taxidermist

I have known Don Frank at Smithville for a long time we have competed is some shows at the same time. Do you know Don is one of the best fish carvers in the world. The guy at Lake Fork is not the leader on Peacocks. Never was Ron Kelly is. Rons son does a kncok out Peacock too. I started doing taxidermy in 1977 31 years ago. I have met alot of people in the taxidermy industry over this time. There are some people that only do a few fish per year and do knock out fish. Dale Cornett of Michigan is possible the best I have ever seen. He don't use an airbrush either!!! Dales getting up in years. Bill messege me I would like to know who is doing the 25lb brown, thank you.

Taxidermy competitions are not very political. Matter of fact I too have shown cattle and horse as has my wife, plus many other things. I can tell you and give you a huge list of taxidermist that will back up my statement about taxidermy competitions beling very non political. Yea like a cattle show or horse show, one judge maybe two. The NTA show had three per catagory and took averages. I won best of Catagory in Kansas the very first time I attended the Kansas Assoc. of Taxidermist in 1998. it did hurt some feelings but the judge was a well known judge and known for being fair. Judges that play the politic at taxidermy shows don't get to judge many and last about a year if that long. You dont get to be a taxidermy judge without knowing your specimens, having reference materials to back you up. these are pics, casting from molds and even at some shows a few judges have brought in live animals, deer. bobcats and even well behaved Cougars. No you dont get to be a taxidermy judge without being HONEST and KNOWING what you are looking at and for. I have been judging fish for 20 odd years at various state shows. I took in three live wild caught bass at one show and you dont get any better refernce than live fish! Also won the NTA Award of Excellence for fish, it does not come easy you don't buy your way into it, You have to prove your stuff at the National Level. Yes I have seen many many of the shows that did not have a fish or other animal that scored a blue ribbon,. So most awards are not just given because of politics.. We want to be judged hard very hard!! We dont want the easy give away, give awy does nothing for us as taxidermist. Do you undertand that? I thought not!!! What competions do is teach us where to improve our mount, how to do better work. An ethical taxidermist will try to incorperate that new knowledge into their work and develope a better mount for his clients. On the artist end of competing sometimes I have seen grown men hang their head very low leaving a show, getting thei head handed to them if you will. Imagine how this would feel if you will. You do your best work and have someone critique it and they pull out reference materials you never knew existed and they start deducting points. It was you best work, everyone said it was good. Then you walk out without a ribbon scoring say 65 out of 100. then imagine you are really really good and you only score a 88 and there is not any blue ribbon awarded. It happens and assocations that run dishonest shows fail. The MIssouri Taxidermist assoc. and the Arkansas taxidermist assoc is proof that politics will ruin an association. Kansas and Oklahoma are growing assoc. Even in the time when other assoc. fail their are growing!! Nope most taxidermy shows/competitions are not political. May 09 the World Show will be in St Charles MO. You want tyo see great taxidermy judge totally without politics? take the trip.

Someone told me take to green powerbait inplace of Levitra. Espcially for sunburned legs. It will not help the legs but will keep the sheets off of them. Ok we use powerbait, I am fat and I am a hillbilly. Here is how we use it. 8lb Vanish gold flourocarbon. Has to be Vanish, it is way more sensitive than anything else ont he market. 1/4 ounce bullet sinker, flourescent orange bead, the largest swivel you can find, about 18 inches of leader and only one type of hook!!! # 4 or #6 Eagle Claw Crappie hook, it has a bend in the shank. four or five Power eggs. What this hook does is rotate when the fish bite it is great for hooking trout in the dead center of the lower jaw or the upper mandible. Using this rig we seldom gut hook a trout, as in one every two or three trips. Should you gut hook a trout, pull the eggs back up the line The the hook is large enough you can run your index finger down the hook and this fixes the J in the hook right around your finger tip and you simply remove your finger with the hook on it. Seldom does the trout even bleed. I posted this over a year ago. We also throw a lot of crankbaits and have done super well on browns, they are the largest crank baits we can find. I also posted pics of those and the fish. I would like to have seen the 25lb fish molded so reproductions could be made for around this area and other areas. I do have a problem with the Rip Collins Wworld Record Brown trout mold. It is way over priced, there are other molds of browns that size out there. So not any big deal in away. But it is a shame non the less that more people cannot see that fish!!! Like the one Brown record from Taneycomo, two fish pulled from the mold, its a shame and till a even bigger waste of the fish YEa there are two very close in size both molded. But its sad to not share a record catch like that with anyone!!! Same for the R Collins fish. I did see one at the Game and Fish building and honestly its a poor casting. Not tha I could do better but I know people who can make better molds especially on a fish like that!!! Anyone have measurements on the 25lb brown?

http://www.trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads...2730#Post802730 A friend who mounts the best big cats in the world. (World Champion several times over) sent me this link. Its an awesome link showing a cougar stalking and finally killing a four year old big horn ram.

What many people dont realize is that the bluffs are great for catfish. I know I heard for years here there and yonder so to speak. I learned from SCUBA diving and spearfishing that is you want catfish the place to go is the bluffs. Those cats will lay along the ledges in 20-30 feet of water depends a bit on the thermocline. If you put them out in the coves you be GAR-LY will have a time with those toothy fish. I hear they are good to eat but I avoid jugs or trot lines in coves. If you find a small cove along a bluff thats a great place between the point in 20ft of water for a short trot line. The last week of June and first week of July we always fish nightclawers carolina rigged, drifting with the wind along the bluffs and catch lots of healthy cats. You can use cut bait or live bream under 4 inches (I think thats the law) We have pput up as much as 300lbs of catfish fillets in one year. This year we stopped at 52 lbs, we have slowed on doing fish fries for the family. We used to do three per year but when they started bitching we stopped. 52 gives us a catfish meal once every two weeks. Hope this helps good luck John

I see some think I stepped ontheir toes, while some bait fisherman think their toes were step on too. Really the statement wiether toongue in cheek or meant for real about fat kids and hillbillies using power bait has no place on this forum. Don't say it if you don't mean it. Yes I am in favor of catch and release way more than many of you realize. You need to know how I feel about it so the facts are clear. Yep if the fish could be released and live I am all for it!! It could be caught several times, then maybe I would get to do one or two or more reproductions for that fish. More simply is it could mean more money in my pocket. Not that I would ever get rich doing taxidermy, Just one millionaire taxidermist I know of. But it could buy horse feed for me a couple time or evenpay for a short trip to Branson. I have kept some nice fish to make my own personal molds of! Why this way I have molds of fish from White River and a couple from Taneyecomo. You bet our fish are different!!! Plus I have control over the quailty and materials used before I start on the finish work, that is different from painting also. Yes I am for C&R maybe more so than the nay sayers on here. I know the value of the fish. I also fished Taney in the 1970's and 1980's and know the size of rainbows just don't exist that use to. Pressure and water quality has much to do with it. What you don't know is how many nice fish we release, we released some today that most people would have mounted. We had 3 browns at 22" and one really nice bow at almost 24' I did have a hard time with the bow, but I already have a 24" rainbow mold, don't have a left and right just a right taildown, but a female bow is a female bow at 24". So she was turned back. Matter of fact we did drag power bait and did not gut hook anything!! It how you setup for it. Plus Flourocrabon line helps a lot. Just have much much better feel and hooks that turn instead of straight shanked hooks. We hooked all the fish either in the upper mandible or lower jaw dead center., same places flys would hook. John

http://www.4greatfish.com/gf/index768.shtml Garys website. I have never met Gary we have emailed a few times. Copied from above As for as a replica you will need quite a few shots (about 10-15 photos). find any marks that are unusual to the fish. head shot (a nice close up)... with the eyes, mouth, and possible a front face shot. a full body shot. (I divide the fish into three or four sections for photos. Then I print larger sized photos, works better for me. I use the pics as I paint and sometimes the photos don't make it through the painting i.e. lacquer thinner etc.) I am sure it would help other Taxidermist too. sometimes taken a shot of both side of the fish helps. (to find the best side of the fish ( This helps if there are specific markings. a shot of the tail (for a nice detailed mount) of course the length and girth Shots of the fins if there are specific markings. If possible good sunlight and on a towel or rag to protect the fish from rocks and even grass, grass can cut the fish, sticks, stones etc. Plus the towel gives you an idea how badly off the color the photos are! Serves like a gray scale of sorts. There are several companies taxidermist can order replicas from, some are better than others and those cost a good bit more than the average replica. they tend to have a lot better detail, thats scale detail and other things, semi clear fins, quality of the eyes too. Many taxis' use a standard fish eye, specific to the species. Other paint many of theirs, I paint many of my fish eyes. Something can be said for taxidermist that enter competitions, they tend to do better work. The reason being they have competed and had their mounts judged, the judging is done on anatomy, painting etc. Not in just one competition but many, really the more the taxi. enters the better they are to a point...... Sad fact is many don't do the same quality work for clients that they do for the competitions.... If you really want the best the taxidermist can do ask for the competition mount or show quality mount, expect to pay a bit more. It will be worth the extra. We know not everyone is going to go for the replica, even if you decide on the skin mount i.e. real fish. You want it to last, on trout the head should be molded from your fish and cast by the taxidermist, this will eliminate oils bleeding in the years to come, that along with molding the fishes fins and making them in fiberglass again its for the quality!! The fish body should be carved for an exact fit for that specific skin. This along with the individually cast head and fins will give you a better mount that will last your lifetime. Paints; broad subject. Many prefer lacquers others praise waterbased. Back in the 1980's I helped field water based paint. Chemicals have changed and waterbased are not nearly what they were back then...... I use lacquers desgined specifically for taxidermy. Then the clear coat has UVB & UVA filters so the colors will never fade. You don't get details with cheap air brushes either. I always felt I did pretty darn good detail with a Pashee' VL-1 double action. Until another taxidermist convinced me that a Iwata Micron was the way to go. I broke down and bought one $500.00 with hose and I can say the detail I am able to get now is so much better!! It is not as fast as the cheap airbrush but fast and good just don't work together!! Do they? Possibly the last things to ask every taxidermist is turn around time. How long have they been in business what awards have they won? Are they at lest CERTIFIED BY THEIR STATE????? There are great taxidermist that only do a few specimens per year and some do a lot. While there are full time taxidermist that just do good on everything and some cannot do anything well. Will you be happy is with the quality of the work? You get what you pay for!!! Do you want a Cadillac or a Yugo? http://ozarkanglers.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11992 If you have any more questions I will do my best to answer them honestly and open! Creager's Artistic Wildlife Flippin AR Across from Wal Mart in Flippin. Feel free to drop in Mon, Tue, Thur, Fri 10:30 am to 6:00pm

Like John Berry said, so few places right now. There is a island at the mouth of Buffalo River and the hole at Buffalo City would be your best bet, but little wading at this point. We are getting another heavy rain here since about 2 AM and all this water goes right into Table Rock, Norfork and Bull Shoals lakes along with Buffalo River and the whole darn water shed. You might check with Rileys at Buffalo CIty and see if there is a way to be shuttled to the island theres a goo but of water there thats fishable.

Way to go RIck!!!! SUper fish!!! I see a lot of people inflicting their personal beliefs on the fisherman. 1st, He legally caught the fish! 2nd, He then owns the fish! 3rd, His choice on what he does with it! be have it mounted, or fillet it or release it. I think its non of our business what he does with it. It is not ourplace to bitch about what he does with it. I see a lot of JEALOUSY poking through, because he caught it on Power bait, and a spinning rod. You have to remember not everyone whats to whip a flyrod all day long and not everyone the ability to do so. He could have physical problems that keep him from using a fly rod. So quit boo hooing the man and congratulate him, honor his fish instead of bitching about it. As someone mentioned Browns don't take power bait all that often. It is his choice of what to do with the fish not yours. Don't allow PETA to rule your life, to set your standards. Many times a big fish fights hard and has a heart attack of sorts. I almost always check the heart and aorta on big fish and many many times the heart/aorta is soft, this is a sign the fish would not have lived. It may be released but still would have died in a few days to a few weeks. There is far more to the physiology of fish than just working it in the water until it can swim away.

Since when does the goverment bailout business? Why bail the top people out? Why not pick the lowest income and lowest loan ratio and pay those people out of debt, that would help everyone and trickle up. But wait that would help more than the wealthy people.

Fished the bottom five miles, water was a bit cloudy, but small smallies and shade perch were everywhere along the rocks of bluffs. Saw several does deer. even paddled right close to them without them spooking.

I have a Humminbird 565 with tm mounted transducer. I really like it works fine, I am still finding out things about it, can be linked to other helpers. The more I use it the better I like it. you can pick out bait fish very easy and where the fish are above or below the bait fish. You can see trees brush, etc. I am sure there are better ones otu there but its pretty good, I have even figured out how to see a large spoon while jigging for stripers. I just figured this out a few weeks ago.

Took my niece and nephew out yesterday for some perch jerking and tubing first time the niece has fished and she loved it. She was using a blue/green minnow on a jug head and caught several small smallmouth and largemouth, plus an ocassional bream. Nephew did not fair as well. We saw thousands of 4-5inch largemouth, I do mean thousands we fished several different areas and if the water holds someday bass fishing will once again be good in Bull Shoals.

I would have called, but as I said I dont carry the cell phone everywhere I go. Esp on the river I figure it this way if its a real emergencey by the time I could get back everything is over and there is nothing I could do. I can handle whatever the problem was when I get home or to the truck and check the phone. I have talked with a WO about people going beyond the signs. So we will see.

My lake boat has been having starting problems, once warmed up its fine. Yesterdqay same old crap and this motor only has maybe 20 hours on it 90HP Johnson. I remembered seeing this post, yep my bet is the ethanol crap we are stuck with. In the Am I am calling the local distributors to find out who sell any non eth gas. even in Premium grades. Exxon here claims no E-85 but I dont believe them because the Exxon Distrib. in the Mt HOme area say may contain ethanol. Hum same pipeline?????????? Is someone lying?

I always wind a few yard onto the reel and open the bail to see if the line is twisting, if so I flip the line spool over and that normally fixes the problem. You can also take a couple large heavy books and go out to a field open the bail and walk the line off the reel. drag it a bit to help stretch it, then lay the line about 1/4 of the way thru the books and reel the line back on. I lay the books about 20 yards apart. once normally fixes and line twist and twice certainly will.

The people were well inside the left or south shore sign. Since there is so little difference in the markers yu stated, WHy do they think getting that extra 100 yards will help? Just to me it seem people ignore signs. I would figure those signs are for saftey reasons. Just my opinion, that and 5 bucks will buy me a hapy meal at McDs.

Bull Shoals and Norfork bouth are full of idiots too. I had one on a jet ski darn near run into me as he tried to out run us across a point, there was not any room, I finally had to shut it down and turn hard to avoid killing the kid and his pass. Bull Shoals aint any better, you have idots that think you markers are something to run in around and out of, and other idiots who think running into the cove wide open and thrwoing a lure two or three times will win them the tournament. Better carry insurance and no guilt someday you will be hit by an idoit ona just ski or some other idiots will drag their kid under your boat on the tube. We were on Norfork today and darned if an idiot did not run between us and the bank, we LOAO the skier fell on the point and the green brairs scratched the hell out og him, we were LOL and they wanted to fight over it. I bit my tongue and continued to catch a couple small whites as they came closer I said serves you right!!! Later at a gas station they pulled in turned up their rap music, I cranked up the BOSE in the truck with Ring of Fire and shut them down, topld them to pack it up go home to momma before they got hurt. I wonder how long these idiots will terrorize fishermen? someone will get enough of it and do something bad!!

I have some friends who decided at the last minute to take a father son trip to Alaska to fish. He has had some heart probems stint etc. and works everyday hard. But as many of us know tomorrow is only a promise and they decided maybe this would be their trip of a lifetime. Anyone have any idea on fishing trip without spending huge sums of money? Thanks JOhn

The threat must be directed at a specific person, a general threat is just that general. As for security, you can get a infrared camera really cheap these days. I have a system that shows everything works for up to 24 hours without electricity and send info directly yo my home computer. I have five other cameras. Along with that it has VOX recording for voice. So I heare who is talking in and around the shop and have pics of who stops to look in. Some of the cameras are not much larger than a silver dollar. I spent about $400.00 on the system. One camera is located so I can see license plates, the others so I see everyone. I dont know who lethal a fence charger would be when mixed with water, since most are pulse, but they could be lethal too. I have never seen any reason to fish around docks, theres a whole lake out there and fishing around a dock is just the lazy mans way. The dock and what cover has been placed around it is not mine, not did I put the cover there so why would I steal someones hard work? When I was a kid we has a boat house up in Bear Creek on Bull Shoals and always some idiot would break into it. finally my folkd destroyed it because they were tired of the repair and people fishing from it all the time. Less hassle. My advice is if the dock is not yours dont fish around it.

lol Fiberglass, sound like the gel coat is breaking down. Just do a good polish with any car compound then wax. Th compound removes the dead stuff and the wax will seal the good stuff. Some gel coats that don't have a glossy finish breakdown pretty fast. Very chaulky I think its the amount of filler in the resin and type of filler, normally white calcium carbonate. This is when the white rubs off on you pretty easy. Tooling gelcoats are a harder type of resin and normally red, black, orange or green.

Aluminum? You can use a mouse sander and the polishing pad with any good aluminum metal polish. I made the mistake of using a truck acid wash on my truck tool box a few years back, turned it white from poished alum. I took a old drill and put a buffing wheel onit and polished the box up looked better than when I bought the truck. Check Eastwood Auot car parts for more info. I think you can google them. I polished an old intake manifold last winter for a small block Ford. it being a ruff cast, I had to grind the sand casting marks and grain off then polish with a series of felt wheels and grits. But I doubt you will need the heavy grits maybe just the lighter and a softer wheel. Hey Grizzly in Springfield has some polishing supplies.

Fish of Missouri book should have them. Maybe goole minnows of Missouri photos?

Yep , you will see drift chains. I think they should be outlawed on the White, they are on Norfork. Just to dangerous and they destroy habitat. I too have seen a boat go down in seconds in high water when the chain hangs up. You dont need that, the person in front by the rope would have to panic proof and rehearse the move to cut the rope several times and have a knife handy. Under high water the current can push even a strong swimmer to the bottom. It happened to me last summer and the shock of the cold water is another story. Just say no to drift chains, you may live longer. I seldom anchor evenunder low water I like the boat to move, seem to catch more and larger fish. John

Looks like to me we will have high water thru the fall. I know many people are screaming and mad over the COE and how they flow water. Don't be understand its great for the fish!!! Yes there is fewer fish being caught, but the minummin flow is being achived. What I am seeing is heavy heavy fish being caught the girth measurments are increasing, its not just from the extra food in the chain, its from working for a living in the fast water. We may not catch many fish from now until the lakes return to normal (as we know it) but when it does you will be living in the hay day of river fishing as good as it will possibly be int he next 10 years. All the water has to go somewhere, this is the Mississippi river drainage, when everything below us is flooded, the COE must hold th water, with water comming down the Mighty Miss. they have to hold the water. Remember too, we are only the west side of the drainage, there is an eaast side!!! They are getting rain too.