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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 Inflation is a sustained general increase in the cost of goods and services and a reduction in purchasing power of the dollar bill. If you charged $500 for a whitetail shoulder mount last year, to maintain the same pay rate (regardless of additional cost increases) this year with an inflation rate of 2.95 percent, you will need to charge $514.75 just to prevent a loss in pay from last year.

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