Could you throw away all of your racks/mounts/hunting pictures and be ok with it?

Could you take all of your hunting racks/plaques/pics and throw them in the trash? Would you be able to hunt with the same amount of vigor if you decided to "start over" and threw away everything in your hunting shrine?

I was down in my basement the other day looking for a knee brace when I came across a box of old sports stuff my mother kept for me. I haven't looked at the stuff in years. I am not even sure why I still have the stuff other than maybe my kids might be interested in it one day. That is what got me to thinking about my hunting "prizes" and what they mean.

 

Absolutely NOT!!!! I would loose my freakin mind if I couldnt look back on all the good memories Ive shared and had in the woods

 

Yeah.

One, I don't really have a hunting shrine. I do have my 8 point skull on the wall from two years ago. The rack from the 14 pt I shot is in the mud room. (I think) The antlers from the first buck I shot is in the basement in a box.

Two, My ex never gave me my old photos (or many other things). I kind of miss my old hunting photos but mostly I miss the pictures of my family and childhood photos. I had very few pictures of my real father as it was, and now I have none.

In the end, it's just stuff and I can do without.

 

Every mount or picture holds a memory. Every mount in my house, whether it be mine, my dads, or my brothers, has a story behind it. Throwing them away is like throwing away memories and stories. I never could do that.

 

ya its all memories that i would need to keep

 

I didn't take any hunting pictures of my first 15 years in the deer woods. Kind of wish I did now. I also did not keep any buck racks from the first 10-12 bucks I killed, until I made my first bow kill in 2002.

 

No, and I wish I took more pics over the years. My mounts and pics are memories of good times. I have antlers that I don't display that I would gladly use for lamps and such but I wouldn't want to just dump them.

 

Nope, couldnt get rid of all my stuff neither.

 

No chance !

 

No sir! I've got pictures of myself with every single deer I have shot, plus one whitetail head on the wall, and another to be picked up soon ( I hope!). Too many memories to simply throw away.

 

What in the hell happened to you?

 

Yeah what he said!!!

 

Dont tell us that you are giving up hunting for ball room dancing? There is NO WAY I can do that. The buck I killed this year made me work really hard for him after four sheds and then killing him after 5 years! My wife could with her stuff but not me. I enjoy looking back on them days with my kids and they love to see old pictures of me when I actually had hair! LOL

 

I suppose I could, but I sure wouldn't want to. Sure, I have all the memories in my head, but the photos and racks are like a shortcut on your desktop, when I see them the memories are right there. With out them I'd have to sit there searching all the folders of my brain, and I'm not sure I could find what I was looking for

 

No Greg, I have not had a brain injury, I have not given up hunting....I was just thinking philosophically. Sometimes we all get too caught up in possessing things. That is all.

 

What i was thinking I wouldnt do it intensionaly but could live with out it. That part I have experienced in a way due to a house fire several years ago. Life goes on!

 

Not No, but Hell No.

 

I only have photos and some feathers and they are only really there because my woman printed out the photos for me. I really love how beautiful nature can be so I kept the feathers so I could frame them in a shadowbox. I know this is probably blasphemous, but I have no urge to have stuffed animals in my house. That might change one day, but I don't plan on having mounts of anything done right now.

I'm glad that people keep momentos if they want them, memories are just enough for me I guess.

 

I won't say I could just throw everything away and not care, but I have no use for racks, mounts etc...I would miss my pictures the most. I never took pictures until I joined Hunting net and BH.C. I wish I had some pictures from my first few deer but no one took them. I grew up in a meat hunting club and they simply did not care about pictures.

I have 3 deer mounted and none of them are the biggest, and they were not mounted for reasons of people seeing them.

I have a 50 ish" 6pt with no brows. I put a stalk on him at 13 years old through some pretty intense Georgia deer woods. We spotted him going to bed 2 days in a row across a big field with a lake. I got permission from the old man who owns the land and he granted me one try. The guys in the club laughed when I set out. 2 hours later I killed him in his bed at 60 or 70 yards, right in the chest as he was looking at me with a 7mm 08 and 140 grain hollow points. My grandfather suprised me with the mount, explaining that he was impressed with my ability to be on deer at such a young age. That was a huge compliment coming from the greatest man I have even known.

Deer 2 was my first good deer, and 110" 8pt. Again I stalked him. Saw him cross a powerline with clear cut on both sides. An hour later i killed him broadside as he crossed a firebreak heading into the pines to bed for the day. I was fourteen, and the county he came from is not known for deer of any size. He would have been 2nd or 3rd at the time according to GON. Again, he suprised me with the mount.

Deer 3 (story round here somewhere) My uncle and i pulled a double about an hour apart. My deer pushed book and his 9pt (23 3/4" inside) went well over. The story was AWSOME and will never happen again in my time, especially down here. My uncle knows I just toss the antlers, so he ask me to please mount this one to go with his. He even ask if I did not mount it to let him mount it to put them together. He has 15 or so on the wall, all over 115 and all Georgia deer, so that made me realize what he thought of our day. The first 2 are on my grandparents wall and the 10pt is laying in my basement collecting dust with all the arrows that have killed deer hanging in his antlers.

I cannot say I would toss them and not care, but I can say that once I kill the deer the hunt is over and it is on to the next. My first bow buck was quite impressive, I cut the rack off, used them for rattling horns and lost them the next week. I was 14 at the time and my buddies were still a couple years away from killing their first deer period.

I went back to proof read this, and it may sound as if I am bragging, but you guys know me well enough that I would never do that. You have to realize that I was raised by a meat hunter and developed my wants for bigger racks as simply a challenge because less of them were around, and for no other reason at all.

 

I could get rid of the mounts/skulls/antlers but couldn't do without at least the photos.

After my dad passed away last year and I was left with a mountain of mounts, skulls and sheds that, in all honesty, didn't mean a whole lot to me personally. Since then I have felt much different about my own trophies. Some day when I'm no longer around they will still be left behind and won't mean as much to anyone else as they do to me. So I'm less concerned with the amount of stuff hanging on my walls than I once was. I'd rather have the memories, pictures, and video to remember those moments by.

Not to say I won't get deer mounted, but I'll be a lot more picky about the ones that end up my wall in the future.