There are 40 or so triggerfish species in the world with 6 living in the tropical waters of Florida and the Caribbean Sea, ranging as far north as the Carolinas as the summer waters warm. Triggerfish live mostly in the shallow water around wrecks and reefs but can be found as deep as 300 feet. The queen triggerfish is the most colorful and interesting of the triggerfish.

Reference photos are absolutely necessary if you are going to paint a fish that looks natural. Gather up enough to look over, but keep in mind it’s up to you if you want it dark or light and bright or dull. My choice is to make fish bright and colorful as possible.

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One area of taxidermy that seems to get neglected are deer feet. Just a few of the problems I see are feet that are over-filled, under-filled, or teeming with shrinkage. In this article I will focus on the hooves of a whitetail deer. I will take you through my procedure for creating a cast foot, then coloring the hoof, and adding detail to the finished cast.  When skinning the foot of a deer I will be mounting, I cut around the dewclaws and hoof, right at the hard surface, making sure not to cut the hair. The only other cut will be between hooves. This will give you a mount with an undetectable seam.

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My goal in writing has always been to teach and to educate, so that making a living could be fun and profitable. In this article, I will introduce new products and new and faster ways to end up with a very desirable end product, an example being fish reproductions and their parts. The process of making fish reproductions has been around for a long time, but like many other areas of taxidermy, the process has not changed for a while. Well, I have found what I think is a better way of doing it.

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FORWARD: Recently I saw a post by Joe Kish on www.Taxidermy.Net and I found it one of the most interesting writings I have read in a long time. I’m not sure how many of our readers saw this post, but I immediately knew that anyone who loves competition taxidermy needs to see and read it. The actual name for the post was Sell The Sizzle, Not The Steak – First Impressions. It is a masterpiece that I felt needed repeating. Sometimes words of wisdom like this one posted on social media get lost because of the millions of posts on the Internet and I felt this one needed to be resurrected in print for the other non-social-media followers.

Maybe we all need to visit Taxidermy.net more often. I think many of you will enjoy this essay in retrospect about thinking beyond the normal when planning for that next competition piece.

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It was with sadness and shock that I learned that Robert Holshouser passed away November 8, 2018. I first met Robert, or “Burt,”as I later dubbed him, in the late 1980s in Anchorage, Alaska. I can’t elaborate on all the specifics of Robert’s life and accomplishments, but knowing him for well over 30 years, I got to see firsthand the talents he possessed.

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