First off, nice ram!

Secondly, the Devil's River is one of my most favorite places on earth. Miss the days when I lived on the headwaters of it. It was the most peaceful summer of my life.

I like the look of floating euros on the wall instead of on a placard, not sure how you would do that with a big ram though.

My goal is to have a nice specimen shoulder mounted and euro mounted of a couple nice muley, WT, axis, aoudad, black buck and elk for a trophy room one of these days.

Awesome trip! Thank you for removing another Aoudad from this world!

1) I think he'd make a great wall pedestal mount like this that includes a little bit of the front legs (assuming you have enough caped out)

https://www.mckenzietaxidermy.com/mobile/AO-6781-P16724.aspx

I think his scars would look awesome but to each its own! They may slip a little bit around the face after they tan it but who knows. I know a guy that can probably get you a new hide if you really wanted one (If I shoot one big enough in next year or so).

2) euro on an aoudad is not nearly as simple as a whitetail. You're going to have to boil the head but also drill a few holes in the back of the horns to make sure the water gets into the meat behind the horns. Sometimes it takes a bit of persuasion to knock them off (like with a rubber mallet)


I know this is true on shoulder but not positive on euro:

Then, you'll need to pull the caps off but the problem with that is that the sheath or horn cover doesn't fit all the way back on once the connective tissue/meat is gone. When doing a shoulder mount, they cut the bone down about half the normal size and then they use bondo at the base to fill it back a little bit.

Now, on a euro it shouldn't matter if the sheath doesn't fit exactly like it did because you don't have the hide or anything you're aligning it with but I'm not positive.

I have one that sits on my deep freeze in garage and one in the backyard by the fire pit. Love Ram euros but hard to display them

https://www.skullbracket.com/product-page/bighorn-sheep-skull-mount-bracket

Lots of character on that dude. Would make a great pedestal mount.

I saw a euro auodad mount done on a pedestal about 30" or so tall. It was a pyramid style and had an octagon base on top of the pedestal and then the euro mount was mounted on rustic cedar log above the octagon base. It kinda gave the appearance of " floating" above the habitat. The base had a habitat of dirt, sage grass and cactus on it. Could move the pedestal around if you wanted to change it up in the room.

Dirty-8-thirty Ag said:

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First off, nice ram!

Secondly, the Devil's River is one of my most favorite places on earth. Miss the days when I lived on the headwaters of it. It was the most peaceful summer of my life.

I like the look of floating euros on the wall instead of on a placard, not sure how you would do that with a big ram though.

My goal is to have a nice specimen shoulder mounted and euro mounted of a couple nice muley, WT, axis, aoudad, black buck and elk for a trophy room one of these days.

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Yeah…truly Incredible country. I wish I had a couple weeks out there instead of just 3 days. There was a big midden outside a cave on the side of a mountain I wish I had time to get up and explore. You could see the ash running down the mountain from it. Unreal people could survive out there pre 4x4 vehicles, etc.

All of my deer euros are free floated with no plaque. I like the look. May try one the hangers humbleag posted below.

might look cool if the skull is engraved and carved, saw a bunch of those a few years back and I always thought they looked unique

My NM aoudad is wall mounted with some of the legs and chaps. That's what I was originally going for with this one. My gf said the same thing about the scars adding character, and she's never wrong lol.

But I decided today to just go ahead and cape out the skull and do a euro. Your post came close to swaying me back again, but I've gone back-and-forth on it so much and was tired overanalyzing. Hopefully I have the opportunity to take another big one in TX and get that one wall mounted. My idea is to someday have one wall mount from TX to go beside my wall mount from NM. Like a little bachelor group on my wall.

I realized today this euro is going to be more labor intensive than a whitetail. It's definitely not going to fit in my usual euro boiling pot. I'm going to need to get a bigger metal tub from Tractor Supply or somewhere. I'm going to macerate for a few weeks hoping it loosens the horns a little and then hopefully I can pull/hammer off just from boiling and avoid drilling holes. We'll see how it goes. I saw a video online where a guy had to use a come along to get one side off. I've done a black buck for a buddy so I'm familiar with the bone core and surrounding cartilage.

That looks really good. Thanks for posting. I see it still has the sinuses. I wonder if they macerated or used beetles for that one or if they were able to boil and still keep them intact. Very nice.

That sounds really cool. I'm going to search online to see if i can find an example of something similar. Thanks

That looks really good. I love the natural wood look vs a plaque. Thanks for posting.

It's going to look awesome either way. Congrats again on the nice ram!

What did he measure by the way? He looks close to 30-31 on his left side and maybe 29" on the right?

Appreciate ya...

He is 31" and some change on one side and 30" and some change on the other. We saw 30"s everyday and they've shot some up to 36" on this place.

My one from NM was 26"/27" and I got him hunting a very low density area compared to Texas. It was my first western type hunt and all self-taught, DIY, etc. so that one was a trophy to me and got a place on the wall. Eventually I'd like to put a 30" from TX beside him.

Awesome! 30" and above is a very nice trophy! I have a 28" one on my wall because it was the first one I shot but I have probably shot 3-4 that are bigger than him now. 36" is a 190-200" whitetail. Absolutely massive!

They're really cool animals to hunt and make really pretty mounts! I just can't stand feeding herds of them…

Yeah...it's not the type of animal where I'd mount a lot of them like people do with deer. If I had shot a 30" in NM I'd prob never mount another one, but since that one was sub "trophy" I'd like to get one 30" and be done.

They are a blast to hunt, though. Poor man's sheep!

They breed like rabbits and are hard on feeders. I'm not even going to say publicly how many the landowner says he culls per year. I know when people hunt them through the TPWD draw on the Devil's River they tell hunters to shoot every one they see.

Were yall hunting up towards Juno off 163 or closer to Dolan Creek off 277? I used to see absolute monsters on the Hudspeth River Ranch in the canyon country when I lived out there. I know I saw one that was every bit of 34-36" on the East side of 163 putting out salt and mineral one day.

South of Juno, east side of 163. A couple ranches over from the state park.

You ought to have him SCI scored to see how he fairs. That way it won't just be about length. It will take into account circumferences as well.

Here is a link to the guy who builds them. He doesn't show a euro but you can get the idea of what's available he can build. You can pick your type of wood, what style you want, what size you want, how big and shape of habitat platform etc. I had him do some for me in aromatic cedar that turned out nice. Very reasonable and very quality craftsman. https://www.minnickredcedarworks.com/pedestals

Awesome. Thank you.

You're more than welcome. Whatever you do it's gonna look great!