Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the distance. Welcome back everybody. Hopefully maybe
Speaker 1: some of you out there have found some success, and
Speaker 1: if you have, maybe you're wondering, now what do I
Speaker 1: do with the skull and anurs. Maybe you aren't going
Speaker 1: to mount it, but you want to present it in
Speaker 1: an awesome way. So doing what's called the European mount
Speaker 1: is a really popular option. Now, you can obviously take
Speaker 1: it to attack. It must have it done. But for
Speaker 1: those of you that might want to do it yourself,
Speaker 1: or maybe you're traveling to another state. You've got something
Speaker 1: and you can't bring brain matter back across state lines.
Speaker 1: This week, I'm gonna give you some tips on how
Speaker 1: to properly we'll call it boil out at elk Skull
Speaker 1: or European and elk Skull, and then I'm gonna also
Speaker 1: give you tips for transporting or traveling back home and
Speaker 1: options that you might have that you don't have to
Speaker 1: travel with brain matter, and you can do it yourself
Speaker 1: without having to drop it off at attacks it or missed.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, I'm gonna tell you a
Speaker 1: little bit of my journey when it comes to boiling
Speaker 1: out skulls or cleaning up a big game skull. I've
Speaker 1: definitely come a long way when it comes to cleaning
Speaker 1: up skulls or doing a d I Y European mount.
Speaker 1: Now you call a European mount, I think it's probably
Speaker 1: just because you see those old school castles with a
Speaker 1: bunch of skulls with the antlers on it. What I'm
Speaker 1: talking about is just the skull and the antlers all attached,
Speaker 1: not skull capping it, not cutting the top off. It's
Speaker 1: just the whole skull clean up, often whitened in some
Speaker 1: way and then hung up for display. My journey of
Speaker 1: what I like to refer to it as boiling the skulls.
Speaker 1: But we'll talk about that a little bit later on.
Speaker 1: My journey of cleaning skulls or d I Y European
Speaker 1: mounts started off a little rough. There wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: of information on it, and I didn't really know what
Speaker 1: I was doing, and because of it, I messed up
Speaker 1: quite a few starting out, but over the years I've
Speaker 1: done a lot. I've been very fortunate to travel to
Speaker 1: many places where I actually have to clean up the
Speaker 1: skulls before I bring them back, make sure there's no meat,
Speaker 1: make sure they're they're taking care of properly, to get
Speaker 1: everything back to wherever I'm you know, hunting from, and too.
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I got started in cleaning
Speaker 1: up my own skulls. I used to just take them
Speaker 1: to a tax it er missed and just started getting expensive,
Speaker 1: and I thought, Okay, I'm just gonna try this myself.
Speaker 1: Can't be that difficult. It was fairly difficult because I
Speaker 1: didn't really know what I was doing. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of trial and error. Over the years, I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of these. But when I first started out,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I got a turkey frying pod.
Speaker 1: I actually this elk school that I first started with
Speaker 1: didn't work on that, so I ended up getting like
Speaker 1: a big tub from Ace Hardware, putting it on the burner,
Speaker 1: filling it up with water. I watched it, not knowing
Speaker 1: how long it would take, and the first one actually
Speaker 1: turned out pretty good. I ended up using a combination
Speaker 1: of just regular hydrogen peroxide that you put on a
Speaker 1: cut and white toothpaste to clean the skull up. But
Speaker 1: over the years I found that that wasn't the best
Speaker 1: solution or the best way. Now, this one particular, after
Speaker 1: I kind of started, my brother and my dad were
Speaker 1: out hunting and our buddy Art, and Art ended up
Speaker 1: shooting this bull and like it was a fairly far
Speaker 1: shot and he ended up shooting it like right through
Speaker 1: the eye. So the bull dropped, and we thought, oh,
Speaker 1: this will be a cool Like my dad got a
Speaker 1: bull as well, So we're gonna boil out Arts school,
Speaker 1: I think, my brother Jason's skull and my dad's school
Speaker 1: and and we're gonna do it kind of like as
Speaker 1: a as a Christmas gift, kind of like have this
Speaker 1: all done from them. We have this whole idea of
Speaker 1: like a little bit of a write up with the
Speaker 1: skulls and everything and kind of make it like a
Speaker 1: nice Christmas gift. So my brother Jason and I were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's do this. We kind of had a little bit
Speaker 1: of a system at this point, and it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: these bulls are like this is like a special bull,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna just do a really good job on it,
Speaker 1: of course, but we also didn't really know like how
Speaker 1: long to boil things whatever. So we had the skulls
Speaker 1: in the pot and we start to boil going and
Speaker 1: it's really cold this day, and it just seems like
Speaker 1: it's taking forever. So we've got the fire cranked up
Speaker 1: on the burner. We're doing things around the house and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. Jason's like, okay, I got this. We're good.
Speaker 1: And then I leave and then something happened. Jason kind
Speaker 1: of forgot about it ended up leaving as well. Later on,
Speaker 1: we both kind of remembered, hey, you turned the pot off, right,
Speaker 1: He's like, no, I thought you turned the pot off. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't turn the pot off. We're like, oh crap.
Speaker 1: So we rushed back to the pot, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: we left the thing on full burning for hours. Pretty
Speaker 1: Much all the water had evaporated out of the pot,
Speaker 1: and now the antlers were leaning up against this metal,
Speaker 1: giant pot and the skull as well, just cooking and burning.
Speaker 1: It had pretty much burnt through all three Elk schools,
Speaker 1: Like the antlers were barely on there, had burnt through
Speaker 1: the pack. The skulls were now disintegrating in what was
Speaker 1: the left of a dry burning pot. And needless to say,
Speaker 1: our European mounts are special Merry Christmas gift. Look what
Speaker 1: we made you. We had just destroyed pretty much these
Speaker 1: three awesome bull elk with a pretty good story attached
Speaker 1: to it. Now, since that moment, I have taken a
Speaker 1: lot more care and paid a lot more attention when
Speaker 1: it comes to cleaning up and doing my own d
Speaker 1: I y European mount Now, whether you want to clean
Speaker 1: a skull because you just want to hang it up
Speaker 1: in your house, whether you have to because you're gonna
Speaker 1: travel across state lines and can't bring any brain or
Speaker 1: spinal material because the c w D rules, or maybe
Speaker 1: you just think it's to say it's gonna be kind
Speaker 1: of a fun project to do. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: out of the animals that I take, most of them
Speaker 1: might end up cleaning up the skulls, leaving the skull
Speaker 1: hole and doing what I would consider a euro amount
Speaker 1: on it. It's fun for me in some ways. It's
Speaker 1: also just kind of like it looks nice and it's
Speaker 1: it's a good way to display it hanging up and
Speaker 1: kind of put it anywhere. It's actually becoming really popular
Speaker 1: in home decore of these days. Even non hunters are like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd really like you know, if you get an extra skull,
Speaker 1: I'd really like that. Like now, the ones that I take,
Speaker 1: I'm keeping for myself. But if I find one, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll clean it up, bleach it out for you
Speaker 1: and maybe restain the horns or something deadhead or something
Speaker 1: like that. But you know, as hunters, I think many
Speaker 1: non hunters don't really understand the fact that they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you take the antlers or whatever, it's like this trophy.
Speaker 1: But it's it's not. It's more than that. It's it's
Speaker 1: looking at those memories. It's it's hanging up and making
Speaker 1: kind of a in my opinion, it's just kind of
Speaker 1: a way to honor that animal and you look at it,
Speaker 1: you remember that hunt, after the meats long gone, You've
Speaker 1: got those antlers there, those horns, whatever, and you know,
Speaker 1: it just helps bring that that adventure, that experience, that
Speaker 1: everything back to life. And I and I really think
Speaker 1: that it's kind of like part of being a hunter.
Speaker 1: You know, you look at those and you understand it's
Speaker 1: not something you can easily explain to someone else, but
Speaker 1: I think that the European mount or you know, cleaned
Speaker 1: out skull is a great way to showcase that animal.
Speaker 1: And you know, maybe you don't have room for a
Speaker 1: shoulder mount or maybe whatever. It's just it's it's a
Speaker 1: good way to do it. Now, before I start this podcast,
Speaker 1: i'm gonna say that first off, I'm not a license
Speaker 1: tax it, but I have done a lot of skulls
Speaker 1: and many of them turn out really good. And that's
Speaker 1: because I have kind of a little formula that I use.
Speaker 1: It's probably not the best formula out there, but it
Speaker 1: works for me and it will probably work for you.
Speaker 1: I think that expression there's more than one way a
Speaker 1: skin of cat should be. There's more than one way
Speaker 1: to euro amount a skull. Every time I do one,
Speaker 1: somebody else offers up a better way to do it,
Speaker 1: which is fine. I have tried hundreds of different tactics
Speaker 1: and I just kind of found the one that works
Speaker 1: for me, one that I think is the easiest, the fastest,
Speaker 1: and has a good longevity or good life for the skull,
Speaker 1: not drying out, not falling apart, not being too much
Speaker 1: of a pain. So I'm going to give you kind
Speaker 1: of my the way that I do it. I'll give
Speaker 1: you also some other alternatives, some other options, because as
Speaker 1: soon as I do this, people are gonna be like, well,
Speaker 1: you should have just buried it in the backyard and
Speaker 1: then hill. I've tried that, you know in the South,
Speaker 1: it seems to work all right. There's certain animals I
Speaker 1: wouldn't do that with because you do that, the antlers
Speaker 1: get bleed stout, paying on what it is, you know,
Speaker 1: horns or antlers like it's just not a way that
Speaker 1: works here, especially in the wintertime when everything's dormant, and
Speaker 1: for most of the West, it's just not like a
Speaker 1: feasible way. Also, when they're done the dirty and pretty greasy,
Speaker 1: they don't really clean up well in my opinion. So
Speaker 1: that's just not a way that I do. I've used
Speaker 1: dermicital beatles before. Those are really good. What that is,
Speaker 1: they're actually like scare a beetle larva or something like that.
Speaker 1: The trouble with that is you've got to keep the
Speaker 1: things alive. They stink really, really really bad if somebody
Speaker 1: else has them. That right, there is the best way
Speaker 1: to clean up your school, but it's a time investment.
Speaker 1: It's you've got to have a box farm. You gotta
Speaker 1: feed them continually. You have to have like heat lamps
Speaker 1: in there and power, and you have to have just
Speaker 1: a bunch of rotting, nasty stuff. This stinks really bad.
Speaker 1: They cannot express how bad those things stink. They are,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, the best way to clean a school.
Speaker 1: But they also are not the easiest, most feasible way,
Speaker 1: Like you can't travel with them. You can't. You know,
Speaker 1: not everybody has them. You might live in a cold
Speaker 1: climate there kind of could be difficult to keep alive
Speaker 1: if your power goes out or whatever. There's just a
Speaker 1: lot of downside to him. But if somebody you know
Speaker 1: has them or whatever, that's a great way. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna pay someone to do it, that's probably the best
Speaker 1: option to do because it's going to come out probably
Speaker 1: the best. The way that I do it is I
Speaker 1: call it boiling the skull, But you don't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to boil it. Maybe it's just you know, you're putting
Speaker 1: it in a pot of water. It's more of simmering
Speaker 1: the skull. So I'm going to run you through some
Speaker 1: of the things that I do, some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that I put in the water, and then kind of
Speaker 1: the way that I check to see if it's done,
Speaker 1: and then the way that I clean it up afterwards.
Speaker 1: An answer try to answer most of the questions that
Speaker 1: I've got when I've been explaining this to other people,
Speaker 1: and just the way that works for me. Whether I'm
Speaker 1: traveling or whether i'm you know, at home, whatever. I've
Speaker 1: got a little bit different set up when I'm at
Speaker 1: home than when I'm traveling, but for the most part
Speaker 1: is kind of the same. So let's start with the
Speaker 1: items that you need first. You need something to boil
Speaker 1: the water with. There's lots of options. I mean, I
Speaker 1: use like a turkey deep friar most of the time
Speaker 1: when I'm at home, but I've also done this just
Speaker 1: over a camp fire in a pot. If you've just
Speaker 1: got like a deer, you could do it in a
Speaker 1: pot over the fire. It's cheaper, you don't have to
Speaker 1: pay for propane. You can even do it on I've
Speaker 1: done it in a stove in the house. I've done
Speaker 1: the stove in other people's houses. Um, I've done it
Speaker 1: on my Coleman camp stove, both out in the field
Speaker 1: and in my backyard. One thing you want to think
Speaker 1: about is, like I said before, I use water as
Speaker 1: the way to clean it. I essentially kind of like
Speaker 1: boil the meat off of it, but I try to
Speaker 1: do it more lower temperature, where it's a simmer, where
Speaker 1: it doesn't go real hot and faster it might drive
Speaker 1: that bone out. Now, some of the things that you
Speaker 1: want to think about is, Okay, you're putting a skull
Speaker 1: in the pot. You're going to clean up all the
Speaker 1: meat off of it. You want to retain everything, because
Speaker 1: if you overdo it, what's going to happen is the
Speaker 1: bones of the skull will start to separate it everything
Speaker 1: that holds it together. The teeth will fall out, the
Speaker 1: pieces of the nose will fall out. Worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: I mean it can split at the antlers. Like there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of things that can go wrong if
Speaker 1: you overcook your skull. So what I do is I
Speaker 1: first prepped the water. I have my pot and my
Speaker 1: whatever fire source it's going to be in the water.
Speaker 1: I like to add baking soda, which is just or
Speaker 1: sodium by carbonate. What that's gonna do is it actually
Speaker 1: helps make the meat fall off of the skull. So
Speaker 1: I always added to the water. Another thing I've started
Speaker 1: to add recently that I found works really well is
Speaker 1: some form of degrease or for me that just happens
Speaker 1: to be down dish soap because it's always available, super handy,
Speaker 1: So two things that are pretty easy to find. Baking soda,
Speaker 1: dish soap. There's a lot of other tactics, other things
Speaker 1: you can do that make them wider or other things,
Speaker 1: but this just seems to be an easy way that
Speaker 1: works for me. And also, if you get a little
Speaker 1: bit of the antler in the water, it's not going
Speaker 1: to stain them white, so you don't really have to
Speaker 1: worry about that. So fill up the water pot. Now,
Speaker 1: you want to make sure that you have a pot
Speaker 1: big enough where you can submerge the whole skull. It
Speaker 1: can get very difficult for elk skulls. I've actually just
Speaker 1: found like these garden tubs that I use, there's probably
Speaker 1: better pots for this, Like if you actually found a
Speaker 1: pot that's meant for boiling for deer and other things.
Speaker 1: I just find like a big pot. Sometimes those turkey
Speaker 1: frying pots are just a little too much water to
Speaker 1: get going. But it's also good to have a lot
Speaker 1: of water because it doesn't overheat too much as well.
Speaker 1: Depending on what you're using is your heat source. So
Speaker 1: I'll add my baking soda and then a little bit
Speaker 1: of dish. So when I'm talking about a little bit dish,
Speaker 1: so it would be like the amount that you would
Speaker 1: put on your hands to wash your hands after something
Speaker 1: that was just like you know, you're washing dishes and
Speaker 1: you're gonna wash your hands with a dish soap. That
Speaker 1: much soap in a big pot of water, maybe like
Speaker 1: one little squirt in like a smaller pot of water,
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be a lot. As far as the
Speaker 1: baking soda goes, I would say, like in a big pot,
Speaker 1: probably two tablespoons. In a small pot, let's go one
Speaker 1: table moon or half a tablespoon something like that. I
Speaker 1: really just kind of wing it, you know, I've added
Speaker 1: a lot. Sometimes I've added a little. I found that
Speaker 1: about two tablespoons seems to work pretty good for those
Speaker 1: big pots like an elk skull and then you know
Speaker 1: deer skull, like half a tablespoon to a tablespoon somewhere
Speaker 1: in there. So now you're just gonna prep your your skull.
Speaker 1: What I would say to do for that is one
Speaker 1: thing that happens as it boils. You know, it's degreasing.
Speaker 1: It's it's separating the fatty parts, the meats falling off,
Speaker 1: and what happens is that kind of layer of fat
Speaker 1: floats to the surface of the water. Now, if you've
Speaker 1: got antlers in there, that fat's gonna stick to the
Speaker 1: antlers and then you're gonna have to degrease the antlers later.
Speaker 1: Maybe you aren't boiling a deer an elk, you've got
Speaker 1: an antelope. You know what I do with that is
Speaker 1: I put the whole antelope skull in there. I allow
Speaker 1: it to get hot where I can then pull the
Speaker 1: shees off, and then I will strip the bony part
Speaker 1: that goes up into the shees, any meat or anything,
Speaker 1: and then submerge that fully. The one thing you want
Speaker 1: to think about is some way to keep that fat
Speaker 1: out or if you've got maybe a good flame of
Speaker 1: fire whatever, you don't want anything burning those antlers, like
Speaker 1: my brother and I did. So what I started doing
Speaker 1: with that is taking aluminum foil, and I'll prep the
Speaker 1: skull by wrapping the antlers down at the bases with
Speaker 1: this aluminum foil. It's really easy because it covers it up.
Speaker 1: You know, it's heatproof. It's fireproof as opposed to maybe
Speaker 1: using plastic wrap or something like that. It works really well. Um,
Speaker 1: so I do it enough to where everything that might
Speaker 1: touch the pot is covered. Anything where maybe some flames
Speaker 1: from fire might reach up and burn it. Maybe you're
Speaker 1: camping and you need to clean out of school, whatever,
Speaker 1: So I'll use that aluminum foil to protect the antlers.
Speaker 1: And it also is really nice because it keeps them
Speaker 1: clean from any of the fat that's in the top
Speaker 1: of the water, so you don't really have to like
Speaker 1: degrease them later. So it's just trying to keep it
Speaker 1: a little bit easier, a little bit cleaner, still look nice. Now,
Speaker 1: I'll submerge the skull in the water. I'll bring that
Speaker 1: water almost to a boil, and then just kind of
Speaker 1: let it simmer. Now, it's one thing you want to
Speaker 1: keep checking it because it's sometimes hard to regulate that temperature,
Speaker 1: so it might go up and boil for a little
Speaker 1: bit and then just start dropping that temperature down a
Speaker 1: little bit, or maybe add a little bit more cool water.
Speaker 1: If you have it at a boil, let's just say
Speaker 1: you gent, well, okay, I'm just gonna boil the thing,
Speaker 1: which does work, and you'll get by with it. Teeth
Speaker 1: might fall out if you don't catch it right. I
Speaker 1: would say probably only take about three hours if you
Speaker 1: were like straight up boiling it, maybe two hours. If
Speaker 1: you're letting it simmer, it might take more like for
Speaker 1: an elk school, five hours, for a deer school maybe
Speaker 1: two and a half hour or something like that. So
Speaker 1: you want to just keep constantly checking it. What you
Speaker 1: want is the meat to start falling off the bone
Speaker 1: as you pull it. Like imagine you slow cooked, like
Speaker 1: pulled pork, a bone in shoulder and you're gonna shred
Speaker 1: it off the bone and just starts falling off the bone.
Speaker 1: That's what you want. When you've got that, now it's
Speaker 1: ready to be pulled out of the water. So check it,
Speaker 1: you know, set a timer, check it every after the
Speaker 1: first hour, every thirty minute or so, and you'll kind
Speaker 1: of get a gauge on Okay, we've got a little
Speaker 1: bit of time. The reason that I check it so
Speaker 1: often is because I want to make sure that the
Speaker 1: water is not getting too hot, keep it at that
Speaker 1: below boil temperature, at that more similar level where it's
Speaker 1: just hot water in there, and let it sit the
Speaker 1: lower you can go, and the slower you can go,
Speaker 1: the better it's going to be for the skull itself.
Speaker 1: But also time constraints and you know, just the way
Speaker 1: those burners work, and keeping things at that temperature can
Speaker 1: be fairly difficult sometimes, So I just keep an eye
Speaker 1: on it and constantly check it. Make sure that the
Speaker 1: water level never gets too low. So if it gets low,
Speaker 1: you can always add more hot water to it, or
Speaker 1: even just add cool water and turn the temperature up
Speaker 1: a little bit for a little while. Now. Once the
Speaker 1: skull is ready to be cleaned, there's two methods. One
Speaker 1: is you pick off what you can, and then the
Speaker 1: second is cleaning it with water. So skulls the in
Speaker 1: New Zealand or whatever, I've done these in a little
Speaker 1: shed that I was staying at in the kitchen, sink
Speaker 1: in the kitchen, pulling all the meat off the skull,
Speaker 1: picking all that off, and then trying to wash out
Speaker 1: everything else I can with the sink. Better to use
Speaker 1: a hose. What I do when I'm at home is
Speaker 1: I use a pressure washer. I picked one up at
Speaker 1: Costco that works really good. I think it was like
Speaker 1: twenty bucks, so it's cheaper than the price of paying
Speaker 1: someone to do a skull for you, and it will
Speaker 1: pay for itself because you can because you can wash
Speaker 1: your car, in your house and whatever else you want
Speaker 1: with it as well. I actually just use an electric
Speaker 1: pressure washer because I found it easier. But there's small
Speaker 1: gas powered ones that you can take with you if
Speaker 1: you wanted somewhere. You know. I do have another pressure
Speaker 1: washer that I got at eight that it's not so good, so,
Speaker 1: you know, just depends. You don't want to have the
Speaker 1: pressure washer on too high p s. I. Because it
Speaker 1: can just blow the skull apart. So you want to
Speaker 1: find one of the tips that's kind of a good
Speaker 1: mid range. You know, they generally come with different tips,
Speaker 1: so you can kind of figure out, Okay, this one
Speaker 1: does a lot of blasting. This one is just more
Speaker 1: of a fan and and you use the angle of
Speaker 1: the pressure washer to start getting the meat off. So
Speaker 1: what I'll first do, whether I'm using the pressure washer
Speaker 1: or just washing it off with a hose or anything else,
Speaker 1: I first take as many big pieces off as I
Speaker 1: can just with pliers in a knife. I cleaned it
Speaker 1: up the best I can take all the big stuff off.
Speaker 1: Then I moved to the washing phase. It's really good
Speaker 1: if you can kind of let it cool down a
Speaker 1: little bit, because what's gonna happen. As soon as you
Speaker 1: hit it with the hose, It's gonna blow hot stuff
Speaker 1: all over you. You'll do that once, not twice. Uh.
Speaker 1: Once you've got like hot brains in your face, you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna you're gonna really think, rethink everything the
Speaker 1: next time. So now we kind of move on to
Speaker 1: that washing phase of cleaning the skull. So one of
Speaker 1: the questions I was get is like, how do you
Speaker 1: remove the brain? So the first thing I do, I
Speaker 1: actually leave the brain in when I boil it. You know,
Speaker 1: people always suggested, oh, you know, scramble it up with
Speaker 1: a stick first, try to get most of it out,
Speaker 1: clean that out. I think with C W D and
Speaker 1: all the other things we're trying to prevent, the easiest
Speaker 1: way is just boil it, cook it out, and then
Speaker 1: take it out. I'll use like a pair of long
Speaker 1: like needle nose pliers, reach in there, pull it out,
Speaker 1: throw it in the garbage instead of just like chucking
Speaker 1: it onto the yard. For the most part, you can
Speaker 1: get everything out that way, and that's the easiest I
Speaker 1: think the easiest and cleanest way to do it. Now,
Speaker 1: another tool that I use a lot would be a screwdriver.
Speaker 1: I go and find the ear butts the ear drum.
Speaker 1: I put the screwdriver in there and pop those out.
Speaker 1: It just give me a little bit more access to
Speaker 1: the brain cavity. You don't ever see that part of
Speaker 1: the ear amount and it's kind of just holds. If
Speaker 1: you've boiled your skull before and it kind of still
Speaker 1: smells afterwards, there's probably stuff in there that you just
Speaker 1: couldn't get out. So I just pop those out because
Speaker 1: it's easy and it's an easier way to clean. Then
Speaker 1: I take my hose, my pressure washer, whatever, and I
Speaker 1: start blasting the skull, start cleaning it out and blasting
Speaker 1: and kind of every direction that I can to start
Speaker 1: removing any meat or bits and pieces. I blast into
Speaker 1: the brain cavity with it, cleaning it out, and then
Speaker 1: I also blast from like any will you find, shoot
Speaker 1: water into it. Try to spray everything out that you
Speaker 1: can in between the teeth, along the top portion of
Speaker 1: the jaw, and then from the back of the skull
Speaker 1: out the nose. If you simmer the skull right and
Speaker 1: you put in you know, the dish soap and the
Speaker 1: sodium bicarbonate or baking soda. You should retain all that.
Speaker 1: I call it the nose cone. It's got definitely a
Speaker 1: different name, but it's just the easiest way to describe it.
Speaker 1: It's all the old factory senses in there, all the
Speaker 1: interesting things in the nose. I like to leave that
Speaker 1: in for the most part. If I'm traveling or I'm
Speaker 1: somewhere else, I'll generally just blast that or cut that
Speaker 1: out because it's not imperative for the European mount and
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to clean if you just cut
Speaker 1: that out if you're traveling and you just don't want
Speaker 1: to mess with it if you're If I'm at home
Speaker 1: and I have the time, I always take time to
Speaker 1: just you know, make sure I simmer everything right and
Speaker 1: keep that. But it's better to just start blasting things
Speaker 1: out from the back. Now you'll notice inside the goal
Speaker 1: in the nose there's kind of like this cartilage piece.
Speaker 1: I'll use a pair of needle nose pliers to pull
Speaker 1: that out, being careful not to break anything. So in
Speaker 1: your kid of things you're gonna need for this is
Speaker 1: probably a screw driver, needle, nose, pliers, knife, some form
Speaker 1: of water to blast, whether it's a hose, whether it's
Speaker 1: a sink, whether it's whatever. And then you're boiling stuff
Speaker 1: or your water kit. Once that is all done, once
Speaker 1: the skull is completely cleaned up, now it's gonna be
Speaker 1: time to whiten it. I have found the best way
Speaker 1: to whiten the skulls is generally using hydrogen peroxide. I
Speaker 1: get a little bit stronger dosage of it. I get
Speaker 1: like the food grade I think it would be for
Speaker 1: d V. It's normally used for like hair dye hair salons.
Speaker 1: You can buy it online. It's like a commercial grade
Speaker 1: hydrogen peroxide. Now, the hydrogen peroxide you put on a
Speaker 1: cut would be like three hydrogen peroxide for d V
Speaker 1: is actually I think it's twelve percent hydrogen peroxide. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of ways you can use it. So you
Speaker 1: can either mix it into a paste, which works great.
Speaker 1: I've found that dunking it, like submerging it into peroxide,
Speaker 1: seems to be the best. It kind of will attach
Speaker 1: to any piece of meat, bubble, fizz and burn that
Speaker 1: stuff off. I like to submerge it because I try
Speaker 1: to keep everything in the nose. I want all that clean.
Speaker 1: It's hard to like put paste in there and make
Speaker 1: it work. Now, one thing you're gonna find is, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's the balance of how much peroxide I'm using and
Speaker 1: can I get it submerged. So you're gonna need to
Speaker 1: find a container that really matches the size of the
Speaker 1: skull and then prop it in a way that the
Speaker 1: level of the peroxide doesn't actually hit the antlers. Now,
Speaker 1: if I do use straight for d V, I'll probably
Speaker 1: let it sit on the skull for I don't know,
Speaker 1: six hours, eight hours. I mean you can kind of
Speaker 1: start to tell what it looks like. If I start
Speaker 1: have to cut it, then I might leave it overnight
Speaker 1: or longer. So cutting it would just be adding water.
Speaker 1: So if I cut it in half, if I use whatever,
Speaker 1: I think they come in, like a gallon jug can
Speaker 1: get expensive if you have to use that much, but
Speaker 1: a gallon jugo that and then a gallon of water.
Speaker 1: Now we're around six percent hydrogen peroxide. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: probably let it sit for a little bit longer. If
Speaker 1: I have to cut it down to three, I'm really
Speaker 1: gonna let it sit. Another option would be like they
Speaker 1: make that same forty v in like a gel where
Speaker 1: you can just coade it. I would do that and
Speaker 1: let it sit for about five or six hours. Now,
Speaker 1: what you want to do is make sure obviously the
Speaker 1: peroxide doesn't get on them because it will start turning
Speaker 1: them white. So you run it up to the level
Speaker 1: and then what I'll do is I'll take a paper towel,
Speaker 1: wrap it around the base, and then cover that paper
Speaker 1: towel with the peroxide. Another option I'm just throwing out
Speaker 1: a bunch of different options for whitening the skull will
Speaker 1: be if you want to just use the peroxide poured
Speaker 1: over the paper towels, like cover the skull and paper
Speaker 1: towels and pour the peroxide on it. One thing you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to do is make sure that you use
Speaker 1: the peroxide with a plastic container, not a metal container,
Speaker 1: and definitely use gloves because that peroxide will burn your
Speaker 1: skin at that higher level. You just don't want it
Speaker 1: on your skin or get it on your clothes. Those
Speaker 1: it will kind of bleach out your clothes. But the
Speaker 1: peroxide is good because it doesn't deteriorate the bone. So
Speaker 1: if like you know, here people say bleach a skull
Speaker 1: I think the term more means like bleach it white,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean use bleach, because if you use bleach,
Speaker 1: which I have used before, the skull gets brittle and
Speaker 1: starts to fall apart after a little while. It might
Speaker 1: take a few years, but it's just not gonna last.
Speaker 1: So the peroxide seems to be one of the better ways.
Speaker 1: I've also used other things like oxy clean um not
Speaker 1: mixed with the peroxide, just oxy clean, or biz which
Speaker 1: is like another detergent as a degrease or but I
Speaker 1: think that the peroxide probably works the best if you
Speaker 1: only have a couple options. I mean, I've found sometimes
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, you're traveling somewhere. What I'll do is
Speaker 1: I'll go just into a supermarket. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: quite a few skulls at my house that I've gone
Speaker 1: to the supermarket. I've just got women's hair dye Platinum Blonde.
Speaker 1: Open up the packet and use that. I'm actually looking
Speaker 1: at Antelope School that I did it a few years ago,
Speaker 1: that I use that on. It's now starting to kind
Speaker 1: of feel greasy and uh, I don't know, it's like
Speaker 1: got this weird like greasy texture to it. It's like
Speaker 1: years later. So I've decided that I kind of stopped
Speaker 1: using that because it kind of gets this like makes
Speaker 1: the skull feel weird later on, and actually some of it,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it didn't really turn out as good
Speaker 1: as just using the regular hydrogen peroxide or the fort
Speaker 1: V whatever. I use the stabilized stuff because that way,
Speaker 1: if you open it a lot of hydrogen peroxide, and
Speaker 1: if you're buying it, get the stabilized one, because what happens.
Speaker 1: You'll open it, you'll use it, you'll put the lid
Speaker 1: back on, but once it's kind of contacted air, it
Speaker 1: starts to lose its potency. So you want the stuff
Speaker 1: that doesn't lose its potency if you're just buying it. Anyways.
Speaker 1: Now there's also peroxide gel, which it works really well.
Speaker 1: You can kind of, I mean, you use less of it.
Speaker 1: You can have a small bottle. It's easier to travel with.
Speaker 1: You can put that on the skull, clean it up
Speaker 1: that way. That's a really good way that I use
Speaker 1: when I'm traveling. I generally won't submerge it, but I'll
Speaker 1: just use that gel and it's just easier to travel with,
Speaker 1: easier to find. And then I can clean the skull
Speaker 1: that way, so when I get back home, Hey, the
Speaker 1: skull is done. I can travel across state lines. I
Speaker 1: don't have to worry. Now, let's say you're traveling hunting
Speaker 1: and you need to remove the brain without your like,
Speaker 1: I don't have the stuff to boil it, I don't
Speaker 1: have the time. Whatever. Another option would be if you
Speaker 1: don't want to skull cap it, what I'll do is
Speaker 1: I'll cut the back of the skull right where at
Speaker 1: the occipital joint where it kind of goes into the spine.
Speaker 1: I'll cut that portion off with a handsaw. I'll then
Speaker 1: get in there with my knife or whatever and remove
Speaker 1: the brain. You could then even clean it up a
Speaker 1: little bit with some gel peroxide, and you should be
Speaker 1: good to go. Now the brain and spinal material is gone.
Speaker 1: There's none in there, none left. You can save that
Speaker 1: piece that you saw it off and epoxy back on
Speaker 1: later if you ever want to use like a skull
Speaker 1: hooker type mount. Otherwise, it actually mounts to the wall
Speaker 1: pretty good without that piece on the back. I prefer
Speaker 1: to just keep it and re attach it later with
Speaker 1: some bondo and a POxy maybe like run a screw
Speaker 1: through it and just get it on there. So I can,
Speaker 1: you know, if I would decide don't want to use
Speaker 1: a skull hooker or something like that, it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: to do that in a nutshell. Is how you clean
Speaker 1: or d I y European mount for an elker deer,
Speaker 1: pretty much anything. I do the same technique for everything,
Speaker 1: and if you do that, you're gonna have a really
Speaker 1: good result. It's really fun to try. I know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of one thing. It's like, Okay, can you really
Speaker 1: listen to this in a podcast and understand how to
Speaker 1: do it? I think so. I mean I wish that
Speaker 1: when I started somebody just told me these things and
Speaker 1: it would have made it a lot more, a lot
Speaker 1: easier to understand. I did. I'm going to try to
Speaker 1: do a couple of videos of this. I got something
Speaker 1: on my Instagram right now if you kind of want
Speaker 1: to like a recap of it and just to see
Speaker 1: some of the steps in process. But I think that
Speaker 1: you know, it's not that hard to do. As a
Speaker 1: side note, I will say, if you're gonna blast the
Speaker 1: skull with anything, put your rain gear on. I have
Speaker 1: also tried people say just oh, just use the pressure
Speaker 1: washer don't or a hot pressure washer. Don't even boil it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't turn out that well. The school needs some
Speaker 1: form of degreasing because later on it starts to sweat
Speaker 1: and gets weird. I've tried a lot of different things,
Speaker 1: and I will continue to keep trying different options, different methods.
Speaker 1: This one just seems to work most universal, no matter
Speaker 1: where I'm at, the easiest way to do it. I mean,
Speaker 1: in a in a standard year, just based on guiding
Speaker 1: or for clients or you know, just whatever. I'm in
Speaker 1: camp with friends, and I mean I end up at
Speaker 1: the end of the year with like everybody, we come
Speaker 1: over and we just start boiling our skulls. I'll do
Speaker 1: a hundreds of these things in a year, and this
Speaker 1: just seems to be the way that works for me
Speaker 1: when I'm doing it. You know, maybe I've got a
Speaker 1: rhythm and a system down and I've kind of got
Speaker 1: it figured out this way, but I still constantly try
Speaker 1: other methods. If somebody mentions it or whatever, you should
Speaker 1: try it this way. I've tried different ways, and you know,
Speaker 1: this way it just seems to be the best for me.
Speaker 1: But I think that if you've never done it, or
Speaker 1: you're thinking about doing it. Give it a try it
Speaker 1: it's it's fairly easy, it'll save you a couple hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: and the end result looks good and it's cool. You
Speaker 1: can put it up on your wall and say like,
Speaker 1: oh hey, I hunted that, I butchered it, and I
Speaker 1: did the European skull amount myself. So just something to
Speaker 1: think about, some food for thought. Hopefully you find some
Speaker 1: success and you get a skull that you get to
Speaker 1: clean up this fall. For me, this year, we had
Speaker 1: a pretty good opening weekend. I was actually guiding this
Speaker 1: last weekend. We ended up getting kind of tagging out
Speaker 1: fairly quick for our clients, which was awesome. And it
Speaker 1: was just like the first day was was rough. You know.
Speaker 1: I gave those opening day tips, Well, it didn't apply
Speaker 1: this year because the weather was so bad where we
Speaker 1: were at. Nobody was out and I was out and
Speaker 1: didn't see anything that was like the first opening day.
Speaker 1: I didn't see people were elk so I thought, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: no one's gonna be out, this's gonna be great. And
Speaker 1: it was still really tough because it's really hard to
Speaker 1: find animals if you can't see and if they weren't
Speaker 1: moving around there's like no tracks. It was. It was
Speaker 1: just a difficult day. But after that it started to
Speaker 1: clear up and things started to fall into our favor.
Speaker 1: But it also got me thinking, you know, when I
Speaker 1: really think about, glassing is such an important tactic when
Speaker 1: it comes to hunting out west. So what I want
Speaker 1: to do is, it's been a while since we've covered
Speaker 1: some glassing tips, so I think next week I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna cover a few glassing tips and really just how
Speaker 1: do identify game through your binoculars, how to know what
Speaker 1: to look for, as well as maybe that size reference
Speaker 1: of people be like, well, am I looking for an answer?
Speaker 1: Am I looking for an elephant? Like understanding the size reference,
Speaker 1: and maybe some of the things that I look for
Speaker 1: that help me spot an animal, not necessarily seeing the
Speaker 1: whole animal, but just some things that catch your eye
Speaker 1: help you identify that there's an animal over there as
Speaker 1: you're glassing. So I think next week we're gonna cover that. Also,
Speaker 1: you know, feel free to continually right in with questions
Speaker 1: and whatever. I've also been getting like a ton of great,
Speaker 1: great messages about some success and some just awesome things,
Speaker 1: So thank everybody for that. Feel free, you know, to
Speaker 1: to subscribe to rate to Like I say it a
Speaker 1: few times, but you know, you know it does nothing
Speaker 1: but help us, So I appreciate that. And until next week,
Speaker 1: keep those skulls boiled right, don't over boil your skull
Speaker 1: all right, See you guys. H