When it comes to hunting trophies, it’s the memories that count. Here’s why

With most of our big-game seasons now closed, social media platforms are awash with photos of bucks and bulls taken by successful hunters. I can’t help but be impressed by the sheer number of record book-class deer, elk and moose that come out of our forests and fields each year, and I love to read the short descriptions of how the different hunts all came together.

What disturbs me somewhat, however, are the posts that begin with qualifiers such as “He’s no Boone and Crockett buck, but…” or “It’s not the brute I saw on my trail cam, but….” Some hunters clearly believe the animal they took is somehow inadequate because it doesn’t meet the arbitrary standards of what qualifies a particular animal as an official trophy.

There’s clearly an aura of size-shaming hanging over the hunting community, but size should never be the sole criterion to determine whether an animal has special meaning.

IT’S NOT ABOUT TROPHIES

Hunters have long immortalized their successful hunts by having the heads and hides of their game animals mounted. What needs to be front of mind, however, is that such taxidermy isn’t in and of itself all there is to show for the hunt. Rather, it’s a key that unlocks a memory. An animal doesn’t have to be officially certified as a trophy to be worthy of mounting—it just has to have special meaning for you.

The fact is, the vast majority of hunters will never take a record book-qualifying animal. Many of us hunt in areas that simply don’t produce game of that quality. Not only that, but our hunting efforts may be limited by available time or funds. Plus, you need more than a small amount of luck to be in the right place at the right time when an extraordinary animal reveals itself. And if and when that does happen, you also need to be prepared to successfully make the shot.

The bottom line? The odds of killing a book-class animal are not very good. Kudos to those who do, but for most of us, it will never happen. So, how should we decide when an animal is worth preserving by having it mounted?

IT’S ABOUT THE MEMORIES

Some mounts take me back to specific times and people. I have a whitetail hanging in my office that I took in the early 1980s. I was a novice big-game hunter at the time, mentored by several friends with more experience afield. We’d camp in wall tents every November and hunt moose, elk or deer, depending on the location. I can look up and see that whitetail as I write this, and it brings back a flood of memories from those times. It reminds me of the friends I hunted with, and the many adventures and misadventures we shared while camping and hunting in the cold and snow of November in Alberta.

Walk into my house and the first thing you’ll notice is a kudu shoulder mount. It’s not a particularly big kudu, but just one glance inevitably takes me back to my first African safari, some 35 years ago now. That trip made such an indelible mark on me that I’ve since returned to Africa every time opportunity and my banker suggest I can. I don’t have much African game on my walls, though, because I don’t need to—that kudu serves as a proxy for all of my African adventures.

I have only one mounted bird in my home, a beautiful, full-plumage bufflehead drake. There were others at one time, but a resentful cat left alone one weekend decided to exact its revenge. The bufflehead survived the carnage, and I stare at it wistfully on those winter nights when I’m wishing I was on a marsh somewhere, shotgun in hand, with diving ducks strafing the decoys. When I look at that little bird, I believe I can actually smell the marsh and spent gunpowder; it always takes me back to my happy place.

That’s what our mounted heads and hides do for us—bring back memories of our finest days in the field. Long after everyone is past caring what the animal scored, the mount will continue to remind us of some of the best times of our life. Size doesn’t matter, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.