Received my 2010 trophies from the taxidermist.





Why does the color the tuff on the eland lighten up after tanning?

Mike
Are you sure you got the right cape?
The difference from the one on the ground is a lot.
I got the wrong cape on one of my eland, the one I killed had a nice tuff, the one I received has a slick face.

Horns appear different as well.

Horns are definitely the same. Camera angle is not the same.

Not the same cape - the mounted one is from a much younger animal.

Was the taxidermy done in Africa?

In Houston

quote:

Originally posted by Mike70560:
In Houston

I asked because I know a guy that got an obviously wrong Kudu back from an African outfit.

Have you contacted your outfitter about this perhaps being the wrong Eland?

Did your taxidermist have any reference pictures from your hunt? You would think he would have noticed the difference before mounting it.

Mike, I had the exact same thing happen to the "ruff" on my eland as well. It appears lighter and thinner. I'm thinking that much like a lion's mane, no matter how good the trophy prep work, there must be some amount of hair loss in the tanning process, possibly causing the difference in appearance. I'll look to see if I have photobucket pictures of mine and if so, I'll post them here. Standby.

Before:



After:



Seems very similar to how yours turned out, speaking of the size, fullness, and color of the "ruff".

Todd,

I have read the same from others who have killed and mounted eland.

The tuff on mine is very thick and long, but it and the surrounding hair is lighter in color than when I killed it.

I have plenty of pictures from the hunt. I will attempt to locate an identifying mark on the cape if possible. Horns are without a doubt correct.

As I recall when I shot mine they all were covered with a lot of oil and dirt There was also a fair amount of matted hair. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the hair and such gets combed out when they do the tanning and clean up.

Hopefully some of out taxidermist members will weigh in...

Yea Mike, my horns are 100% the same as well as it's easy to identify them with the left horn being worn significantly.

If you look closely at my mount, the shoulder and rear of the neck obviously experienced a bit of hair slip. I'm assuming the ruff did as well and that is the explanation. Your mount does not appear to have experience as much slippage.

Cape looks the same but is the forehead still dense hair? Looks lie he used a smaller form does not look massive like photo.

Mike

You pose with a very nice old tufted eland - a really worthy trophy! The eland on the wall has a barely passable tuft. Quite different looking!

Explain? Many possibilities:
(i) The PH kept your cape for himself (or another client) and substituted it before delivery to wherever he had to deliver.
(ii) The Hunting Outfitter did the same, i.e either substituted on purpose, or made a genuine mistake.
(ii) The Dip & Pace agent did the same, either on purpose, or made a mistake - which still results in you getting the wrong cape.
(iv) The taxidermist made a swap on purpose, or made a mistake.
(v) By some mysterious means your eland grew younger and less dark-tufted during the time between the happy snap and hanging it on the wall.

How can one prevent any of (i) to (iv) from happening? Only with some difficulty, and a bit of special care and specific equipment used by you or the PH.

I suggest that the, or a special additional, marking tag be attached to the edge of the cape in the middle of the back line by means of a lead crimping seal. In South Africa many electrical switches are sealed by such a twisted thin wire and a lead seal that is crimped onto the wires in such a way that any tampering with the seal will show.

But this properly attached with a special seal tag will not do the trick alone! You have to insist that the Chain of Handling on each transfer verify that the seal has not been tampered with! Then the taxidermist should be instructed to not cut the excess skin all around during mounting, but to retain the seal on a thin strip of hide without breaking the seal. At the time of finally hanging your trophy you can then either just tuck this strip of hide and seal behind the mount, or cut it off yourself. Naturally you should make it clear: No seal attached to your taxidermy + no pay!

I know this is a bit of a schlep procedure, but eagerly await better or more practical suggestions.

Mike, my congratulations on a very nice eland hunted.

Andrew,

Neil Duckworth was the PH on his family's concession in Mozambique. You may know PHs or outfitters that would steal a cape but I will stake my life on the fact that the Duckworths did not swap that cape.

Mike, on closer inspection of your pictures, and sometimes angles can play tricks with dimensions, but something is wrong with your eland mount. Look at the size difference between the shoulder circumference of the buffalo and eland. We all know that a large eland will be larger than a buff and the eland in your field picture certainly fits that bill. Something is drastically wrong unless the camera lens is distorting the size somehow.

Todd,

The eland is a straight on shoulder mount.

The buffalo is a wall pedestal and is huge.

The eland is behind the buffalo.

For those who do not remember the buffalo....49"....

Mike,

The buffalo and mount is exceptional. In fact all the mounts are well done and look great.

I suspect the Eland was the fault of the taxidermist. The form used is too small and hair has been lost in the tanning process? It does help to take a number of detailed photographs for the taxidermist.

Serious buffalo.

Mike, is it just the camera angle then on the pics of your trophy room? Do the two mounts appear to be similar in circumference at the appropriate places? In other words, the eland mount looks out of proportion small compared to the buff's body mount. Highly possible it's the camera angle. Only you can tell that without further pictures. For instance, it's very tough to get the 3 dimensional aspects correctly represented on a two dimensional photo with something like a life sized leopard mount. It's possible, that's what we're seeing here.

I apologize for entering the discussion actually as the last thing I would want to do is disparage your trophy. I thought you were asking about why the eland's ruff doesn't look right and it just appeared to me that quite possibly, it's the wrong cape. You say the horns are correct as it would be much easier to determine that. I was trying to offer similarities to the ruff on my eland bull as well but mine certainly appears to be correct in terms of size proportions to my buff bull.

I'm very sorry if I've offended by wrongly speaking ill of your trophy. It was not my intention. I've had a couple of high value trophies ruined by my old taxidermist of late and it is a sore spot for me right now. The guy ruined the face on my brown bear and mounted my smaller leopard with the claws extended while standing on a tree limb (partially corrected but not completely).

Yea and Oh By The Way ... What a MONSTER of a buffalo bull. 49" Holy crap man!!

Great trophies, Mike. Eland are a challenge for most taxidermists. Often, because of the trophy tanning and preparation, the ruff suffers much hair loss. Yours looks better than most I have seen. Fabulous buff. Congrats!

mike!great trophies....That eland have not the same cape as the one on your pictures!!talk to the outfitter and taxidermist as it whould be there the cape where changed...the eland you got mounted is not a old blackhead but a younger one....

NO WAY that is your cape.....Last July I shot an eland just like the one in the trophy pic and one of my clients on the same hunt shot one like the mount on the wall....I was at the recovery of both animals and took a lot of reference pics and there is a huge difference between a young bull(cape on mount) and the trophy in the pic....I would set up a meeting with your taxidermist ASAP

quote:

Originally posted by Mike70560:
Andrew,

Neil Duckworth was the PH on his family's concession in Mozambique. You may know PHs or outfitters that would steal a cape but I will stake my life on the fact that the Duckworths did not swap that cape.

+1

+2

Aside from the possible tuft hair loss which can happen the loss of coloration is astounding. In the field photo the hair from the eyes down to the nose on the bridge is so dark it blends in with the actual nose. On the mounted version all the black is gone. Appears to be a cape from a much younger bull.

Guys,

I can assure you that Neil Duckworth did not switch Mike's cape. These folks do not operate like that.

As I told Mike I have dicussed the ruff or lack of on eland mounts with my taxidermist Tom Hardesty owner of Atcheson Taxidermy. His observation over 45 years of handling African animals is that the ruff may or may not stay intact through the tanning process. It's just a crap shoot.

As for the color I think the soot from the burnt grass often comtributes to the dark color and after tanning that soot is washed away leaving a much lighter cape.

Mark

I agree with darkside. A lot of the tuft may slip out during tanning, but the dark color of the muzzle near the nose would NOT turn light like that. I would say that is not your cape. It's a cape from a young bull. A good taxidermist could use hair dye to make the top of your eland's muzzle dark, but that's about all.

I have looked at a lot of photos of eland on the ground right after you guys shot them. Many of them are absolutely magnificent. Then I look back at all of the eland mounts I've seen over the years, and NONE of them look nearly as good as the animals looked when they were alive, or how they looked in the trophy photos. This really makes me hesitate about ever shooting an eland (or at least ever having one mounted in anything other than a European mount), because the mounted eland trophy is so often a mere shadow of the once-magnificent animal. The almost guaranteed slippage of the wonderful tuft, plus add in the chance that you will receive the wrong cape altogether, is all a bit of a turn-off for me.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Guys,

I can assure you that Neil Duckworth did not switch Mike's cape. These folks do not operate like that.

As I told Mike I have dicussed the ruff or lack of on eland mounts with my taxidermist Tom Hardesty owner of Atcheson Taxidermy. His observation over 45 years of handling African animals is that the ruff may or may not stay intact through the tanning process. It's just a crap shoot.

As for the color I think the soot from the burnt grass often comtributes to the dark color and after tanning that soot is washed away leaving a much lighter cape.

Mark

Dead right.

Find a guy living on the street with dreadlocks, clean him up real nice, shampoo him and rinse him and brush him real good and he will not look the same either.

I would agree that the mop is full of oil, dirt, ash, leaves and assorted other filth and that has been washed out. I believe the bulls rub the mop in urine as well but I could be wrong about that. They sure have a musty odor.

I hunted this area just after Mike. My wife and I took two big eland bulls (they are still in the freezer )
The necks were absolutely huge and swollen during the time of our hunt. I measured both elands around the neck at just over 60". The dewlaps were almost nonexistant as all that extra skin was being taken up by the swollen necks. I suspect that could very well be the right cape. Just a guess but it could be the dewlap is taking up what should be a larger neck circumference. These two photos show what I mean by swollen necks. They were taken soon after the animals were killed.





Without reference photos like these it is very possible that the excess skin was just put in a different place.

There is no commercially available eland form that will do for this. The forms have to be bulked up as needed to re create this feature or else all that skin will have to go somewhere else....the dewlap, extra wrinkles (we have all seen the accordian neck eland mounts) etc...

Perhaps some more photos of that mount would help. It does look smaller than it should to me but it is hard to say by the one photo.

Bet it's your cape. I would not be calling the taxidermist about that...but his choice of a smaller form.

I agree with the comments about the form. I have seen that with my own mounts. A case in point is my first leopard. From what I recall (22 years ago) it was 7'4", 17.5" 179 pounds. Most would say that is a big leopard. If you see the mount, you would never think it is the same leopard.

Damn brother, that buff is a giant. Congrats.

quote:

Originally posted by Grafton:
Find a guy living on the street with dreadlocks, clean him up real nice, shampoo him and rinse him and brush him real good and he will not look the same either.

I would agree that the mop is full of oil, dirt, ash, leaves and assorted other filth and that has been washed out.

Agreed. I have an old Eland Bull that had a beautiful black ruff. In the tanning process, a lot of the black was washed out. I bet very few know that the hair on the outer edge if the ruff is actually white. So, in a photo, it would appear that the ruff is smaller than it actually is.

Don't get upset that someone switched your capes or that you got the wrong one. It happens, but from one photo it's very hard to tell. I'm inclined to think you got the correct cape.

That Buffalo is nice!

Grafton, that Eland is a Toad!

hair dye & hair exstensions easy peasy japanese.

Well there is one thing you not can wash away and that is the length of the hair and the swirwels of the hair..a littel colour yes but the lenght of the hair does not get shorter in the tanning prosess.....

The ruff on an Eland has to be brushed foward and up as the mount dries to make it look full. The lighter color, as stated above, is because its clean.

Would like to see a couple of more pics of the Eland from different angles.

Awesome buff!!!!

I have no experience with African trophies.

The question I have is - Do eland in the rut (presume swollen neck) have very thick skin in that area? We tend to find skin thickening with a mane on red deer and fallow deer. During tanning there can be hair slippage in such thick skins even from very experienced taxidermists when they process several skins at a time.

One technique for such thick skins is to use a lower pH solution to penetrate deeper and cure the hair folicles properly to prevent hair slippage.

Just a thought.

BTW - great trophies.

Mike,

To heck with worrying about the cape on the eland. Fantastic trophies, and I am sure, fantastic memories. You, sir, have something to be proud of.

The taxidermist captured the character of the buffalo's face well. The wrinkles around the eyes and nose make it for me.

Jeremy

quote:

Originally posted by farbedo:
Mike,

To heck with worrying about the cape on the eland. Fantastic trophies, and I am sure, fantastic memories. You, sir, have something to be proud of.

Jeremy

I tend to agree with this line of thinking.