• After following the freezing instructions (see below), insert specimen into a well padded, insulated box. A box lined with Styrofoam or a cheap cooler will work well. Use crumpled newspaper to suspend specimen in center box and protect it from shipping damage.
• Ship on a Monday, next day (overnight) to me. Call us ahead of time so I can watch out for it.
• YOU ARE REQUIRED BY LAW to put the following information on the outside of the box:
  Name and signature
  Address and phone number
  Type and sex of specimen/s inside
  Where collected and when
  License number

• Put them into a plastic bag after body has cooled off (inserting body head first). Take care to fold down fins or feathers against body and lay flat in freezer.
• With birds, don't leave neck stretched out. Carefully tuck head straight back to compress the neck so the bill or beak is up tight to chest - like they're napping.
• Take a photo of your fish right after you catch it - to give me the best reference to paint from. Try not to live-well it all day. If you want to mount it, get it on ice quick.
• Do not gut either. Leave them totally intact.

Deer
If you plan to get your deer mounted and can't get it to me that night, simply cape it out and freeze him until you can. If not, slippage of hair can start faster then you woudl think - this is when your deer's muscle tissue under the hair stays hot too long and bacterial growth begins causing the hair to fall out later. (Imagine taking a nice rib eye steak, warming it up to 98 degrees, putting a coat on it, and let it stay in the sun that way for a couple days. Think it would stay edible? Nope - rotten.) A caped deer left in a really cold area for a day or 2 can be OK but, not really recommended at all. The unfortunate thing is, I won't always know the extent of slippage until after your deer has been professionally tanned. No one wants to pay for a prepped and tanned cape that's no good. Take the right, simple steps and make sure your trophy is well cared for.

The Cape:

• Do not cut open chest cavity any farther forward than the front legs. Cut hide off the body, behind the front legs and tube cut the cape all the way to the base of his skull. There, cut the neck meat away leaving about 3 inches of neck attached to the head for me to use as a proper means to measure. I would prefer to skin the detailed areas above this point.
• If going on a long hunt with a guide, he'll know how to totally skin your cape and salt it when there are no freezers available. I can give you instructions ahead of time on what to do if going it alone for a long hunt.

Full Size:

• Call ahead of time for a skinning diagram or get it to me while.

Replica Questions:

What is a replica and why should I have one done?

A replica is a copy of a fish made from a mold off an actual (dead) fish. Thus, the detail is exact. The fish are casts from these molds in Urethane and Polyester resins (fibre-glass). These fish blanks made in these cured resins will not shrink and are painted with acrylic lacquers (like car paints) and coated in UV clear coats which will virtually last forever. The extra cost of generating the blank and the labor intensive paint job bring the price higher than traditional fish mounting.

Replica fish mounts are great for several reasons:

• When you catch and release a big fish or you've gone on a trip fishing in a restricted harvesting area.
• You've caught a salt water fish or trout. They are generally really oily and hard to skin mount. They are also hard to get back to a taxidermist and they taste good.
• Decoration.
• Finally, one of the most popular reasons for getting a replica done is hindsight. You had wished you would have kept a fish that you had let go for whatever reason. Just find the pictures, get me some measurements and Bam! You can have that memory back and on the wall.

There are blanks available for almost any fish in almost any size and pose you can imagine. I only work with the best blanks available.