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How to Cape a Deer for Mounting
By Kaitlin Bowen and Joseph Zoida (Taxidermy Unlimited NJ)
Have you ever harvested a deer you wanted to get mounted and didn’t know exactly how to properly cape out the skin. These steps can seem intimidating, but once you do a few it will become second nature. Make sure when you field dress your deer you leave enough cape for the type of mount you are going for, typically stop cutting up to under the chest bone. My dad is a professional taxidermist and he went through these steps with me.
Taking the cape off the deer
While the deer is hanging you go about halfway from the knee to the chest of the deer around the leg, make incision all the way around. Then where the hair meets on the back of the leg, make incision along where the hair meets back towards the side of the deer and then back about 6” to the incision you made around the deer. Continue to skin the deer all the way to the base of the skull, cut it off at the base of the skull.
Caping the deer
Make a Y incision from the about 2/3 way down inside of the rosette (base of the antler). Do that on both sides and meet in the middle on the downward 45 degree cut. Where the two incisions meet, you continue down the back of the neck of the deer about another 10”, and then you stop. Some cut all the way down the back of the neck to in between the shoulders to save money on tanning. Cheaper to have the cape tanned with whole back open than a tube cut.
Take your knife and score around the rosettes where the skin meets the base of the deer rack- go all the way around to loosen it up. Take your center- skinning the deer skin forward away, pull the deer skin away from the base of the rack and start to trim the skin away from the skull very carefully around the base of the deer. Loosened up halfway to the front of the deer, take knife and skin down the side of the deer. Be careful at the base of the ears, disconnect the base of the ear from the skull. Want to cut it close to the skull and disconnect the ear on one side and then the other. Continue skinning around the neck all the way around to the bottom jaw. Then continue around the base of the skull and loosen that all up until you reach the top of the eye orbital. Want to carefully put your finger on the center of the eye orbital so you can feel the back of the eye so you don’t cut through the back of the eye you want to cut behind the back of the eye.
When you get to the front of the eye, carefully slice across the skin membrane very carefully take knife and cut down into tear duct not through it, cut under it and peel away form the skull. Put your finger in corner of the mouth from the outside don’t cut through the corner of the mouth 1” behind corner of the mouth. Which will open up back of the mouth run knife down bottom jaw line free it from the skull. Then the top, run the knife along inside of the mouth skin down to the base of the nose at the back of the cartilage in the nose at the back and bring it forward and disconnect back of the cape away from the skull. Then it is caped out.
Side notes) TIPS Recommended sharp hunting knife with pointy blade or scalpel. Less flesh, less holes the better. Use an online diagram on where to cut.
After it is caped out
Once you remove the cape turn the ears inside out start to turn the ear with a razor blade or scalpel. Start separating membrane and cartilage back side of the ear removing it inside out like a sock don’t cut through the skin all the way around. Around the eye flesh the meat and split the skin around the eye to open it up so it can be salted properly split the cartilage around the lips. Take the lips and pinch between your fingers and split all the way around the deer cape. That’s your lip tuck later on when you mount the deer. Use powdered borax on the skin so it’s not slippery. Take deer and put it on the fleshing beam and move away any meat/fat from the skin with a knife. Flesh the whole cape down. Take it and bring it to your salting area and salt the skin on the flesh side completely. Make sure you get along the incision of the seams back of the neck all around the ears, lips nose salt it really heavy. Roll it up, flesh side in then place it in a tote with a basket inside so the liquid can drip from the deer into the bin and the deer isn’t laying in the bin it is up above it. When you salt the skin, it cures the skin and the liquid drops down into the coat. Let that sit for the day. On the second day, take it out and salt it again and use something to hang the cape on with a tarp underneath it to catch any salt until it dries. Once dry, fold it up put a box and send to tannery until the cape comes back to be mounted!