During the week he is employed as an engineer. Evenings and weekends, he is a licensed taxidermist, with a serious twist.
One of his most successful offerings is when a client asks for a Euro mount of say, a bear skull, or a whitetail deer or a bobcat pelt, whatever you desire really, he will do it.
But, he comes to your home, walks around a while, sees how you live, what’s perhaps laying around, hits the garage or woodshed you may have, he is snooping and snoopy on a mission.
He may see something that you like, don’t want to lose, he will mess a tackle box up good looking, but he can use in your eventual mount, not that he won’t improvise a bit here and there with various outdoor effects like pine cones or birch bark, or from his own stash as many different parts or pieces to really make it look great without it losing the overall personal effect.
Ducks in marsh grass, couple a spent shell casings, one of your decoys cut and precisely matched, cattail fronds backdropping a muskrat, with the very one ten you used to catch it.
That right there is why he is so good at it, he reads folks pretty quick, a bit of leather lash there, some webbed gut sinew for a tie off, grampa’s old folding knife, maybe one of your sweaters with a hole in the elbow, a pair of well-oiled, well worn, leather finger gloves, he can amaze you, if your lucky enough to be able to hire him.
- The Trout Whisperer
