00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number eight one Tay. In the show, we're joined by one of the top taxidermists in Michigan, Dan Weeks, and we're grilling him about everything that we hunters have ever want to know from our taxidermists. All right, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Sick Good Gear. And today in the show, we're discussing the topic of taxidermy and everything that we hunters need to know about it to ensure that we can preserve the memory of our hunts and the animals we've killed in the best way possible. So joining us to cover this topic is one of the top taxidermists in Michigan, my personal taxidermist and friend, Dan Weeks, of Nature's Pride text Dermy. But before we get Dan the phone and dive into that topic as we do every week, to the dismay of some and the delight of others, we need to catch up with my trustee co host, Dan Johnson, so Dan, what news, what news do you bring from Iowa? Well, I want to take a moment and talk about Syrian refugees for a second. We're going there. It's just a funny story. My my town is nine people, okay, And and I don't just mean in the town. That's nine people with my town's address, okay, And that includes the farming communities all around it within miles. Right, So the governor of Iowa says no Syrian refugees in the state of Iowa. My next door neighbor slash mayor of like this bleeding liberal right he says, he says, we will Swisher welcomes all Syrian refugees. My town. My town is just exploding with like what like where are you gonna put them in your house? It's just like it is hilarious just to listen to people, Like it's one of those things where it's like, are the person who are town elected did not speak for the people, if that makes sense, not very representative of your population exactly. And it's just it is just hilarious, like all the people who are talking, like what are you thinking? I don't know that. I just thought it was I thought it was funny. So there's people like trying to find no vacancy signs and putting them up around town. And gosh, I wouldn't think of Central Iowa being a hotbed for a big political debate like this, right right, it's a it's it's funny. It's funny. But hunting. Yeah, yeah, other other than our major political things going on in the world, White Tails, you've been on hunting, right, what's going on you? Last time we talked to your friend, I was gonna jinx you. You kind of did, but I guess you know, my season is pretty much over, Like I'm I hate when you say that. You say that there's still a month and a week left of the season, right, right, Hey, Mark, how many kids do you have? I know that's your card you're gonna play, but necessarily just that. But I've spent a lot of time hunting, right, I mean not a lot, but yeah, okay for a guy with two kids and two podcasts. Well, there's the kicker. There's the kicker. I I haven't hunted year as much as I usually do. But we're going to skip all that, right, So historically and all my properties once the shotgun season starts and finishes. It's very hard to find a mature buck, and if you do find one, he's not coming out till way after dark. Right, And that's that's a typical story throughout wherever you hunt. Right. So, and I think I told you recently, I got my buddies. My buddies place fifteen acres of some of the best betting ground I've ever seen. It's so thick and nasty, dear just kind of appear out of there. Right. So, let's see this weekend Friday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night I got to hunt. I didn't get a hunt any of the mornings. My daughter is fighting ear and eye infection and my son's got something in his throat. So I've been having to stay up late and help watch the kids. And then in the afternoon they seem to feel a little better after their naps, and then I get to go out. So that buck I missed, right, I saw him. I did a running gun Friday night, and I set up and I saw, I saw the big buck. The buck I missed, and another shooter come from a different angle past where I where I was at, and I so I saw three shooters Friday night. I saw two shooters Saturday night and Sunday night, I saw the big Boy again. So I saw the Big Boy three nights in a row. But here's here's the kicker my buddy's property. There's there's a cornfield, right, this guy has a cornfield planet and it's four hunting, but I think he only gun hunts. So the first night, uh, he came through on Friday night, literally twenty minutes after I finished setting up, So like four o'clock he comes strolling through and I grunted at him, and he it looked like he was gonna come towards me, and then he dropped down in this rick and then he went up towards the corn um. And then I saw another buck chasing does in this field. The next shooter, and then the third shooter. I rattled my blind, rattled, you know, throwing hill Mary's, and he came out and no wait, I did see him. And then I rattled at him, and he came within ten yards of me. I drew back on him and he needed to come ten more yards and he stopped and then he turned around and went in different direction. He was probably one fifty class nine pointer. He was big. He was pretty big. And then the other one was a little mass like this eight pointer with split brows and just a ton of mass. He has one of the biggest necks I've ever seen. And then the other big you know, one seventy class buck. And this is like the best fifteen acre property in the world. That sounds like, right. So this this property is holding a ton of deer, almost too many deer. I don't know if you've ever been hunting in a situation where there's too many deer and they bust you all the time. I can percent relates to that in Michigan on one of the properties here, right. So, so my buddies fifteen acres does not butt directly up against this cornfield. If it did, I would have had shots at every one of these mature deer. Ex So there is I think of my buddy's property as a rectangle, all right, And then a square to the left of this rectangle is another property owner. Well, this property owner owns a strip that comes off the top right corner of this square and borders like sixty yards, like a strip just sixty yards across the north border of my buddy's property. So he owns a square and then a sixty yard rectangle thin strip on the north both in like sixty yards that it's not an easement, but it is. Literally it's a it's a creek bed basically, and then on the north side of that is this cornfield, so I can't hunt that crick. And that's where every one of these deers were coming out of this um, coming through right along this creek. Uh, you know, back and forth between the cornfield property and the creek property. And I am as far as I possibly can go on my buddy's property without jumping offense. And it is so frustrating because, you know, and the good thing is I'm learning about this property, so next year I can be in the right spot. Right have you? I know your sounds like you're out of time, But have you thought about trying decoy ever? Do you think that would ever work in this situation to poem the little extra distance. I have thought about that, but it's so thick in there that ay, they may not see it because I'm up high and they're down low. So I would have to have it right on the like on the crest, and then the other The other problem is if anything's coming up from the top and you know I've already talked about this too, that the holding winds. The winds go north and south, north and south like a teeter titer, just boom or a swing. They go back and forth. It's it's and then I finally found a place where the deer, the deer feel comfortable walking through my scent stream at a certain distance, so they're not crossing in this really really big thick part because it's literally too thick to cross, so they're going around it, which is away from me, but then circling back down to where I have the wind advantage again, if that makes sense. So it's, uh, the I tell you what, I'm not done hunting. I am gonna get after shotgun season, maybe two maybe three sets in trying to catch them come from the bed to the corn field. I'll give it a week after shotgun season so the area can settle down and then throw in some evening hunts to try to find that spot right between the betting area and the food source. And that's that's really my only hope, uh right now. So now, what about the other properties you picked up permission on close to your house? Does that do those have any late? Because I know, your your traditional property you've mentioned the past is pretty tough for the late season, and now this one you've got some options. But the other one where you got that one big buck on camera that you saw in the field, is there any late season opportunity there? The other guy is a gun hunter, um, and you know, I hunted it early season a couple of times and I did not see hardly and it had awesome betting too, but I didn't see any deer working their way through there. I didn't see any sign, so I just kind of left it alone. I didn't I don't have enough trail cameras to cover all of my properties. So there's two the two properties, um, the one where I shot the dough and couldn't find her. Uh, that's a different property. And I hunted there twice and and I saw a couple doze and one young buck and that was it. And then I, I, you know, I focus my attention on my main farm. And then once my buddy got this and I saw the three shooters on trail camera, it's like, what are you gonna do? It's no brainer. Yeah, So your buddy's property, how far away is that from your house? Uh? It's like five miles. Oh so that do you Are you ever gonna be able to get out of work? You know it the usual time and sneak up some week days. Uh yeah, on Wednesdays, um is when my wife has the day off and she can she watches the kids. So then I could probably get out to hunt on Wednesdays and maybe maybe on the weekend. Just depends on, you know, what we have going on as far as holidays. I have a big family, which means not all Christmas and Thanksgiving events take place on Christmas and Thanksgiving. So you know, you got a weekend here on a Saturday here, and you know I'm gonna try to get out and I will, But it's just one of those things where it's it just gets you know, the deer movement becomes less, and with all the big family stuff, it just becomes it just becomes you know, and it's yeah, And that's how I have it set up. I want to spend as much time in the timber during the rut and during the absolutely best parts of the year, knowing that I probably won't get a I probably won't get a hunt as much late season. Well I'm bummed for you. Man, it's all right. I mean, this isn't the first time I've ever eaten my buck tag, and it's not over yet, but this isn't the first time, and it's not going to be the last time. So I do hope. You get hope you can get back out there. And it's like, like we've talked about, you never know. One of those nights, even though chances are as good as they were maybe a week or two ago, still can happen, especially and no good find the betting if you can still find great betting, and you can get in between that betting and of um, a food source. I mean, even with the snow on the ground and it's gonna melt here, but when you know is gonna be more snow coming in the year, it's pretty easy to find a main trail coming to a food source. Throw a trail camera on that. Wait a couple of days, go back and check it. And if you see a mature buck or any deer that you want to shoot coming through that area, if you don't move it to another trail or you know, oh man, this is what I want to go. And you set up and you just you go in. You don't sit I'd never sit on a food on the field edge this on late season because more than like you know, most times these deer are going to be entering after dark or after yeah, after the sun goes down. So whatever, Yeah, that's what I do. I guess about you. Yeah, I guess some ideas to share about late season hunting, but I'll say that for next week. Um. But yeah, I am going back to Iowa. I'm sure I'm probably gonna leave this Sunday and hunt as many days as I can handle until shotguns and um, so I could be out there Sunday through Friday. Um, but I don't know. We'll see how it goes. We'll see how stuff is happening back at home and work and all that kind of stuff, and see what I can swing. I'm not sure yet, but I'm gonna go and give it one more try before shotgun season. I don't have the highest of hopes, just because I know there's a lot of guys out there that I'm sure have been hunting hard the last month, you know, since I was there last. But I'm gonna give a shot. You never can you get a shotgun tag? No, no, no, my, when you draw a nonresident. It's just for one or the other. And so I've got I've just got the archer tag. So we'll see. Hopefully I'll have some kind of story or something to share next week, and uh, we'll go from there. But well, I don't know, I don't know what. I don't know what to expect, but I guess we'll find out. So we'll find out later. We will find out later, find out later. That said, though, we do now need to stop our jabbering because our guest is waiting for us. Stand um, and we've got to dance on this show. So how about from here on, I'm gonna call you Dallas? Is that cool? Alright? Perfect? Well, then I'd say let's pause briefly for a word from our partners, and then we'll get Dan phone. So, like I mentioned, we need to take a second now to thank our sponsors of this podcast, Sick Gear, and today I wanted to continue the discussion we started last week with Sick Customer service associate Corey Piersall, and specifically I want to hear now about how Sick handles warranty issues. So Corey, what happens with warranties at Sick of Gear yeah, So warranties, we try to be as proactive as we can. So we always motivator, you know, advise you if you have any concerns whatsoever, something that's just out of the norm, you know, something that is out of your control that fails for a product, just call us. You know, we'll walk you through and see what we can do what happened, whether it's repair, whether it's a replacement. Um in regards to you know, fun warranties, I know it's never fun for that individual when they have a warranty issue, but for us, it's always about making sure that you're taken care of, and you know, we're totally open to any suggestions that you have in order to make sure that you're ready for whatever experience that you have coming up, any hunt, etcetera. So a lot of times guys won't identify our warranty until they're putting everything together, you know, just getting ready for the hunt, which then limits, you know, the time that we have in order to get a replacement to you if we need to. So even if it's one of those situations where you need it and we know we can repair it, it's more important for us to make sure you're the right product at the right time. And so you know a lot of times I've had, you know, a situation where I'm like, well, I can't get it to you in time, but on your travel, if you can stop at a retail location, grab it off the shelf, I'll pay for it with the retail associate over the phone, easiest at and you're good to go on the way. So we really keep an open mind and and try to work with you too resolve any kind of situation that we can. So there you have it, and I can attest to this warranty policy myself. I actually had an issue with a piece of gear a couple of years ago. I gave them a call and just a few days later, boom, without any hassle, I had a new set of rain gear come my way. So pretty cool stuff. If you'd like to learn more about Sick of Gear, visit sick of Gear dot com. And now let's get Dan Weeks on the phone. All right with us. Now on the phone is Dan Weeks of Nature's Pride Taxi Derby. Welcome the show. Dan, Thank you, I appreciate you having me on here. And uh, like I said earlier, so definitely an honor to be asked to be part of your podcast, so look forward to it absolutely. Why why are you laughing, Dallas? You don't think that's you don't think it's honored to be on the Show's that's the first time I've ever said it's it's such an honor to be on this show. You know what? You know? Do you know who I am? Yeah, it's not if you met me in real life, it's not. He's definitely not referring to you down. Okay, all right, uh so, so Dan, you've you know, you've listened to the podcast, you know who we are. But for everyone who's listening who doesn't know who you are, could you give us a brief introduction about who you are, what you're currently doing related tax Durmy, and maybe how you got into it. Yes, for sure, yep, yep again. My name is Band Weeks and we are in Jackson County, Michigan. The name of our business and it's just it's me and my wife, Emily, and our business is Nature's Pride Tax Journey. She I've been doing Tax Journey since about nineties three. Um my wife started in about two thousand one. So together we've that quite a few years doing it. We do have some outside help a little bit now and then, but uh, and our main thing is we really got started with a white tails Jackson County. We're kind of an area down here where it's traditionally been some of the trophy areas for white tails. So and obviously that's getting better every year too. But white tails are the main thing. But we do a lot of African here to a lot of African mounts, a lot of bears, um, a lot of different exotics. So fortunate enough to get to work from pretty much all over the United States, and so you need all different types of people and in this business, and again we're fortunate for that too. So but that's the main thing white tails. That obviously right now we're we're knee deep in white tails and it's written the peak of the season. So that's about everything it's on my mind right now has to do with white tails. We're hunters too, so not only we're out here with the white tails every day and all the hunters talking deer hunting. That you go to bed and you think about where you're gonna go the next day, and uh, if you get time to get out to hunt, you know. So it's uh, but that's kind of a wrapped up version of what we do and who we are, and it's it's pretty much all family that helps us out here too, so we take pride in that. So you guys have got a great operation there. And uh, I personally, you know, obviously you know this, Dan, but you are my personal tax numbers two. And I've always been really happy with the work you've done. And I guess say it's it's a lot of fun. Whenever I have a deer to drop off, I just get a kick out knowing I'm gonna stop by the shop and get to hear the stories of what's coming in and who shot one and how things are looking. Uh, that's pretty fun. So I'm curious how you know you mentioned the fact your knee deep in white tails right now? How have things been looking? You know, gun season here in Michigan open just over a week ago. What's uh, what's happening, what's coming in? Well, you know, I would say overall, this is probably the busiest we've ever been, um this quick for for the white tail season. The bow season was a real strong bow season. It was pretty steady it wasn't all like a lot of times the hits you know, or that gets real busy right a on Halloween. But it's been the roof study this year, even early season. Um and we but it's far as the gun season here in Michigan, it's been just absolutely crazy. The quality of the deer is way up. I think as far as what we've been taken into the shop. The age of the bucks is way up. It used to be back in like the nineties. You know, you look at what we had to Mountain, I would say eight percent of the deer back then, we're a year and a half olds, and then you'd be excited to see a two and a half. And then you know, one out of every probably sixty deer was a three and a half or four and a half. You know, that was a real big deal. And now I would say we've maybe got three or four year and a half old bucks, um, and they're usually you know, younger kids. Michigan's lowered age for that. There's a lot of young kids hunting now, and so you get a younger buckets used the younger kids or somebody that just started hunting, and they might be sixty years old and they just got their first deer and it's a you know, it's a year and a half old, three point or four point or five point they're just as proud of it. But the quality Bucks is definitely here in Michigan, way way up. And um, I see that every year. It's a great trend to see. Do you hear a lot of people thinking, saying and talking about, well, you know, we're doing it my neighbors not. I think that such a high percentage of the people are doing it now that I'm really seeing a big difference, at least in the in our tax germy studio. So, which is is nice to see, you know, it's really good to see that. So we've been extremely busy, uh this last week, so I guess it's nice to take a break and not not have to be skinning every second about all we've done since starting Monday, I think. So. So here's a question I'm kind of curious about. You know, when I imagine the life of a taxidermist, I think of some of the things you mentioned a couple of minutes ago, like how great it is to your life is you know, white tails night and morning? You know, you're either working on them, or you're actually out hunting or you're dreaming about them. But do you actually get to hunt all that much or are you stuck just dealing with all the deer that everybody else hunted. Is there a well, no, there is, but it's a great question. But Uh, me and my wife both love to be in the woods enough that we can we can kind of jockey things where at least one of us is out. Um I'm more so me than her. When gun season starts, she kind of quits hunting. But the bow season is probably when we get most of our time to be in the woods. So we try to get as much earlier in the season as we can because it does as busy as it gets, it's just you can't let things go. So like, as far as gun season this year, I think I've probably got maybe six or seven hours of sitting time. Um and my wife, I think she went open a day and she just went't sat up in the camp or back in the woods. So it was more of a relaxing thing for her. So yet know, there is a downside to it when it comes to that, but the upside is there's so much more upside to being a tax germist and getting to see all the great bucks that are out there and talk to the people and hear their stories, and so you almost feel like you're you're living at anyway, whether you're in the tree stand or not. So it's uh, I wouldn't trade as much as I love to hunt, I wouldn't trade the the part of not having h not being able to go out in the tree once in a while or go out and fit uh in trade for being here in the shop. So yeah, that I think some people would have a hard time handle that that really like to hunt. But you know, I still think we get out as much as um probably more than people would think. Has anybody ever brought in a deer that you were hunting? Oh yes, oh yes, that's a hard one. And then and usually when they do, I get it mounted right away and then I don't call them for a while. That way I can depend like it's mine on the wall, No life had that happened. It's uh, it's she's a neighbor, you know. And actually that's a to me. That's a good thing too, because then you know where the animal went and you get to see it up close and personal, and so it's uh, you know, I think the first time that happened, it was it was like a little bit devastating, but at the same time you get used to it, you know what I mean, And and you see it with everybody else too. There was a guy in here yesterday and I know Mark Free hill Dale County where he lives and hunts, and I don't take a lot of Hillsdale County bucks in, but I had one unique, very nice rack sitting there on the shelf, and a guy brought in a buck for his girl or his wife, and he started telling me about this deer that he was obsessed with in it's really trying hard to get a shot at and seen him all summer and all fall, and he said he disappeared at the end of October and he's getting a picture out and he turned around and the rack is sitting late behind him on my shelf, and he just about the look on his face. It was it's kind of sad to see how how devastated he was. And I mean with the chances of you know, the one rack I had from Hillsville, or maybe I've got a half a dozen from Hillsdale County and happened to be the deer that he was kind of obsessed with training to get a crack app so you you see it. You see that got quite often. Actually, I got a buddy of mine that was out hunting in Iowa with me a few weeks ago, and he had another front of his was hunting the same property. He was so um my buddy had killed a buck, but he was still trying to shoot to deal the next day and he was out there with his other friend on this property and that friend had this big eight point that he'd been after all year, you know, had tons of pictures of him and was kind of obsessing about and was really excited again an opportunity, and he just checked cameras and saw you know that he was on there recently again. So like him and court my buddy Corey were walking up to uh, back to the trucks and they're talking about, you know, where do you fannish to sit to hunt this buck? You know, I wonder if he's gonna come through to night, all this kind of stuff. And as they're doing that, a pickup truck drives by with another hunter that hunts the same property. Down a section or two from them and they get to talking and he's like, oh, yeah, I shot a nice buck yesterday morning, and like, oh, let's see the pictures, and boom, it's the one buck that that guy and the friend had been in processing about two So it's just, man, I think it's tough to handle. I know from what I hear. You know, that was a bummer for him, of course. So for sure, I've seen it a lot. It's a it's hard to deal with that. You get such a personal connection with these animals, you know what I mean. Like you get pictures of them and you name them, and you know, you just you try to outthink them. And then somebody and a lot of times it's not always, but you see a lot of times it ends up being somebody who maybe hunts one day a year, you know, and they they have two acres and they go out and sit down and and boom, there's there's this buck, you know, And that's just kind of the way it goes. It's it's part of what you I guess we gotta get used to harder, to get used to it as beer hunters, you know. And I get to see it more in here because a lot of people will call me and say, hey, you know, there's this is where I hunt. If you had anything described like this take brought in you know, and it it kind of makes it relieves them a little bit to know there I'm not because there if they don't know about it, they're out still hunting this animal and I can't figure out where he's at, and so, uh, that's one of the things we just see quite often. Actually, Yeah, that's one of the kind of love hate things of trail cameras that I think trail cameras have really the have really brought this to a forefront, the fact that you can get to know these dear so much by pictures and you kind of feel like it's quote unquote your dear at least the dear year hunting. Um. It becomes really exciting but also especially devastating when it ends up getting shot too if it's not you so so so Dan. Most of what I want to talk about today is related to things that hunters need to be thinking about when it comes to taxidermy and what they need to be doing to make sure they get you know, the animal from the field to the taxidermist, write and a bunch of stuff like that. But before that, I want to ask one question for maybe a smaller segment of our audience, but for those people that are actually interested in doing what you do. You know, as we just talked about some of the benefits of being a taxidermist and stuff like that, you know, for someone who wants to be a taxidermist someday real quick, you know, how how can someone go about getting into that. I was fortunate because I had graduated from college and I was big into trapping, and I was trapping fox on a farmer's property, and he was a tax dermist, and he was to the point where he was still doing a little bit, but he was kind of looking for someone to mentor and to bring in, and he went he wanted to learn a little bit about trapping. So I got fortunate he come out on the trap line with me and he invited me to come in and learn a little bit about taxidermy, and it just, you know, just boomed from there. So I was fortunate in that way, and that can a lot of times that does happen. Somebody gets somebody to mentor them. Um, But more often than not, I think nowadays, people that are really seriously interested, we'll take courses. They have courses that they offer in different states. I know, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin all have courses, even in Michigan, and they take that and then they have to get specimens of their own and start working on and trying to get better. And you can watch YouTube videos and you can you went back in the day, it was you know, VHS, cassette you could rent and watch and DVDs. But I think a lot of the people that are real serious about it will take the classes. And I think and I've had people, you know, that have come to me and want me to try and teach. And we're at the point now where we're so busy trying to get the work done ourselves. It's hard. I've had interns from colleges come in and work with us, and you know, it's it's it's they're great people, and you know, we're learning with them as much as they're learning from us. But it's really tough for a lot of tax journists that are busy, that are busy trying to get the work done and make a living at it. So it's hard to tell people know, you know, But like I, like I said, I got lucky had. It was an older guy that uh, you know, he did it because you know it was in love with what he did, and he just kind of got a little bit tired, you know, and then he started doing it big again with me. And so that's that's how work, you know. But you still have to um, you have to be so diligent and in getting your own specimens and you're gonna, you know, you're gonna do some stuff that doesn't look so great, and that's how you get better and do start doing work for friends. And you gotta like the you know, the getting dirty and getting bloody and long hours. You know, you say that about long I said about long hours, and it's not always any business. You've got to put a lot of time and self discipline. But like you were asking about me beer hunting, and it's we're out here till eleven o'clock at night almost every single night working and we're working Saturdays and Sundays this time of year, you know, So you you give up things to to to be able to do the things you want. So you have the classes I think are probably the biggest way for someone to get started. Mark. That's that's good to know, I know, there's I get occasional emails from people, you know, curious about that type of thing. So that's that's good that you know, there are some resources out there for people interested, so yes, and if they look online. I know there's three or four real big h schools that offer it. And it doesn't always you know, the more money you pay, the better um education you're gonna get it. I know people that have paid a lot of money and never you know, to take the classes and not really um come out of it being able to do much with text journey. So you still got to do a lot on your own, you know, so all the times on how much they want to get into it. So here's a here's sometimes kind of thinking about as you say this, you know, there's there's a class for sounds like there's some classes to learn about taxidermy and stuff and so us. You know, I imagine there's some basic processes that you go through and kind of one, two, three, four basic steps you go through. Is taxidermy like an assembly line type thing or is it an art you know, is it something that require some innate talent artistry to it or is it something that you can basically follow a step by step instructure and anyone can do it. I think both, um I do. I mean when you when you're doing a lot of animals, when you're you know, doing a lot of should amounts for a lot of life size, you've got a kind of treat it, um like the assembly line thing. Meaning instead of just doing a deer one day and then a fish the next day and uh, you know, a kudu the next day. UM. For me to be efficient, I try to do deer certain times of the year and then I'll take a break and maybe do a once of asking animals, you know what you mean. So it's it's you kind on a switch over there, like different gears. Even with Emily with the turkeys show show Quitton just she likes to set aside a certain two or three months just to do turkeys and and and something like that. I mean, it really does take an artistic flare. I think you can mount an animal and have it presentable. But if you don't have that artistic um extra flare or artistic uh I it's you know, there's a big difference. It really is. Especially as you do you do more and more and get better and better at it, so you know, you can see the difference to you can see people who just do it just to get a few done every and the people who really have the artistic flare. And another thing with like tax gre I mean, you can never think you're as good as you can get and you never think that you're the best, because there's always someone who has different ideas and different ways of doing things. So you always for us, we always we go to the shows. We always try to get better and and have an open mind a different ways of you know, whether it's airbrushing a deer or putting together or a turkey or any of that. You know, there's always new things and in new ways and for the industry, so which you know at this day and age were fortunate because and thirty years ago you didn't have many resources. Just you know, there's magazines now that are dedicated just to taxidermy art um so any likely building bases. You've seen some of the stuff we do in here with building bases, and that's that's where you really start getting to put together your your ideas and your say activity and and it's nice to have more than one person die for that too, you know, those two of us work together and we can take constructive criticism and usually we can take destructive criticism amongst each other, you know, so that part helps. Yeah, that's cool. I the art side of taxidermy. He's always intrigued me. And maybe it's what I appreciate the most when you can, you know, kind of like you said, I think you can tell when a piece of tax dermy is done by someone who really pays attention to the details and the things and taking it to the next level, versus the person who just kind of ships him out the door. And um, you know, personally, I've always found and and really why you know, one of the reasons I keep working with you is because I've always seen that attention to detail, the little things, the little tiny attention to detail just makes the that really special thing so much more special. And you know, these mounts, these animals represent, you know, such such passionate memories and experiences and things like that that it's it's so nice to be able to see it represented so lifelike and with such a such attention to detail and care put into it. That and I appreciate that kind of thing. Um, while we're on while we're talking about this, once I I was, I'm not sure if you know Joe Meter or not. He's he lives close to me, and um, I was talking with him a couple of years back and he had he took a flashlight out right and he was he was pointing it in all like the nose and on the eyes and showing me. Because when I look at it from from a wall, I look at amount and I go, WHOA, that's really good or that looks cool, or that looks cool. But I don't know what the specific details are what makes a tax it or miss as far as details are concerned, average or great for details, I think like like you're talking about looking into the nose and looking at the septum and seeing the right coloration and the right shape, and a lot of hunters would would not appreciate that, but like for us, we try. I mean, that's one of the things you try to get better at every year. But also you try to do the same amount of detail for every single deer. And I know Mark appreciates that he sees the detail he's talking about, but you might have the next nine guys that you know, they really don't care. A lot of guys just want a big neck, you know what I mean. Or and that's the other thing that you can only do so much with. You only make a deer, you know what I'm saying, it's as big or small as it was. But the the detail too, of the eyes. I think that's the biggest thing for the expression that you're trying to get for the animal. Know, you always ask the hunter, how do you remember it? How do you want to remember it? Do you want it like it's alert looking at you? And then you change the eyes as you change years. You know, it's it's it's It sounds simple, but it's and it actually is simple when you do it a lot. But you have to change the expression according to how they want, if they want to be relaxed or looking alert. But I think the eyes, that the detail in the eyes, even the whiskers um if you the tannery that does a really good job at tanning, you get all the you know, every deer has a different amount of whiskers. You might have an early season buck that has such pronounced uh whiskers coming out of its no its nostrils and the sides of its muzzle and down underneath its chin. And then we actually put like a little bit of a it's it's a little bit of a like an epoxy that clings to the whiskers and it shows like they're breathing and their breath is freezing to their whiskers. And I think some people notice that some people don't. But that's kind of little details. Even making sure the high is the hair side of the deer is just so clean, you know. I mean you see someone that are still dusty and so little things like that, even like with life size animals, you see some basis that are just a rock and then you see some that you know, you try to do the spring habitat if it was a spring animal, or the fall habitat. And I think them are little details that you know, and you could go on and on and on for each species of animal. But um, the details that my wife puts on our heads, Emily does on the turkey heads. It's amazing to see um expressions you can get just by changing the color on the turkey heads, you know. So and like I said, not everybody notices that, and not everybody knows you know, good detail from no detail at all, but a few hunters that are seasoned, and it really can tell and they appreciate that. And that's what you know, that's why you've got a kount. You have to do it for all the amounts, and that's what whether that's what people do know the hunters end up appreciating to about it. Yeah, the whisker thing you mentioned with a little bit of glisten to it, I've always I've always noticed that on my mounts and just thought looks really cool. So people do notice that ship that one. So the other sorry, the other thing I know Dan with dance question. I mean sometimes you'll see a deer that's some guys like a big turn in it. Instead of like a twenty degree turn, they'll do like a forty five or seventy degree turn, and then you do some some muscle detail and wrinkles um in the neck where it's turned, and even some shoulder muscles and some in the early season deer you try to do the You'll watch you look at a live deer in early season that short hair, and with African animals too, and you see the jar muscles and even the veins that go through the face um that you know up around the rostroom and that and even the veins in the ears that's one of the things you can show with a shorter haired animals that uh, that little longer hair. And if you do, what kind of is overdone? But you know you, I'm sure Dan, you've had some mounts done and you've been able to see the difference. Because I know Joe Meter, We've I've taken actually some seminars of his, so I know he's about as good as they get at that. Yeah, I've heard good things about about him as well. So I want to take a step back now into the woods. Um, you know, this is something I think a lot of guys maybe haven't heard about. Maybe just a buddy told and we'll do this and that's what they do, but maybe haven't heard from an actual taxidermist. So for a guy a girl who just shot up deer, let's let's assume it's a buck just shot. This buck has now recovered it. What does this hunter need to think about, you know, in detail? What are all the things he or she needs to think about to get that deer from on the ground right now? To you or whoever their tax deermist is in the best shape possible, What do they need to be thinking about? How do they need to be gutting it, cleaning it, transporting it to make sure they can get the best mount possible. Yep, you know that. I would say for most hunters, they know how to properly you know, clean and gut a deer um and field dressed it. The biggest mistake I see is people cutting up too far on the brisket. Usually as far as you can go with your knife with the brisket bone stopped, that's the best place to stop. And you can still rely feel addressed it at that point. Um, for a shoulder amount, you can still remove the testicles. A lot of the guys that want life size mounts, um, we've done a lot of life size mounts with no testicles attached. Um. And you know we we work with that, but usually try to leave those attached or a life size now. But the other things you have to think about the weather. Obviously, if it's if it's really warm, um, you've got to get it either to the tax dumers. We cape a lot of deer. We have a lot of people, especially this last week, wouldn't being warm. Um. A lot of hunters are afraid that the meat processor going to correctly kate their deer and the meat. The professional meat processes do a very good job of cape, dear, but you can never take it to a meat processor, have them tape and just leave it there and think it's going to be taken care of properly until you come and get it. I've had guys take them uh to a meat process or leave them there and then it gets set and just stay cooler for two weeks and then they bring it back and it's it's it's dried out and it's starting to hour and hair starting to pull out. So always be diligent about either waiting for it to get caped or taking it to a taxidermists. UM that will cape it for you. We don't charge anything to do that, and that way it's done correctly. UM. A lot of hunters will try to cape the deer themselves, and the biggest mistake we see there and I give them a lot of crowd trying to do it themselves, but the biggest mistake is not necessarily leaving the cape too short, but not doing it properly around the front legs. UM. And that's another thing that you look online. There's there's diagrams that are drawn that show you how to do it in the best way to do that is to cut it off just above the knees, between the knee and the brisket and then sock your arm the leg back through and then it's done properly, and then the pax germers can make the cut. And never let your deer set once you've got a cape. You know, if it's if it's forty degrees or less, you can let them hang for a while. If it's much warmer than that, um, they actually stay better hanging than they do. A few cape them and then throw them in a ball in the corner, which I have people do to you know, hunters that bring them in and they've been sitting in a ball even if it's cold. The ears are the first thing to dry out, uh, and that makes it tough. The other thing is to try and get it once you get a cape, to get it right into a freezer. If you can't get to the taxidermists, and if you do freeze the head, because usually you still have the whole head with the cape attached, it's best at least triple bag it. And again the biggest thing is is the nose and the ears that get freezer burnt um. You know that it'll fit for properly. If it's properly bag you can actually probably put a deer head into a freezer for a year if it's much more in a year, unless it's you know, wrapped in a three or four bags and then maybe some towels on the outside to help insulate it, then you're gonna start getting the freezer burned. But and you can get getting blood all over the a lot of you. You get excited, you get the deer down and you recovered it, and you're gutting it and you're getting blood on the hide and everything and on the horns. That doesn't hurt anything. That when it goes to the tanning process they get so perfectly cleaned up that you never know a thing like that. The other thing that we have once in a while come up that makes it tough to do a perfect amount is when they think they have to slit the throat to kill it to put it out. It's misery. You can that's one of the total known knows is to take a knife and try the number one is dangerous. But the other thing is you almost always because it cuts so much hair and it's on part of the mouth that's going to show. You almost never can get it properly repaired after that. So um, that's another one of that no knows. We see a little bit of everything, but the biggest thing is just to watch the weather and and get it taken care of as soon as you can. Um, you know, depending on what the you know the temperature is outside. And another bad thing is that you don't want to get them wet. You don't want to stick them in a cooler with ice and then let the ice melt because the water breeds bacteria so much quicker than if it's dry. So that's another thing not to do is to not get it on ice and then let it get wet, or to to to spray the whole thing out and then let it hang for a while, because that's again it breachs bacteria really quick. Do you do you ever get people that try to completely skin it out themselves, like you know, keep the actual skull and all that. Is that something that you have people trying to do and messing up for you? Or is that something that most people don't even try. A few people do, and usually that's somebody that's gone out west or they're at a you know, like you see it more with elk um and sometimes the antelope and sometimes the western deer, but not very often. Not many people unless they've you know, they've worked for a taxidermist or help the tax germist before. Not many people will try to skin it off the head. Outfitters will, and usually they do a good job. Another thing I've seen hunters do is, well, I can't get it to a tax roomers, so they take the head, they flip it open the cape, and then they pour a bunch of salt on it. And that's really bad too, because it'll it will help keep the hair set into the hide, but the whole rest of the animal, meaning the head and the neck where the meat is, that's going to start spoiling. And then it makes it tougher for the taxidermist to properly clean the hide off once there's all that meat and fat stuck to the hide, and then you've got the salt drying it out, and it's really tough to even with adult like a flatide a lot of guys like to have. They might shoot a big a buckets maybe not mountable, or a big dough or it's the child's first animal. They want to have the hide tan, they'll just leave, they'll fault it and then let it dry. And that's that's that's one of the things that shouldn't be done that that should be treated. Just like a shoulder mountain. You need to roll it up with the skin side in and then put it in the bag and two or three bags and freeze it if you can't get it to a taxer. And the same with a coyote or a fox or any life size animal. They green up so quick in the belly that you know, a lot of hunters now and missing are shooting kyotes and they want to do something with them, and they let them set for two or three days and and then you've got you know, you start losing hair on the belly because of that. That's one of the things that needs to get in the freezer right away. And a lot of guys don't have the freezer room. So that's when you need to get ahold of the tax turn us right away. Yeah. So so something that I just thought of when you were mentioning, you know, people going out west. Um, I had this question when I was heading out west. Well, me and me and Dan slash Dallas. We're talking about going to do an early season mule deer hunt, and I started wondering, you know what if I shot a buck in velvet and there's a lot of states now where guys can white tail hunt bucks that are still in velvet, how do you go about handling that? How do you preserve that if you shoot a buck in velvet to get it back to the taxidermist in good form. A deer in the velvet is that's a touchy subject. You really have to you have about twenty four hours or less again to going on the weather to do something with that, because using the velvet, they're still really full of blood, and the earlier in the season, the more blood they're going to have in there than their antlers and in their veins. But I ran into that once and I had just started doing text. I mean I was maybe a year into it, and we had shot a My brother shot a mule deer in the velvet. Well while we had was a little syringe from his beastam kit because he was loaded to bees and we had fault. We were in the wilderness area. So what we did is we cooked some water, boiled some water, saturated it with salt, but it cool took the syringe and then started injecting. You can feel the veins. You can start injecting them from the tips and it pushes the salt water, displaces the blood and it comes out of the main veins that go up through the pedicle of the the antler. And that was back in I think, And now we've got it's still sitting here in my trophy room and we never lost a single piece of It's just perfect. And so the timing was right. Though we did it right away. We did it probably what started on it within three or four hours of when the animal was dead. The other option is to get it on dry ice. Get it as quickly as you can on dry ice. Put the dry ice on top of the antlers, um put maybe a towel or something in a rag between them so it doesn't stick to the antlers. You're more than likely going to have to split the skull plate in that case. Put them both down in a cooler and they get some dry ice. Or if you have access to a freezer, if you know somebody, or even the meat processor in the closest town music and give them twenty or thirty bucks and I'll let you freeze the whole the antlers right in there. What we do now is we we have a freeze dryer that we use and what we'll do is split the skull plate, freeze the antlers and then we can overnight them. Or we have one freeze drive is close enough that we drive halfway and meet them, drive two or three hours and they drive to or three how we meet them, get it to them and then they put it in the freeze dryer and that's worked out really well. So then there's there's antler uh, there's a velvet kits that you can buy. You can ask your tax numbers to get one for you and they can send it with you and kind of teach you the basics of just it's a syringe and there's an antler tank or velvet tan and from alb hide is one of the old ways of doing it. So there are is more than one way to do it. But the biggest thing is it's got to be done quickly. It's got to be done at the very least within twenty four hours. You see it with caribou where guys will inject say the antlers. Well, the other is going to come off for sure, and it's gonna look bad, and it almost looks worse than if you just peeled the all off, you know what I mean. So and sometimes just shoot an animal, whether it's a caribou or a mule deer or a white tail in the velvet and if it's set point where it's starting to shut on its own, it's really hard to make it permanent at that point. So that's when you would need to take them, put them in cold water or some salt water, and let them set and then you can peel. What the salt water does soak the blood rate out of the actual antler, and you can peel all the velvet off and then peel and then set it back in the water. That cold salt water will actually suck that, uh, suck the moisture and the blood rate out of the actual antler itself so it doesn't stain. You know, you end up getting the red stain everywhere if you don't do that from the blood. Wow. Well, uh, I guess I'm kind of glad I didn't shoot one because I would have probably screwed it up. It's really hard. We've had deer from Kansas you know, that's one of the states. You can go early muz load and they have the velvet and they'll take it to a deer processor and say, well, you know, be careful, and then when they get it back, um, three cores of velvet's been marred up, and because there's so tender that the antlers are at that point, so they've really got be handled carefully. So it's hard. They do have a spray on velvets you can send in and have them um an artificial velvet put on the animals the antlers, but to me, it just it is never as realistic looking as the the actual animal and velvet, and they're they're gorgeous mount if you can, if you can do it right, you know, and it's takes a lot of research ahead of time and planning and preparation if you plan on um harvesting an animal that does have velvet. So it takes the right type of person and personality to be able to do that on your own as a hunter, you know, especially if you're up in the world in this area or somewhere where you don't have someone else to help you out with it. Yeah, that seems pretty darned difficult. So so moving on in the process, then, let's say taking taking a step back to what we're talking about just before velvet, you know, properly handling your deer in the field to get it to the taxidermist. Uh, this might be a tricky one for you, given the fact that you are a taxidermist. But do you have any advice for the person who does have you know, a set tax of dermans already? You know that maybe this is the first deer and they don't have a buddy that says just go here. Um, is there any you know advice and you know how to make sure that the tax defermonts I pick is legit or half decent or anything like that. You're right, that is kind of tough. I've never honestly ever been to another text Drman Studio except for the U Ray Dawson's who taught me taxes or me and so, um, I guess I've never thought about how to go about getting ahold other tax some I think some people, you know, well, our work is a pent word of mouth. All of our customers come word of mouths. So that's how it works for us, because there's always a buddy that says, well, you know, one guy one hunter might call four, but four friends at hunt and three out of the four say go here, so that you know obviously they're going to try that place out. But I would actually probably if it was me, I would go to the studio and look at some of the mounts they have and and look and make sure it's something you know, even if you've never had one done, I think you can kind of tell first impression. Um. One of the good questions to ask is turnaround time. Um, do they have the heights professionally tan? We always centers out to be professionally tanned, and I think that's really important. Some guys don't. Some guys do it on their own. They tan. Uh. There's quick pans and powder tans and soap pans that they can use. And you know, a lot of these mounts are their heirlooms, will will last forever if they're taking care of and tan properly. So I guess I would ask those questions and then look at look at the mounts that they have, you know, and see if you may it may look good to you now, and then you get more seasoned at it and you've had three or four done, and you may see different you know, qualities that you do and don't like of other tax germists. But yeah, you know they start a lot of guys starting the phone book. If they don't have friends that hunt, that's probably the first place they look. Or at websites, you know, look at a website and see some of the work it's on the website and maybe call, uh, well, I guess I don't even know if he would have references for something like that, you know, call the tax fermist, n ask for a reference. Obviously he would give you a number to someone who's happy. So that wouldn't do you all a lot of good that I don't know, Mark, I mean your first mount, did you? You probably went with um some of your friends recommendations, right, Is that how you did it? Yeah? Yeah, for me, it was it was word of mouth, just you know, hearing from different people about who they trusted. And I imagine that's probably, like you said, how people do find their text nest yep, yep. So it would be tough. I mean if you don't have any knowledge of it and other friends that have done it and know which way to steer you, I guess that's The biggest thing is to ask the questions of places. Obviously a factor in a lot of people's decision. Some people don't. They just want the best job done that they can. Some people want the cheapest job they can have done, you know, um, and they don't care about turnaround time. So you've got to take I think all that in consideration and then also be able to look at their mounts and make sure you know it's tanned and uh professionally tan. That all that makes a big difference. Dan do you take do you take on all work or do you ever refer someone to another taxidermist? We from what we specialize in, you know, like with bears and deer and ascan animals. We we've never had to get to the point where we've had to say no. Um. We've had with fish. We totally quit doing fish. UM. There's years where we do say no to like the small animals, the coyotes and the fox and the raccoons and um. This year is a year where we're going to pretty much stop taking in the small animals for a while. We just can't, you know, you can't handle it all. And it's just it's me and Emily, I that do everything at this time of year. We have a sister and a brother and a couple of brother in laws that come help us. That really helps out with the skinning end of it and that. But you know, so yeah, we've never had to get to the point where with like with white tailed deer and ascan animals and exotics that we've had to say no. But you have to pick some things. And like I said, this year, even with the turkeys, Emily will have her limit. She will take in use the fifteen turkeys and then she's done. That's it. She won't take anymore. So people don't like it to tell them no, and they don't like to hear no. So that's a hard thing to do sometimes. But we do refer even with waterfowl, um, you know, the ducks and the geese and that in the pheasants, we quit doing any of that too because you just you can only do so much that and that's you know, does that answer your question day and like that? It does? Yep, yep, it's um. You know, some years this year we could get that point. With deer, we've taken in way more than we normally do at this point of the season, and it may slow down. You know, who knows what's going to bring muzzleloading. But this year has been the first year for us that we've actually had the freeze a few hides as we're taking them off the head, partly because it was warm early in the in the gun season, but uh, it's it's you know, we're how many do we do? UM? You typically on a normal year around the one seventy five for deer, you know, like shoulder mounts, and then UM, last year we were a little over two hundred, and we're definitely gonna be over two h U year, we're probably gonna be you know, to to fifty UM. And if we hit that, that's when we're gonna have to start saying no, because that's about what we can can physically handle mentally and physically handle. UM. But the thing I've noticed over the years is sometimes you have a lot of guys going bear hunting, and you take in more bears and normal and you do a lot of life sized mounts, and then you may have a few less white tails UM, or you may have a lot of white tails and a lot of African animals because you know, you may get two hunters to go to Africa and they'll bring back twenty or thirty animals, So it doesn't take a lot of hunters to really start building up, you know, your your African mounts, and then you may have less bears. You may only get a couple or three, two or three bears. So it always seems to work itself out. The one thing for us is we've always had like an eight month turnaround or less bow bucks, you know, both animals that are shot during both season. We may get them done in three months because the tannery is not totally full. And um, we were up the tannery today actually and uh we've got hides that we were picking up from the youth. So we're going to have them done for Christmas for people, for the kids, you know, all the young kids that shot dear. So, um, it just depends on every year. But h yeah, so normally this most years are right around that hundred seventy two years, so I know we're gonna be wall above that this year. So I'm little worried Dan because I'm heading to Iowa next Sunday, hopefully still gonna fill my Iowa tag. Am I gonna get am I gonna get turned down? If it, bring it over. No, no, no, no, I won't special treatment now, No, that'd be a bad thing. No, I don't think we're going to get that point with white tails over half. So, like I said, we're gonna start telling I quit doing Kyo Kyote's h skinning them years ago because we got so busy. Well, then Emily started taking over the skinning and she enjoys it. But just to the point now where we've got so much other to do that you know, you gotta you gotta pick something that you have to say no to. And like I said, it's hard to tell a customer no, especially we have a lot of loyal customers, and so you know, if it was a new person, would be a lot easier than tell him. You know, one of your loyal customers that brings their friends out here and they're here every year with something to tell him, no, we can't do it. So the other option, I guess is to hire somebody or get a little longer lag time, you know, so that may that may end up happening, but we're still I think a lot of tax germists I hear, you know, a year sometimes two years on turnaround, and we always try to keep it at ten months or less, unless it's something like like the coyotes. When people bring him in, I always say, you know it's going to be it maybe six months, and it maybe a year. But that's just you know, if you want that done, that's one of the things you have to wait a little bit longer for. All. Right now, before we get to our next question for Dan, we do need to pause for a word from one of our sponsors of this podcast episode, Ozonics, and today we're going to hear from another ozonics user, Bill McCall, a full draw a ventures, as he discusses how zons has changed the kind of success he's seen as a deer hunter. Thinks, I've learned how to use azonics effectively, you know, being conscientious of every factor, just like any other thing you do when you're hunting. As you do it, you learn more about it. You learn how to be more effective. Being conscientious of my unit, being over my head directly, uh, you know, using the extension body's offered bosonics. Being conscientious of wind by using wind checkers at all times, multiple times during your hunt, uh, to make sure that the wind doesn't shift on you. Um. On average, I get get away with seventy per cent of all my down wind encounters from the worst case scenario for the best case scenario, and that's from one year old, dear to seven or eight year old deer um, which is phenomenal, you know, in my opinion. Um. And I never harvested to mature deer a year with a bowling era until I started using a zonic. Interestingly, this was my first year I've ever killed two bucks with my bow too, and I'm confident that my ozonics helped, at least in part to make that possible, as I had Dear downwind of me during both encounters and none of them spooked. So if you're interested in learning more about ozonics, visit osonics hunting dot com. And now back to the show. So continuingly down the down the line now kind of I keep on bouncing back to this kind of progression that I'm thinking through. Um, we've got our taxiderm is picked out. Now we show up at the taxiderma studio and again thinking here, I I don't know anything. Let's say, do you have any advice for picking the right form the right mount for you, dear? You know, assuming that you want to do a shoulder mount um. You know, I think most people try to show up and look around and say I like that. But do you have any advice for how to pick the right one, or is there a certain form or style that looks best for a big deer versus a small deer or Iowa deer versus a Michigan or anything like that, like high level tips you can get for picking the right m Oh yeah. I try to do that with everybody that walks on the door. And you've got a few guys will come in and they've been through it several times, so they know exactly what they want and how they want it turned, and how they want the years and the expression on the animal. And I do I have a lot of there's for the there's certain big body mature deer like the Eyowa deer and the Illinois deer, Kansas deer, and some of our Michigan deer that I have certain forms and certain sculptors that have sculpted the forms, like the Joe Meter. I like Joe Meter's form and another one's been Neears and those are my two favorite sculptors. And when you shoot a big mature deer, I always try to talk him into using one of those two forms from those sculptors, and and I know which forms over the years, using them all I think is going to make that deer look better for to show off what you want to show off. It's a smaller body deer, a younger deer. There's another sculpture that I used. It shows it off better for the you know, the smaller body more uh, kind of petite looking deer. Um even southern deer. You know you've got certain forms for that. But the other thing I ask them is do you want to look like it was when you you know, when you shot the animal, you harvest the animal, you last saw the animal, or do you have a spot. A lot of guys will draw a diagram of where they're gonna put it, like this is my wall and this is where I sit, or this is the entry into the room. So we try to pick them out that fits perfect for the wall you're going to put it on. And then how hi are you going to hang out? Or how how how lo them ount going to hang? Um? You know what I mean. So it like there's certain amounts that look great if you're going to hang and make foot or lower and then there's certain amounts that in that same amountain may not work very good if you hang it too high. So we try to go over that with all the guys. And the other thing is is asking them how they want their ears for the expression. A lot of hunters have had mounts done and they've never really had a say in how they've done the ears, which changes the expression so much, and why make suggestions with that too? And then they get to in our studio they get to look at God, there's all I think there's always probably fifty or sixty shoulder mounts in here or forty every any given time, so they can look at what catches their eye and tell me, you know, this is what I think I want to do. And then I say, well, how high you're gonna hang it? You may lose the face if it's too high, you know. So that's a great question mark because a lot of hunters just say I want a shoulder mouth, and they just think that you're just gonna do a shoulder mount. But when we're all done, I think they get some of them get confused at first, but then they start putting it all together. And then once in a while I'll say once you go home, talk to your wife, figure out where you gonna put the animal, and then give me a call back or they'll come back out. You know, they'll come get their antlers to show off during the holidays, and then they had time to settle down and think about how they want to do their mouth so that way they're not you know, pressured into I had a buck with a twenty three and spread brought in today, the guy's first buck. It was just a gorgeous, big, heavy, five or six year old eight point and he was he'd never had one done, and you know, he I went through everything with him and he did that. He's like, you know, and I bring my wife out. He took pictures and he said, I'm gonna leave the deer here and then they'll come back at the antlers and we'll got them mount then so that we can see the pressure building up on them thinking they've got it. If they make a choice, it's it's done for the rest of their life, and it's not. I mean, you know, we don't order forms until the hydra back maintainers, so you've got you know, you've got a few months to to sit down to side. A lot of guys just say this is how I want it. I know how I want it, and this is what we're gonna do. You mentioned the ears, um and the ears are something that you've talked to me about before when I brought in my my dear. Can you share your perspective because I know in the past you've given me your opinion on a certain way of ears looks pretty good. Some ears kind of hide the antlers, different things that that. Can you just share this your thoughts on different ear position and why that makes a big deal. Yeah, I think it does make a huge difference on the animal. A lot of guys, you see every mount they have have alert ears and that's just how they like. It's like the style of the ears for and the alert ears are white tails have they have different sizes ears. You see some that it could be a mature buck and it has pretty small ears and you can see year and apple deer sometimes they have really large ears, and those ears, in my opinion, if they're set too forward on certain amounts. And it depends on how the antlers come off of the skull plate. But you can kind of hide the antlers sometimes with the ears. If you don't do it um a certain way. And so like with my personal opinion, all my own white tails, and a lot of guys leave it up to me. And if they leave it up to me and I do it on my own, I almost always do the ears a little bit back gives them a relaxed look. Or I'll do one year back and on the other year a little bit forward and I'll switch it depending on which way it's turned. Um, And that gives it is amazing the different expressions you can change just with moving years around. Um, you know, and that and I think that's probably one of the most important things on amount is how you set the ears. And like I said, a lot of guys to say, well, every year I have I want alert ears. Some guys leave it up to me. Um. If you have two main deams that come out, if you look at the main beams, a lot of times they're not symmetrical there. They almost look like they come from two different deer. Well that really shows if you can see that unbalanced look. If you do the ears both the exact saints a lot of times will switch to ears up and give it kind of a natural like it's listening behind it. With one year and listening forward with the other year, and then you don't notice the young symmetry in the rack as much. So you know, there's a lot of different ways of playing with them and making them look different. Sometimes look out the years and then we'll come back a day later and it's it's not you know that it takes a while for them to dry, and me and my wife's Emily will sit there and look at them and I'll move them a little bit and she'll say no, yes, you know, until we get it exactly how we really like the expression of what it does for the dear. So it does make a big difference. Yeah, I've noticed the same thing. It's it's something that I would have never thought about ahead of time, but once you mentioned it to me and I started looking at all the different deer and the different ear positions, it's start. It really does make a total difference in the look and feel of it completely. It does they have And like I said, you see some hunters that really get confused with that, but then they look around and they see deer with every different position that I have mounted, and then they can kind of say, well, I really like this. And everybody's got their own style. Oh you know, it's it's amazing how um, certain guys like one thing and don't like another, you know. So that's why I like to ask everybody that way there they know exactly what they're getting. Yeah, I know the last year that I had mounted, I rattled and rattled and snort whased him in. So when he came in, he was doing that sidestep kind of thing with his ears pinned all the way back, and that's how I got him mounted with the earspin back pretty far. And my taxider missed at the time showed me how you know, at the very tip the ears actually curled back a little bit. And plus with the ears pin back, it makes your rack look bigger, so that's also that's also a benefit. It is, Yes, in the years, they do make the lack look bigger something. A lot of guys don't like him pin back unless they're doing that aggressive posturing thing like you just described. Um, I you look at a lot of my amounts, and I haven't shot a lot of like giant bucks, so I have to pin the ears back to make my aunt. I've seen some pretty nice ones you've gotten then, yeah, um, that's funny. So here's here's kind of my final question related to, you know, dealing with an animal and bringing in um. Well, actually it's kind of after bringing in I've picked it up, I brought it home. What do I need to be thinking about or what does anyone need to be thinking about to properly care for amount once it's at home, Because that's something I don't hear a lot of people talking about. You know, is there anything that we should be doing to make sure it lasts as long as possible and is as good as form and shape as possible. Oh yeah, I mean, you see a lot of mounts that look really good on the wall you go into the people's houses or trophy rooms, and then once you once you get them mount down and you realize it's just like any piece of furniture or picture or anything hanging on your walls. Everybody's house gets dusty, and dust is. You won't believe how did your mounts can get until you clean them off, and they they'll still look good even if you don't clean them. And then you clean them, you're like, oh my gosh that you can't believe just a little bit of dusting how much it brings them back to like. But what I tell to tell everybody when there's the two main things that you want to clean are the antlers, which we always tell people to use mineral oil, which is a simple oil that you buy at a pharmacy that you can consume, you can drink it. We always tell them take a rag, a small rag, soak it with miner oil until the rag is you know, not worth dripping, but it's soaked in. Put it in a little ziplock baggy and keep it and you'll keep forever. Just use that to wipe the antlers down. It's not going to hurt to get that on the hair side of the animal. But for the hair, we like to go to we get livestock grooming polishes like sho sheen. You can go to the tractor supply or that's the main place you can buy that stuff. But they have several livestock grooming polishes that we use for the hair and it's got a little bit of silicone in it, and it's the acts of the dust repellant acts as a little bit of a sheen, and that's the best way to keep them clean. The other thing is that you've got to worry about is maths. They have a it's actually kind of like a grain moth or a covered moth that gets in your your flower and in your pantries. And you see that more and more that the mall to eat wool like even you eat up a wool sweater. So always take your mouths down, even if it's a couple of times a year in check for what you design. That you'll see is on the back side of the mount where it's up against the wall. You see little things that look like little pieces of rice. And that is the shell of one of the stages they go through three life stages. That's the shell on the stages of when they hatch, they come out of that shell and then they start eating the protein. And it doesn't matter how the hair is, how the height is tanned. And there's several different hands out there, there's always just enough protein left at the hair root for these malls to consume. And they start on the back where it's dark, and then if you let it go long enough to consume towards the head and start consuming the root hair and uh, and then your hair just starts falling out and it doesn't matter how it's tanned. If you have malls in your house or wherever you're keeping your mounts, you're gonna have start having problems with your mounts. What you need to do that in that case is get these bug bombs. Everybody that has mounts should do this. Do it twice, do it once, and then do it six weeks later, and it's a it's a bug it's about You have to get a bug bomb that has the active ingredients of Parisian, which is known one of the only known moth killers. They used to put arsenic in the tanning process and that was the only guaranteed known moth proofer, but because it was such a carsonage in the in the known carsonage and they outlawed it, so none of the tanners were able to use arsenic and they've not come up with another total fullproof moth proofing system since then. So the biggest thing is for the hunter to just to keep on top of it to make sure they don't see these signs of these little maths. And if they do, take the mounts down, put them in a contained area or even a big garbage bag, spray it with this this bug bomb or even home defense um you can use I soak them in a moth proofer when they get rehydrated, but that lasts only so long, you know, because of this arsenic being illegal, So always keep track of that and keep your mounts clean, even if you just do them, you know, once every six months. You can never overclean them mount But as much time an effort is as you put in passion into harvest thing one of these animals, and then the money you put into having it properly mounted, you know, you take pride in it for the rest of your life. It just it's really worth cleaning them with what I mentioned, even if you just do it a couple of times a year, you know, is there any part of the you know, as I'm thinking about, you know, cleaning down my mounds and stuff, I always worry about messing something up on the face, the whiskers and the nose, the eyes, and I'm always afraid to touch some of that stuff. Do you need to be especially careful when trying to clean that area or is it you know, am I over Am I getting over concerned? No, it's not as fragile as you really think. I mean, the antlers are always set in really good. You don't have to worry about those coming loose. The whiskers are set in. There's part of the tanning process. Um. I don't think they're they're not as fragile as you might think. You can dust off the nose, and you can take a dry clean ex and dust off the glass eyes. Um. And I think the biggest thing is when you handle amount. You see people getting your hands into the neck or the shoulder and they trying to hang them out back up, and they mess the hair up or they make the hair go the wrong way, and then they're afraid to try to comb that back down. But you can take anything. You can take a brush, even your hand, even little spit on your hand, and you can wait that back down because it's not gonna not gonna hurt anything. But it looks really bad when you see all these finger marks and the hair from you know what you mean, from moving the deer around, trying to take it off the wall and put it back on the wall. Um. Yeah, I mean they're a lot tougher I think than a lot of people think. You get them on the wall and they're afraid to touch them. But if you dust off the nose and dust off the eyes and take it. You can actually dust the whole animal if it's not hanging too high right on the wall, you know, so, or you can take them down and do it too. So. Yeah, you just shouldn't have to worry about things like that, like with the nose and the lists and that mark. It's good to know. Now here's the other one that I've heard from some people is direct sunlight. Do do you need to worry about having your mouths in place that they're gonna get a ton of sun? Will it will fade them in any kind of way? That sure will. I've seen I've seen black there's they're half and half black that have sat in front of a window or in front of a sliding glass door. Um, the UV race from sunlight is one of the worst things on a mount before dear, it's gonna take longer. But if you did the same thing with like a fireplace, you don't really want to put a mount like directly over where it's really going to change the temperature. You know, right over a fireplace where the heat comes off, you might change the temperature thirties agrees right there. You can have a mountain near a fireplace off to one side, but rate directly above it and lower is a bad thing. And also right in front of a window like you were talking about the you know, on the south side of a house or something where you get a lot of drug sunlight, you can see the fading that happens. Smoke is the other thing. A cigarette smoke is not good for him either. But yeah, drug sunlight is not something that you really it's not good for any mount. Yeah, good thing, It's not a problem for me. Um Man. This is this has been some interesting stuff. I've got one more question for you, dance and taxidermy related. But but Dallas Dan Johnson over there, do you have any final taxidermy questions. There's something that you're thinking of that hunters have been curious about when it comes a tax deermy that we haven't covered yet. For Dan, Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously having a shoulder mount is not cheap for the for some guys. All right, um so I have two deer that are euro mounted. Um how much what goes into that? What do you need to do? I mean that's there's a little bit less maintenance and less care needed before they bring them to you. How do you do that? You mean, well, how do I go about doing the process of your European mounting a deer skull? Yeah, okay, yeah, you know the best thing for that if you're gonna have one of those done. A lot of people think, well, I'm not gonna shoulder mounts, so they again a lot except for three or four months or three or four weeks, and then it rocks and then they bring it to your rotting rotten with still the skin and the flesh and all the tissue still attached. That is okay to a certain point, but what happened the longer it fits like that, as it rocks, the bone will actually absorb that that blood even though it's been that way since you know, the entire time the animal is living, it's it doesn't absorb the blood and tell us dead, and then it starts absorbing that blood. And then what happens is no matter how good of a job your text romus does on cleaning it, cleaning the skull off, and then bleaching it and not actually bleaching it, but peroxyding it, getting it whitened and degreased. Sometimes, depending on how it's taking care of, you can have a little bit of a yellow staining, so it's always best to even if you're just going to European the animal, put it in the freezer until you take it to the tax germ. And so what I do is I actually put them in a brine. I skin them off, clean as much of the tissue off as I can't take the bottom job off, and then I put him in a brine and then I heat them up. I don't actually boil them, heat them up, and then I use a power washer and that's how I do it. I powerwash them and then I have a degreaser and then I have a whitener that goes on him. And then I put a polycurlic flap seal over the European mount when it's all dry. And what that does is it keeps it from like I said, if you have it in the spot where it has drug, sunlight, or people smoke or people touch it the dust or anything. The bone is so poorous that it can see seep into that bone. But if you put the seal on it when it's all done, that actually keeps the bone. It's not a white seal, it's just a clear flat seal that protects that bone the skull from you know, being having fingerprints or getting dust that folks into it keeps it from yellowing over the years. So that's how we go about it. Is that something and I know this is um. You know, of course, you know it's gonna be done better by professional like you. And if you can do it, that's a great way to do it. But if if someone doesn't have the means to get a deer professionally mounted, whither shoulder mount or your amount is is a your amount feasible as a d I Y type of thing? Can the average Joe get the information to actually pull it off and look good? Or is it? Is it turn up pretty tacky if you try that. No, I've seen everything. I've seen guys that have brought me euro amounts that other text tums have done and you can't imagine that they paid to have it done. It's that bad. But then you see guys that do it on their own and they do a really good job. So I think it all comes to doing your research ahead of time and you know knowing what to expect when you run into certain problems. But I think the biggest thing that gets that they do wrong is number one, let them rock. That's a bad thing for him. It makes the bone um fragile and it stains that. The other thing is is people if they do cook them, they overcook them and then you get the loose teeth and you lose all the detail up and the nasal cavity and then the roster and bones start loosening up. And you know what I'm saying, So overheating them is a bad thing, and letting them rock is a bad thing. But yeah, a lot of guys, that's one of the things a lot of hunters take pride in is trying to euro your euro amount or skull amount their own animals. And I've seen them do you know, really good jobs on them. And like I said, I've seen some that you know what I'm saying, It looks like they found it in the woods. Did you see this with any kind of amount? You see both extremes of it. But that's definitely something a lot of the hunters will try to do themselves and take pride in. And I think, you know, doing it yourself like that, you do take pride in the fact that, no matter how it turns out, you did it yourself. You know. Um, I think that's more sold than trying to do a shoulder mount on your own. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Um. So here's the final thing I want to close this, uh this episode with You are one of my favorite people to just talk dear stories with whenever I come in. You've always got a good story to tell, either someone that came in the shop or maybe you and I know that you have a really great deer hunting story that happened to you recently, Um with a couple, you know, a bow hunting encounter and thing go on, and then something happened in firearm. Would you be willing to share with us the story of your buck that you killed recently? Oh? Yeah, yeah, definitely pretty good at telling that, so right now, yeah that uh you're talking Mark about this year the one that I yep. Okay, So the Tuesday before the deer season, there was a deer that we were everybody in the neighborhood was was on their wish list. We had velvet footage of him and we've been seeing him during early bowl season and I finally got a crack at him with my bowl and I thought I hit him really really good and we tracked three or four I two kipty yards really great blood trail anyway, we never we've even brought Andy Bradley in with his dog, and Dustin Hopskin came and helped us. And we looked, and I looked for three or four more days and I was positive I had that deer. Was they're dead somewhere. Well, then on that Saturday before the season, the four team, my eleven year old nephew who shot the hundred sixty nine inch buck last year, had a crack at this beer with a bowl. And you know how it is. You might shoot at twenty beer in a row and find get all twenty, and you know, have great success, and then you have a little street the bad luck and it doesn't turn out that way. Well, Ross had shot the deer and shot him in the back hip or in the back she right in the hamright underneath the tail. And we tracked it on that Saturday and we watched we found the deer and he was out there chasing those. So now we see it's the same exact deer I had shot on Tuesday. So now this animal has been wounded with a bow on Tuesday and again on Saturday, and he still chasing those. Looks no worse for the wear and then on opening day a gun season, I took my daughter, my eight year old daughter with me in the morning, we sat till noon, didn't see a beer, and then had a couple of customers show up. And then when they left that afternoon, my daughter, George and my eleven year old and myself went out and I was hoping to see just a good buck for her. And we look out and we spopped this big ten point and it happens to be the one that me and my nephew had both had tracks that with a bow. So we're trying to I'm trying to settle myself down, uh to get Georgia on the shot of this deer, and she was determined she's not gonna shoot because I don't know what, I don't know why, but she wouldn't take the gun and take a shot at it. So for about two hours, we're waiting for the sun to go down behind the uh the rising because it was right in her eyes. We couldn't see the deer in the scope. And I finally decided that she's not gonna shoot. I'm gonna shoot, and I shoot in my gun jams and I have to slam the gun down on the base of the stand and make the shell come out. And I shoot again, and the sun's in my eyes. So I look at Georgia and anyway, mark I ended up. It took. I grabbed her muzzleloader because she won't shoot he muzzleloader. I'm out of shells now and shoot again. I miss a fourth time. Now I'm losing my confidence. She's shaking, shivering so bad, which is making you know, you think you're such a seasoned hunter, and uh, it's amazing. What when things start going wrong, how you fall apart? And then I wanted I found one last shell in my pocket. I stood up and I was begging Georgia the shoot. She wouldn't, and nice took one last shot at it and dropped it. And Dustin come over that night and help me find it, and sure enough it was. At the time, I wasn't sure it was the same deer, but then when we've seen where the arrow two arrow wounds were, we realized it was the same beer. So it was a good close to the story. And it was neat too, because Dustin came out with his wife and their two kids, and we had all of our kids and we're out and basically muskrat habitat somewhere you'd find must but not here looking for this deer. And Dustin is looking at me like I'm out of my mind. And we're trying to pull Olivia out of the swamps. Sure boots are stuck in the swamps. She's got a six month old baby in her little your Carrie, you know, carry sling. And I'm thinking this is just a bunch of crazy, this crazy family here helping me get this deer out of here. But uh, it was. It's a something all that will remember for sure. Oh yeah, well that's a that's a heck of a story and picture proof for a perfect example of perseverance paying off. I mean, sticking with it. I remember when you told me out the bow hunting incident where you got the shot and you were so determined to find that deer, and you were you know, I remember talking to you and you were just so dead set in the fact that the shot was good. You had to find him, and you kept on going in their searching, searching, and you know, it's it's great to hear someone keep putting in that effort to find that deer and keep doing everything they possibly can defind it and and lo and behold he somehow survived another shot and then in the end he end up getting getting the shot with your gun with your daughter. That's that's pretty awesome. There was a couple of sleepless nights there for sure. You just, uh, you know how it is. I think we've all I've heard you on some of your podcast talk about, Um, you know you as a hunter, you have to be able to accept that part of it, maybe wounding a deer, and you know, you put all your efforts, so much effort into it, and you know, you just it's it's a tough thing you have to accept. And I'm glad the way this turned out, but uh, you know, it doesn't always turn out that way. So yeah, yeah, that's that's the truth. We've we've all been there, so Dan, this is this has been great. I've really enjoyed this chat. And UM, I guess the only final thing I have to ask you is, if there's anyone listening now who's got a buck they want some help with, how can they get ahold of you? If they're in the Michigan area or anywhere around here. I'm not sure how far you you know, you work with people. But if someone wants to learn more about you and Nature's Pride taxidermy, how can they learn more? Um, we have a Facebook page, It's Nature's Pride Facebook. You can follow us on that. UM. Nature's Pride dot net is our website. And then we also have a phone number. UM, if that's something you want me to to you can look up and I don't I think the phone number beyond the website two of Nature's probably dot net. Um, So those are the two main ways to get ahold of us. You can email through the Nature's probably dot net and through Facebook. So perfect, all right, Well, we will will include those links on wired hunt. Some people want to check that out, they can thank Yeah, absolutely, I think that's that's gonna do it for us. Dan, thank you so much for joining us and your insight. You know, as a taxidermist, it's it's something that we all, a lot of us hopefully hope to deal with. We hope to be able to work with the taxidermist, but we never necessarily know what we're getting into beforehand unless you have a lot of experience. So I think I think you've been able to help a lot of people here today. Dan so so thank you so much. Well, thank you Mark. Yeah, I've enjoyed it, and good talking to you Dan too. Yep, thanks for coming on the show. Surely. All right, we'll have a good one and good luck with the rest of the season. Dane, you two guys, thank you very much. All right, bye bye, good bye. Alright, So there you have it. Another episode is in the books. And before we do wrap this whole thing up, though, I do want to make a couple of quick updates. First, we do have that new Wired Hunt gear available and f y I there were some issues with the links and kind of some tech issues on the website over the past couple of weeks that have made it kind of tough to purchase some of that gear. So if you had issues with that, I apologize, but we've got it all fixed now. So if you're interested in sacking out one of our new trucker hats are flatbill new Hoodies t shirts, go to Wired to Hunt dot com slash shop to pick those up. And man, we really appreciate that it helps keep this podcast going, so thanks in advanced for doing that. Also, if you haven't yet and you'd like to, we would really appreciate a rating or review on iTunes, and finally check out our other two podcast, the white Tail Q and A podcast which is my short Q and A format show, and also Dan's news show, the Nine Finger Chronicles podcast. And as we do every week, we need to pause and thank our partners who helped make this show possible. So big thank you too, Sick of Gear, Trophy, Ridge Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, Hunter A, Maps, Ozonics, Carbon Express, Lacrosse Boots, and the White Tail Institute of North America. By supporting those brands, you help support Wired to Hunt. So thanks in advance and finally, most importantly, Happy Thanksgiving. I've got to say I am so thankful and appreciative all of you who follow the Wired to Hunt podcast absolutely means the world, So thank you so much for tuning in, Thank you for your support, have a wonderful holiday, and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.

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