Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

As I sat at home contemplating how I was going to turn the bag of donated wild turkey primary feathers into usable fletching for my hunting arrows, I thought about all the ways that you can take the trophies you find, or kill and turn around to make them a part of your hunting or fishing in seasons yet to come.

I know I've always received a little extra satisfaction turning a pheasant I shot, or fox or deer hair into fly fishing flies. Using that "gift" if you will of that animal to possibly take or catch something else.

Animal fur,hair and feathers for fishing lures and flies.......hides for pouches and accessory bags, turkey wingbones for turkey calls. Heck have any of you guys considered something as simple as using a matched set of sheds from a certain buck to try to FOOL that same buck the following year? I think that would be a really cool closing to a "circle" or story of a certain special animal to call and kill a buck fooled by his own antlers.:)
Tarsal glands or urine for scent lures, you name it......there are probably interesting or cool ways to reconnect with the game you pursue by using something found or taken from a special hunt that you've never considered.
Maybe even turning a favorite fallen tree into an actual bow?

One of my goals "someday"is to shoot a deer and a gobbler with my longbow that is fletched with feathers taken from a wild turkey I shot the spring before. At my current pace and knack for killing turkeys that should happen sometime in the fall of the year 2028 but that's beside the point. ;):D

Lets hear how you guys return those "trophies" to the woods and water as something functional that adds a little extra special meaning to what you are doing.

RE: Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

I've done this one Matt allot and have had success with it. Good thread Matt and it should be interesting to see what everyone else adds to this!

RE: Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

Great post Matt, I had been shed hunting this spring with the intent of making a hunting knife out of an antler. I know a guy who has made a ton of them and I think it would be special to have one from the grounds that I hunt. Unfortunately, my wedding and the paying back of some labor at a friend's fixer upper have limited my search. Good luck.

RE: Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

X3

RE: Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

One thing I have done is make some "turkey toters". I take a piece of antler about 5-6" long drill a hole in the middle and tie a piece of rawhide through it. I then loop the rawhide around the leg of the turkey I killed and use the antler for a handle. I have made and given away several of these. They could be in woods almost anywhere in the country! ( I have yet to use mine this year:()

RE: Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

I've tied many many flies using feathers/fur that I've trapped or hunted. Other than this, I haven't done much. A lot of the guys at the shop I used to help at used their own turkey feathers though for fletching their traditional arrows, and I must say they looked pretty cool.

RE: Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

My dad tanned the hide of the first buck I killed with my flintlock and I cut off a strip of leather from the neck and removed all the hair from it. I cut it into little pieces and I now use that leather between the flint and jaws on the lock of the gun I used to kill that buck. Nothing too 'big', but the smile is quite large when I'm sitting in the woods with that rifle, look down, and think about where that little piece of leather came from.

RE: Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

I cant believe more members did not reply to this thread.
For years I have carried baggies and rubber bands to collect the bladder, saliva, and wax from the inner digital gland from any fresh kill for mock scrapes.
Below are pics from some of the other things I use our trophys for.


Lamps.



Just to decorate with.



Jewerly, key chains, and of course rattle snake rattles, antler tips, and a dried out Bears Pecker on my Fedora.



Handles on the wifes microwave cabinet I made her.



Handles on the Fly desk I made, and of course the materal from game I have taken to tie flies to catch these!

RE: Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

I eat their meatto nourish my body. Then I use my body to hunt down their kin. Does that count? ;)

RE: Closing the circle......actually using your trophies?
 

Close enough id say! lol

I do also use the feathers off of my turkeys for my fletchings on the recurve arrows. Hoping to shoot one with my recurve this year, then i may sort of become 'full circle'