by John Jennings
The most valuable benefit of joining your state and national taxidermy association is the opportunity to attend the annual convention. Trade-show season runs from February to July and is the perfect time to start harvesting the benefits of membership. Pro Tip: When you travel to a convention in the United States, your transportation (flights or mileage), half your meals, a single hotel room, registration fees, and other business expenses are deductible if it provides, maintains, or improves the skills related to your trade or business. Unfortunately, if a spouse or other individual accompanies you, that individual’s travel expenses are not usually tax deductible. Talk with your accountant about legitimate expenses.
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by Larry Blomquist and Tony Psaila
This Taxidermy Positioning Systems article will explain the suggested methods for installing the Wall Bracket system for wall pedestal gameheads and Pedestal Support System for table pedestal mounts. The entire article is presented here for instructional purposes and you can also download the PDF for printing and viewing at a later time. Breakthrough Magazine retains all copyrights and this article can only be used for personal instruction. It cannot be sold, reprinted, or distributed without written permission from Breakthrough Magazine Inc.
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by Dave Sprout
From Novice to Best of Show – that was an outcome I never envisioned in 2011 when I entered my first competition as a novice at the World Taxidermy and Fish Carving Championships in Springfield, Illinois. Looking back on this journey, this accomplishment was fueled by a simple desire to get better, and then finding and taking advantage of the best resources available. I carved my first fish during the early ’90s, but my work was very crude. Work and family life intervened, and I set aside any thoughts on how to improve my carvings. Then in 2009, I purchased a Bob Berry carving book and I carved a trout. I was intimidated by the painting and the project remained unfinished. A year later, I took a flat art painting class with a local artist through the continuing education program of the state technical college. My project was to finish painting my trout, and I surprised myself, as it looked better than I thought it would. With the realization that my fish carving could improve with a little self-help, I was inspired to try carving another fish.
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by World Champion Mike Kirkhart
When it comes to eyes, I feel the life of the mount starts in the eyes. Most of us look into the eyes of each other to communicate and the instinct is to look at a creature in the eyes before scanning the rest of the body. I look at fish the same way. A good fish mount needs a great eye set, just like as with animals and birds. The tricky part of fish eyes is the variety of species and the various colors of eyes they can have. If you take into account the different sizes needed, it’s crazy to have that much inventory in stock waiting to fit into the size fish on your bench. Yes, I keep lots of precolored Flex Eyes in stock, but when I have fish that have larger eyes or need different shapes and profiles, it’s always better to paint them myself.
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Publisher’s note: We had a tremendous response from the many talented winners of the Breakthrough Award for Judges’ Choice Best of Show. With so many excellent professional photos and excellent write-ups about their awards, it filled 15 dedicated pages, too many to fit into this one issue. Instead of running photos small and cutting text so that we could reduce the page numbers, we decided to honor the winners with a two-part series which will continue next issue.
Featured winners from 2019 in this issue:
- NTA Clint Rickey
- New Zealand—Louise Pearson
- Australia—Ben Carillo
- Canada—Georgie Elekes
- Alabama—Ryan Searce
- Arizona—Terry Johnson
- California—Seth Lane
- Colorado—Doug Barnes
- Florida—Mike Mizelle
- Illinois—Bruce Owens
- Indiana—Chip Wendt
- Kansas—Cory Foth
- Kentucky—Butch Irwin
- Louisiana—Lee Duet
NEXT ISSUE: 2019 BREAKTHROUGH AWARD WINNERS FROM MAINE, QUEBEC, MICHIGAN, MISSISSIPPI, MISSOURI, MONTANA, NEW YORK, NORTH CAROLINA, NORTH DAKOTA, OKLAHOMA, SOUTH DAKOTA, TEXAS, UTAH, VIRGINIA, WYOMING
To subscribe or renew, call us at 800-783-7266 or visit www.breakthroughmagazine.com.
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