which would of made him a 340 bull but i just left him.

[Ridgerunner]

I'd probably leave him as is when you shot him, but I'd probably look him over real good before pulling the trigger.  In my mind it adds character to the mount to have it busted up a little bit. 

[WonkyWapiti]

I had a muley mounted a couple years ago that had a bullet hole in it's rack.  I initially thought I wanted to have it filled since I didn't want to look at a bullet hole from some other hunter.  I changed my mind though and kept it the way it was because it adds character and I get to talk about the muley that got away from someone else.   

[LongTatLaw]

I gotta agree with Tmike, although i dislike him in every other way

Its about what the hunter likes/feels. Theres a big damn difference between making an animal look his best (as in replacing a horn that he really did grow that year) versus adding a extra tine or more horn than he ever had.

Ive fallen all over this issue depending on the situation!

I shot a mississippi WT deer that rammed a tree head on after the shot and he broke off one eye guard. No question, I had it replaced!

Michelle Nelson is doing my Rosey archery elk from 2007 right now and although I LOVE the bugling pose...he never made a sound on the way in..so it felt like a lie even though it was pre-rut and some were already sounding off!

I took a Oregon mulie in 2007 and looked it over pretty good and was really happy with him...until i walked up to a missing 13 inch G2 (assuming it matched the other and it was pretty well matched all over)..guess what, it had been gone for a while and its now back!

My 2007 WA bear was retarded and didnt have any upper canines... i got michelle nelson to mount the rug and the skull. The skull shows the missing upper canines....but the rug has all its teeth!

Two weeks ago I killed a wild boar in GA with a bow... the arrow blew through both sides of my pig and then passed completely through the left side lower jaw bone making a large hole in it. She is now bleaching it for me and could probably fix it if I wanted... i wouldnt dream of hiding that character!

Ive got several pigs and deer mounted that are scratched up...ripped up...ears torn..ect!  Ive almost always left that kind of character alone!

Sooooo, as Tmike said... depends on the situation. I feel like they are my trophies and its up to me as the hunter to choose how I get the taxi done in a way to represent the animal I killed in a way thats accurate to me! But, Im not at all opposed to getting a deer/elk tine fixed...although one must remember it will screw up any score in any book.

Then again, I shoot such small little suckling animals that they need all the help they can get!

 

[tmike]

Dave I can't believe you would actually admit to fixing a broken antler. Welcome to the dark side