CNY Outdoors Conquest man uses 'flesh-eating' beetles for his European skull mounts of deer and other animals Published: Nov. 05, 2010, 4:40 p.m.

Mountain Mike’s mounting kits ($43; masterofskulls.com) come complete with an authentic-looking European skull reproduction. You simply saw the antlers off your real skull and use the hardware to ...

European hunters consequently most often resort to making their own skull mounts. Reader Alan Belanger wrote in asking about how to make a European mount of his deer.

A few weeks ago I harvested a whitetail buck and had some desire to mount it for the prompting of future memories. It was a decent sized eight-point rack on an enormous bodied old buck. However ...

He bought the beetles for exactly this purpose, to clean the skulls of deer for European mounts, a form of deer mount that has become popular with Minnesota hunters.