I have most of mine that I shot, lost a few over the years. After I cut them off I tack them up in my shop. Been doing that for 31 years.

Why shoot a buck if you are not going to keep them?

I know people that do, and I have never had a good answer to the question. Even they agree with me that a doe tastes better, yet they prefer to kill bucks.

/shrug

What can you do? You can't make people follow your way of thinking.

For some people, the object of going hunting is to kill a deer. Some of them are bound by state regulations that do anot allow killing a doe. They shoot the first legal deer they see and are tickled to death.

I fail to see a thing wrong with that. If it is legal and they are happy, I think that is just wonderfull. What I want, what I practice, what I believe is no consequence. I'm not the one that did the shooting. When I shoot, then, it is my opinions and beliefs that matter.

Yep they look good on the wall.

here in ny i know people that only hunt opening weekend. So they are going to shoot whatever they can and i get that. I just cant see throwing out your antlers. As far as why shoot the buck as someone brought up, that might have been the first thing they saw.

I've kept all mine so far. Ten years of hunting and seven bucks. I'll always keep them I suppose. I've got some just as skull caps, two that I've Euro Mounted. Eventually I'll get a couple to mount.
-Jake

keep em .......there to much like artwork to just leave in the trash

I have kept all of my antlers and have most of them on the wall of my house or garage, minus the three mounts at my Mom's house that I killed before I moved out when I was 18. I have made a few necklaces out a few of the smaller ones and rattling horns out of a medium sized one. I guess I have about 15 or so in my garage and 2 in my house.

I keep nearly every antler that I come across, whether it is a skull in the woods, a shed, or a deer I killed. I still have a set of antlers someone gave me when I was a little kid. I have plenty of room for them and for some reason it just seems wrong to throw them out. The only way I'd ever get rid of a set of antlers is if there was someone who wanted them.

This year I was hunting and I came acoss a large pile of bones right next to the property line, as if the neighbor had thrown them over his fence on to our property. There were several horse skulls, some turtle shells, and about 8 buck skulls. They had been out in the elements so long that they were soft and falling apart, you could crush the antlers between your fingers, otherwise I would have picked them up and kept them. It just seemed wrong to see them sitting there wasting away.

i do i think they all represent the memories