VT Outdoorsman

Leave it.

RugerM77.270

I would fix it. You want to mount the deer in all its glory and that means making the rack look its best. Unless the broken tines are for some reason part of what makes it a trophy.

srwshooter

i doubt i'd fix it. its a great buck like it is and that broken point is just a battle scar ,but you won the war.mount it like it is.

i have a taxidermist friend that shot the biggest buck he'd ever killed last season.the buck came running by him and his first shot he shot one whole side of his 9 point rack off at the base.we managed to find the antler and he fixed it. its a wonder there was enough left to put back on after shooting it with a 30-06.

ab_newfie

Nice buck, I'd leave it as it is! I think I would regret repairing it!

ipscshooter

Do whatever makes YOU happy.

All this talk of "cheating" and "lying" is ridiculous. It's a very nice buck, but, it's not like adding back a 3" browtine is going to put it in the record books.

Alsatian

This sounds like a personal matter. One thing to possibly guide your thinking would be to consider how the trophy scoring authorities would view fixing a broken tine, though I understand you are not submitting this rack for trophy scoring by any of these authorities.

Another consideration is what is the purpose of having the head mounted. I mount my own racks -- just the skull plate bolted onto a board and covered with felt -- as a physical memorial of the hunt. In my case, preserving the rack as taken would be most fitting to this "physical memorial of the hunt" motivation. On the other hand, another equally valid reason for having a deer head mounted may be to enjoy the beauty of a typical healthy whitetail deer, and in this case restoring the rack to its original condition may be most fitting to this "beautiful typical healthy whitetail deer specimen" motivation.

I suggest you think the topic through calmly, deliberately, based on several different ways of analyzing (above I suggested three different approaches to this thinking, there may be other ways also). I think you will come to a comfortable, stable decision after doing this. I think, since it is a personal question, that you need not assign too much weight to the shared thoughts of others on this topic. You can come to the right decision on your own, I would wager.

npaden

If it was me I wouldn't get the point fixed unless I broke it.

My 2 cents.

UncleNorby

Don't mess with fixing tines. They are what they are.

Doe Dumper

I had an 8 pointer I killed a couple of years ago on the last day of buck season fixed. Reason being was I pulled the antler off while dragging it...lol. The bucks start shedding pretty quick up there.

trailinone

Im for leaving it as you took it. I don't think you will be happy in the years to come if you repair the tine.