Daydreaming

It is the middle of August and we find ourselves just a month and a half out from the beginning of the PA archery season. This for me, usually kicks off my fall hunting season. This year however, PA moved their squirrel season to the middle of September, and with plans to do some early squirrel hunting, it is just about one month until the fall hunting season is underway.

I could not be more excited. Over the past few weeks I have shot my bow, organized and prepared all my hunting gear, planned days off work followed by weekends at camp, re-organized and re-prepared my gear, and spent countless hours daydreaming of an epic fall. This week, I received a package that enhanced those dreams.

This past spring, I found myself deep in the Allegheny National Forest searching for sheds. For those of you who read Sweet Redemption or Knack for Shed Hunting, you know I had a bit of beginner success.

Between those two trips, I managed to find two sides to what I believe is the matching set of a beautiful 10 point buck. When I showed them to Robert in their display, he had some reservations about that, but we’ll do a poll on that later. One side has slightly longer tines and the other a crab claw at the end, but the fact that I found them 250 yards apart in addition to the matching browtines and unique character makes me believe they’re a match. Regardless, the set looks super cool when put together. The problem is, I could not find a way to display them as a set.

That was until I was scrolling through my phone and came across a website called Rack-Hub. I was intrigued with how they created a way to display shed antlers as if they were still on a skull. This was also the only thing I could find that was made to do just that – so I decided to give their RH2 a try.

After drilling a few holes, tapping in some antler inserts and applying some screws, the finished result is one of beauty.

I am very pleased with the finished product of the antler display, and pretty much haven’t stopped gazing up at it since. Now I catch myself hoping and daydreaming a similar, or heck even the same buck (now one year older), comes in bow range or rests in my scope this season.

Here’s to daydreaming our way into fall!