The Outdoor Gibbon
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The Outdoor Gibbon
23 The Art of Taxidermy with Tom Douglas
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Journey into the world of taxidermy with Tom Douglas, known to many as the "Wiltshire Redneck" on social media. Tom pulls back the curtain on a craft that transforms hunting trophies into lasting memories, sharing insights gained from following in his father's footsteps in this 40-year family tradition.
What happens after you take that perfect shot? Tom walks us through proper field care techniques that make all the difference between a stunning mount or a disappointing result. You'll learn why bleeding a deer through the throat can ruin a potential shoulder mount, why field dressing immediately produces cleaner capes, and how to handle your trophy in hot weather. Even experienced hunters will find valuable tips to improve their field practices.
The conversation spans continents as Tom shares his hunting adventures across Africa, including the unique challenges of bow hunting compared to rifle hunting. His perspective on international hunting costs reveals why UK hunters have a different relationship with trophies than their American counterparts – what costs £600 here might command thousands abroad. This economic reality influences everything from hunting practices to decoration choices.
For wildlife enthusiasts, Tom offers fascinating biological insights about deer species variations across regions. Did you know rutting Sika deer can develop skin two inches thick that can actually impede bullet performance? Or that Scottish red deer are considered a different subspecies than English red deer, with distinct characteristics and scoring systems?
Whether you're a seasoned hunter looking to better preserve your trophies, a wildlife enthusiast curious about species variations, or simply interested in the art of taxidermy, this conversation offers a rare glimpse into a world where hunting tradition meets meticulous craftsmanship. Subscribe to the Outdoor Gibbon podcast for more insights from fascinating guests across the hunting and outdoor community.
Introduction to Tom Douglas
Speaker 3Hello and welcome to the Outdoor Gibbon episode 23. Good grief, we've done 23 episodes, so this one is another interview and this time we are interviewing Tom Douglas. He is also known as the Wiltshire Redneck and you will have seen him if you follow Instagram and Facebook. He's a taxidermist. His work's absolutely fantastic, so hopefully you'll enjoy listening to this podcast. We are coming up to Christmas actually, it's just around the corner so you should hopefully be listening to this podcast on the release date, which is Boxing day something to do after you've eaten too much christmas dinner and you've either been out for a walk around with the dog or do some shooting. Come back in, stick me on and have a listen.
Speaker 3Hopefully you'll enjoy it hello and welcome to the outdoor gibbon podcast. Today we have got tom douglas, aka the wiltshire redneck, if you follow him on Instagram. How are you doing, tom? Yeah, good Thanks, buddy, you're it Good yeah, thank you for coming on. So a little bit about you first. Obviously, you're a taxidermist family business, I believe.
Speaker 3Yeah, my dad's been a taxidermist for probably nearly 40 years now, so before I was born, so that's all I've ever known him do so, yeah, I was, I was kind of, I was kind of trying to dig a bit and had a bit of a search around google and all I ever seem to find is positive reviews and everybody says fantastic work. And I think I've seen most of that with with what you've posted on the internet. Every time you post something, something up, it's absolutely a magnificent piece of work or something slightly different, isn't it? Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2But I've only been two years now in the next week since I've been full-time, so I'm a beginner really.
Speaker 3Well, a very talented beginner if you are. So let's, let's sort of the the multi-million dollar question that I ask everybody. It's obviously how they got started in in shooting and what sort of led you down this route. So can you tell us sort of earliest memories of when you went shooting and how you got into it really?
Speaker 2My dad was a gamekeeper for a little bit when he was young and then growing up as a kid. We live close to a big sort of commercial pheasant shoot. My dad was always a loader. So you know, every weekend I would go beating, and then summer, like holidays, I would go beating for the week as well, and all summer after school we'd go up the farm and back then they used to rear all the pheasants in house. All right, yeah, after school through the summer me and my brother used to go up with dad and we'd go through all the pens collecting all the eggs and then go back and help the keeper put them in the incubators and then, uh, just kept beating all the time. And then, once I was old enough, you'd get invited on the beaters days. You know, once you were 14, 15, 16, old enough to carry a gun sort of thing, you do the beaters days and just always had air guns as well growing up. But dad never had a rifle license, he only ever had a shotgun. Okay, I only grew up shooting a shotgun and then, um, once I sort of turned 16, I got, when I got my own license, sort of thing.
Speaker 2I got big in the pigeon shooting and I do a lot of that all the time. And there was a really good local guy, older guy, used to take me out with him. He used to do a hell of a lot of pigeon shooting any day I wanted to go. It's all he did every day of the week, basically Fantastic. Whenever I was free, I just texted him, he'd take me out with him, you know. And ferreting as well I used to do a lot of when I was young. I always had ferrets growing up and then sort of strayed away from shooting for a few years, you know, as you do as a young bloke there's other things to interest you, isn't there?
Speaker 2Yeah in life and going out and partying and whatever. And then when my ex-missus fell pregnant and then I was sort of settling down a bit, you know, getting a house and stopping with the fast cars and partying and everything like that, I got big into the pigeon shooting again. Right, because I still had my shotgun license, obviously, but didn't have the rifle license. So we got big in the pigeon shooting again and I'd be out two, three times a week, started building up a bit of permission everywhere, some good permission around where I live doing the pigeons. And then, um, a guy who dad knew when he was young started coming in a lot getting deer skulls cleaned all the time.
Getting into Rifle Shooting and Deer Stalking
Speaker 2A fellow called terry copperswine and uh, he was like a local hunting guide, so his was deer stalking, that's all he did. So he had a house in london but lived in salisbury all week and he just guided foreign clients mainly, mainly on the roebucks, you know, through the season. Yeah, we did a lot of guided pigeon shooting and uh, terry and dad sort of became best pals and terry kept getting ill, you know, with like never really knew what was up with him and we just did more and more and more to help him. So first of all, I'd be helping on the pigeons, but that's what got me into the rifle, you see. So I would go out and do all the culling for Terry. Oh cool, so this was like 2017, I think so this was like 2017, I think. So we started going out, was doing loads of culling and my dad got his rifle license and he started doing a lot. And then me and my dad both did our DSC1s together in 2017. And my rifle license luckily, I got given a full open ticket off the fantastic.
Speaker 2I was going to say that's quite rare, even back in 17, to get an open yeah, it was quite rare, but terry had probably 30,000 acres of stalking to go over and um, so I needed the open ticket to be able to go farm the farm and also take clients. So, very early on from getting in the stalking myself, I was also learning to take clients out and guide and have to do all the work revolved around that. And then, um, terry got more and more ill and eventually passed away. I don't know what year it was 2018, 2019 but me and dad basically took the business over for him, like running it for him when he was ill, so we would just, we had his email address and everything and we were taking all the clients and it became quite full time that we were stalking, taking clients and doing all this management of all this land that he had, taking clients and doing all this management of all this land that he had, and that's how I got into it.
Speaker 3Really, um was all through that, you know it's kind of a baptism of fire to get straight into being a guide and shooting a rifle yeah, it was thrown in at the deep end for sure.
Speaker 2Yeah, because the culling we were having to do as well to keep on top of all these farms that terry had, because a lot of them had high numbers of fallow, yeah, so some of the farms you were having, the like on your coal plant you were having to shoot 100 fallow a year on each place, so it was pretty full on and uh, you know, you were sort of having to go out every morning before work and every evening after work and stuff yeah, no, I can.
Speaker 3I can understand, especially with the fallow numbers down your way.
Speaker 2It's um, it's fairly mental oh yeah, some of these places were, and that's coming on to the next bit.
Speaker 2It was probably your next question how I go into the taxidermy was because we started culling and I was only ever allowed to cull, so all the like trophy sort of stuff was for clients, not for me.
Beginning Taxidermy with Trophy Skulls
Speaker 2Right for the first year or more, I was just shooting fallow does, fallow prickets, row, does you know, never shot. I shot hundreds of deer before I ever shot anything worth putting on the wall, because you know that wasn't what I was there for. Um, and then basically I started shooting a few small roe bucks and of course that was the first things that were worthy of the wall, yeah, um, so first of all dad cleaned a few for me just the skulls, you know. And then, once I started shooting a few more, he said look, you know, you learn to do your own ones. So that's how all that started, of wanting to clean my own trophies and just doing the skulls. So I sort of learned to do the skulls first, because the only things I was shooting were any worthy of a skull, you know yeah, no, because you've got quite an impressive.
Speaker 3Well, you started above your staircase, didn't you? With like a, a row, all the rows, row, bucks. You'd shot and I think you've outgrown that space and had to build another space for before that I only had a few on the wall.
Speaker 2I sort of had one row of three, and then that became six and that became nine. And then, yeah, like that was my old house, then in the staircase, like, yeah, you remember how they were there. I started rowing them up the staircase and then the nine that were in the sitting room became metal ones and then the rest were going upstairs and then, yeah, I totally outgrew that. And then, um, where I've moved to my new house, I've got the garage like a bit of a man cave sort of thing and they're all around the wall in there. I don't know, I think it's a stick, but there's a fair few, but you've had you, you.
Speaker 3You always post some fantastic photos of some, some absolutely stunning beasts. You've had, like, some Seeker, some, some Fallow, I think you've got elk. You've got a couple of elk as well recently.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I shot two elk this year. I've been taking it easy this year because I got the newborn babies just coming up six months and um right. Two new puppies, and so this year I've laid off the stalking a lot. I only shot about a dozen good robux and a few good fallow, and then I shot two nice elk. But that's just park.
Speaker 3They were like in a park basically I bet they're massive because that that picture you posted the other night, I'm sure people can go and have a look back on your profile. But that that photo you've got a part red, is it next to these two elk that are on the wall?
Speaker 2that's a tiviton, tiviton red, which are good, which are a good size, you know they're like a norfolk red, the big down tiviton devon way, yeah, and then him next to the two elk. You can see the the size difference. Because when I posted just the elk, people said oh, you sure they're not red? And I said no, they're blooming massive. And they said oh, no, they're not. And I had a red down the cabin because I store a lot of my already done stuff down the bottom, away from the workshop, where I couldn't offer to carry it up, where the weather's been bad, you know, to hang it next to them. And so the other day when I mounted a red, I thought, oh, I'll hang it up, and then people realize how blooming big these things are oh they're, they're massive, they really are yeah yeah, well, one was actually.
Speaker 2I only shot as a replacement skin for one I shot three years ago, probably right, because I decided to put it in tan and then the baby came a week early and then I totally forgot. I put it in this bucket of tan and then, obviously, where I wasn't at work when the baby first came, I forgot. You gotta keep stirring the skins when they're in tan. You can't just let them sit, because they some will float up and dry out and the tan's not great. And uh, by the time I come back to work and realize what I'd done, it slipped the skin.
Speaker 2And out of all the skins I could have done it to, was this plummet beautiful elk that I couldn't just replace. No, absolutely. So I only went to shoot another one because I'd cut the sculler that first one for a shoulder, so I couldn't even just hang it on the wall, so I had to go shoot another one to replace it. And then, uh, about a month later, the guy rang up and said the older big bull was, um, getting too aggressive and I tried to attack him. Could I come take that one for him?
Speaker 3tried to attack him. Could I come take that one for him?
Speaker 2okay, so you got you basically ended up with shooting three out, but two are mounted. Yeah, so that the one that I shot this year, the first one I've just got the skull in the garage now, right, and I used the cape for the the first one. And then, yeah, I didn't wasn't planning on shooting three, I was happy with one, but it just ended up that way I think we've been quite lucky on the hill.
Speaker 3This year. We've only had one person which was their first red. It wasn't it wasn't the best red, but they were the only person that's asked for something caped, because as soon as we cape them, the game dealer obviously won't take our venison anymore, so that that carcass now is is kind of way stuck with us yeah, so most well, all game dealers technically won't take them.
Speaker 2Once they're caped, the only thing you can do is you cut the deer in half yep yep, you can cut it in half where you kick, where you go back to with the cape right and you process the front half yourself, you know at home. And then you can weigh the back half in with the game diva okay, that's handy.
Speaker 3Oh, we ended up. We ended up skinning the entire thing anyway, because the guy said I want as much skin as possible.
Speaker 2So it's just like, yeah, you can have the whole thing yeah, you used to be able to cape them and take them in, but where the last year or so the rules got a lot stricter, um, and they brought out the new ruling, they stopped it because it I don't blame them you see the state of how most people cape like I wouldn't uh, take the carcass either absolutely well, that's it.
Speaker 3That was kind of the next thing. Obviously I've seen a lot of posts and I'm sure people that listen to this will have seen stuff you've been doing and you always do a nice explanation about, obviously, if somebody's going to cape a deer off, what a cape should look like when it arrives at you and what a cape shouldn't look like it shouldn't have half the deer still attached to it, kind of thing no, no, that's it I need.
Speaker 2I do need to make a better video, but never have the time.
Speaker 3The weather's never great when you want to go, do it it's always the way, though, but actually most of the stuff you put out explaining about the process of going through and and I think I've asked you loads of questions about stuff in the past about sort of fleshing out the skin and you were telling me, for example, I think you said about seeker deer how you have to thin the skin down because it's really thick, tough, tough skin on there. Basically, yeah.
Hunting in Africa and Bow Hunting Challenges
Speaker 2So I, when I tan any of the deer, I have to flesh them thinner. I mean so like a, a winter cape, like row early summer, but pre-rut. You know they're quite thin, but even a row in the rut thickens up quite a lot. Okay, I'm not, I haven't read into a whole lot on the science of it, but you know, deer can thicken, thin their skin throughout the year. I'm not quite sure how they do it, if it's fat molecules that they grow inside their skin or what it is, but it changes through the year. Um, you probably won't notice it that much when you're just skinning deer, because it's only mainly around the neck. You know it's not a sort of part that you pay a lot of attention to if you know you just get it off, as yeah, exactly, get it off as quick as possible you know, if you cut the head off a seeker you'll see around the top back of his head.
Speaker 2You know, the thickest one I've had was two inches thick wow, I think we've I've seen a fallow like that.
Speaker 3There was. That was. There was an irish fallow and it was yeah, I think when we shot it, when the boy who I was with shot it a 308 bullet went round the fat in its neck kind of thing, it was yeah just yeah.
Speaker 2But I mean, this is the skin, not the fat, it was just the skin, just the skin on the seeker. The thickest I've seen is two inches thick. Big grief, that's yeah. And that's why I always say to people don't next shoot seeker in the rut, because it's like armor plate. I've shot seeker at like 18 yards and the bullet's not got any penetration yeah when the skin's that thick, because it's like a blanket, it just absorbs all the kinetic energy on the in, you know, and then it doesn't.
Speaker 3It doesn't carry any power through no, it just sort of gives it a bit of a sore neck and, to be honest, those things are that mean. Anyway, it probably just carries on, doesn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 2I say it's the same with big red stags. You know, if you shoot one of them in the neck at 100 plus yards, if you're not on a big 30 caliber plus, you know you're not hitting them with a lot of power once that skin absorbs it.
Speaker 3Don't talk to me about this season with copper bullets and all the rest of it on the hill. We've just, it's just been a nightmare.
Speaker 2But those rutting stags, you know they will just take and eat it off. It's like, yeah, yeah, exactly, there are horse stags that are small. You know these big lowlands, you know I shot one with Dartmoor Deer Services a few years back at Tom and that's the biggest red stag I've ever shoulder mounted from England Right, like body-wise the picture of the elk. It went on the right hand form that that elk's on. Okay, right, that's how, that's how big my red was. And tom, I know himself he's got one mounted in his house and that is a monster as well. Some of those ones on dartmoor, a huge beast it's.
Speaker 3It's a weird thing though, isn't it, because obviously they they've got much better feeding down there. There must be a good source of minerals that let them get their heads well, I got sent a picture from a boy in norfolk today of a, of a, of a red, and he's like, oh, look at the size of that. And I was like that's like 18 points. Never seen anything like that up with us, because maximum they get to is 14 ish on the hill it's not just the heads, it's the body size.
Speaker 2Dartmoor and x more produces some huge body beasts. You know I showed them out of quite a lot of norfolk reds, a lot of big park reds and I've, you know, big super golds, 35, 40 point heads right and they still go on that smaller form that the activitin one was on, like body size yeah, yeah but like that one I shot with tom the body. You know it's like 25, 30 percent bigger again but are they?
Speaker 3are they actually true reds or have they got wapiti or something like that in them?
Speaker 2no, but the. You know the thing with red deer. You're talking. There's multiple subspecies. In reality, yeah, you know, your scottish red deer is the is its own species in itself.
Speaker 3If you look on svi, for example, scottish red deer is listed as its own, it comes up as a different scoring technique, and all the rest of it, isn't it? Yeah?
Speaker 2yeah, totally different. So you've got scottish, then you've got english, then you've got the european ones are different again. Yeah, so I, I don't know. There's a whole lot more to deer genetics than most people, because the seeker are the same, seeker are totally different.
Speaker 3You know your seeker up there and nothing like our seeker down here no, and then they're not like the irish seeker again there, and nothing like our seeker down here no, and then they're not like the Irish seeker again. They're completely different again.
Speaker 2Your, your seeker up there, way, way smaller, have much longer mains, better coat like totally different fur tie color. Yeah, A lot of our seeker down here are just short haired, even in winter. Very dark, you know very, very dark.
Speaker 3And huge bodies, you know way bigger bodies it's bizarre when you and I suppose it's like anything that you go up and down the country and things change, don't they?
Speaker 2yeah. Well, that's the problem with, because obviously with seeker they call our ones a service nippon. So japanese seeker, you know, and they ban them all as that. But and then in parks you can get your manchurians and stuff, which are way bigger. Obviously, you know, manchurian, daiboski are the same thing. But to say japanese seeker or one thing, japan is a blooming big place, like from the north of the north island down to the south of the south island, is like the blooming north pole down to the tropical rainforests, in different exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, japanese seeker change hugely depending where the strain came from across the islands, so that although their class is the same thing, they're not. They're totally different subspecies. Really, they're just not redefined that's quite interesting.
Speaker 3But it's interesting to know. But I suppose it depends where the deer was caught up, which where we're in the area, and then which park it was taken to and and released. Because obviously, yeah, you've got, the guinness estate in ireland had a huge amount, which is pretty much where the wicklow seeker came from uh, I from and then obviously they've been spread out through different parks up and down the UK and into Scotland. So yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2Well, most our ones. They were put on Brownsea Island down here, right, and that's why all of ours span out from the pool basin. Okay, because they were put on Brownsea Island originally and then they swam across to the mainland and then all our seeker now is spreading up.
Speaker 3It's all our new forest ones, right, we're getting them in salisbury the last few years, you know I somebody was saying that they've yeah, they've been, they've been moving quite quickly up and down from out from your area.
Speaker 2They're moving up the country, yeah yeah, I've shot seeker and wiltshire now, whereas years ago that was unheard of. You know they were further down in paul. So you know, eventually, much like munch jack or anything, they'll spread out.
Speaker 3Yeah, showing spreading, you know, as the years go on they're more and more common and roaming bigger areas well, it seems, chinese water deer, they were just on the grow completely especially well, I think none of the game dealers are taking any of the cold here at the moment in norfolk because they say christmas is on the way and that was it. So there's boys over there pulling their hair out because it's like well, what's the point in culling anything if you can't sell it?
UK Shows and Taxidermy Displays
Speaker 2no, I don't know. They're one of the deer I know the least about really, because I don't have anywhere any near me, you know, and I've only ever shot one, just to tick it off the british six list that's well.
Speaker 3That's it all. I've seen the pictures and I've seen they look like a teddy bear, but it's still. It's the only one. I need to still complete the uh.
Speaker 2Complete the list yeah, I've mounted a few, you know, but I've not watched them in the wild a lot or not like other species, where you sort of sat and watched them and hunted them and done a lot more with them.
Speaker 3I suppose the only thing I've ever been told about them is, if they do run, they don't stop, because obviously, from the country they were they came from, they're normally being chased by something with big teeth that wants to eat them. So that's it they.
Speaker 2They're three postcodes away from what I've seen, a lot of people say as well, they do tend to like they run like mad, but they do a big loop and come back, you know, like they run a long way but they'll sort of head back to where they come from eventually, fair enough I will find out when I actually get to, uh, to actually get one in the scope and see what it's actually all about yeah, I'd like to shoot more of them, but you know the market on them is always been a funny one.
Speaker 2The prices are quite high and you know cic's just changed on the first of november. They're scoring, so I don't know what that's going to do to the market, because now medals are harder to get them before.
Speaker 3I was going to say, because it seemed like everybody that ever seemed to shoot to pull the trigger on something, you were a 50-50 chance that you scored a medal with it.
Speaker 2really, Well, it was more than that. If the deer was more than a year old, you would get a medal before. Even a year old, you would get a medal before. So even a year old, you know, they could go gold by 18 months. That was the problem before. Most of your proper trophies weren't medals, most, you know, like old ones because it's a tooth. When they get old much like a warthog or something any toothed animal they wear them down as they get old. Yeah, so if you shot an actual old one, what you'd call a trophy animal, we quite often I've only ever shot one and it was a silver, but that's because it was an old one and you know the. The roots were showing worn teeth, yeah, yeah, but they're thick as hell.
Speaker 3You know lovely big teeth but they've worn down a lot yeah, right, you've also hunted outside the uk, because I think that was a another thing we've seen about is you've obviously been over to africa and and taken a few species out there yeah, so I've done three trips to africa so far.
Speaker 2Um don't know how many days in total I've done out there 50, 60 days, I think, over the three trips. All of them are nearly three week trips.
Speaker 3So the first 28 large game animals in africa so is that all with the rifle or used, because I think you've done a bit of bow hunting as well.
Speaker 2So I took my bow last time. I went last November, but the weather wasn't on my side for bow hunting at all Right. First of all it was too wet and then when the wet went, it was too hot. So the bow hunting, yeah, with a bow, walking, stalking is very hard and you've got to be a very good bow hunter to do that. Anyway, and as a total novice, you know walking and stalking is extremely hard. Even if you're good at field craft and good with a rifle to hunt, you know to get sub 20 yards from animals and most of these antelope herd animals. So you're not stalking single beasts, you're stalking in the, much like fallow stalking. You know fallow stalking on foot is very hard because you're still in the herd all the time.
Speaker 2Um, so it was the same thing I. I would walk and walk and walk and I'd you know I'd easily get 40 yards, maybe less, but where I hadn't killed anything with a bow yet I really wanted to be sort of sub 30 yards, 30 yards in my first sort of shot. The built some confidence and I just could never close that. I'd get to like 33 yards or half a dozen times I'd get to draw the bow back, but then they'd spook before I could even get drawn back, you know I suppose it's still.
Speaker 3It's still good practice, though, but yeah, as you can say, brilliant you know the heart.
Speaker 2You had more fun. I had more fun blanking than anything because it you were trying so hard creeping in and you know really having to work with the winds and stuff you don't have to worry about as much for a rifle where you can shoot stuff at distance. Yeah, you know, and I got really close to some beautiful animals and then annoyingly you get a few animals that you get soup Like. I got 12 yards from a big Nyala bull but I didn't want to shoot a Nyala bull because I've already shot one and they're not that cheap and you know I didn't want to spend 1500 quid on something that I didn't have planned to shoot with. You know what I mean no, but I suppose that's.
Speaker 3But the thing is, it's still you've done the, still you're in close to it, it's um. It all adds to the memory, doesn't it?
Speaker 2oh yeah, it was great. But you know, the first week I was in africa on that trip it did nothing but rain. So when it rains you can't sit in a hide because there's so much groundwater they don't come to a water hole like a. Okay right, because when you bow hunt, normally you sit over a water source or something because the animals will come in for a drink If it's red hot, there's nowhere else from the drink, you see, they'll briefly come in and have a quick drink and they walk off again. Um, and then the blooming.
Deer Species Differences and Hunting Costs
Speaker 2Next two weeks it went from pouring rain to 40 odd degrees every day and the animals were drinking in the middle of the day because they were thirsty. But you couldn't go sit in a blind in the middle of the day because even when I'd go sit in a blind at like three o'clock, I'd sit like three till seven in the blind but you were drinking a bottle of water every half an hour because you were just dripping. Yeah, you know, being in a in a in a sealed blind, in that heat, it's like being in an oven. Yeah, yeah, no, completely. I. I did get a kill with the bow, only one. I got a, uh, a diker, which was nice. I do like height, do like hunting the small small animals out there. So, yeah, you get that one. Um, and I, like I said, I did have chances to other stuff, it just wasn't anything that I wanted to to take.
Speaker 3I suppose that's the thing. I suppose that's the thing with the bow though it's you have. You have to work a lot harder to to get your your reward at the end of the day. But actually, as you said, the stalk is just as good sometimes yeah, and it depends where you go.
Speaker 2If you go to some of these farms that are really set up for bow hunting and they've got food you know good food and water then the animals are there all the time in front of you. But the places I hunt they're not like that. You know good food and water. Then the animals are there all the time in front of you, but the places I hunt they're not like that, you know it's more. There's not piles of animals coming into those water and holes, it's not but it's all.
Speaker 3It's all again, it's all managed. I'm assuming, because that's the the preconception a lot of people see for for africa is you're going over there, you're shooting all these big game species and it's just take it, take pot shots, but 90 of these places it's. It's well orchestrated and well managed, isn't it?
Speaker 2game control oh, yeah, yeah, oh jesus. The work that those guys put in is incredible. But you know, places that are just some places are just so solely set up for bow hunting. They'll have a higher concentration of animals in the area as compared to a rifle place. Every place is different. It depends where you go there. I've only hunted in Limpopo and the Free State, but even those are polar opposite places.
Speaker 3Right right.
Speaker 2The Limpopo you class as like bush felled and it's just crazy thick. You've got a job to see 100 yards anywhere, so there's no such thing as a long shot. You know, you're just in thick, bush.
Speaker 3Right, okay.
Speaker 2Whereas down the Free State you get huge open vastness. You know you can spot and stalk over miles of ground. You know you can see. Yeah, spot stuff right down in the valley basin and walk for it because you can't see anything so come back into the uk now.
Speaker 3Obviously you've been to a few of the shows. Are there any shows this year? You're going to be, um, going to displaying at anything like that. Do you need any more work or you already snowed under as it is?
Speaker 2uh, I'd love to display at a show still, but I'm not, uh, not invited to them anymore, right, um, the last this year just gone, I did go to the game fair for the day just to touch bases with people because, uh, you know, since I was a kid, dad always had displays at shows on with right, yeah, different companies and uh, governing body sort of thing. So you sort of grow up going to the shows. You've got a lot of friends on stands and stuff. So it was good just to go and catch up. I'd like to try and go to the British shooting show next year. That's the best show, in my opinion, in England. That's good. It's not a big show. It's not a big show and you don't have the outdoor stuff, you know, like the dogs and the horses and the the shooting, but you know it's a really good show for everything you need. Is there? All the big companies that you'd want to see are there? You know I always enjoyed that one the most. All right, it's good.
Speaker 3No, that, that's. That's always. It's one of those things. There's so many shows now and I don't know whether, well, some of them feel a bit like they. Just you end up going there and you see more clothes and hot tubs and double glazing and all sorts of things for sale, rather than actually what you're actually going there to see, which is the, the countryside, sports and and the shooting equipment and stuff like that.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, the game fair is very much like that. You know, it's just all sorts of everything, but it was always okay when you had a lot of that, when the game fairs were much bigger. Yes, Years ago when you had the CLA game fair, you know, we used to exhibit it, but friends of mine used to travel from europe over and camp in the camper van and do the full three days and it would take you that to walk around it and enjoy well, the cla was massive, though really back in the day it was, it was huge, huge yeah, and they were incredible and back then you used to have all like the, the steel timber sports, and you know you'd have the guys running up the poles and yeah there was so much to see and do.
Speaker 2Whether you were in the fishing or ferrets didn't matter.
Speaker 3There was always plenty of everything it was quite nice because actually I think the scottish game fair this year the last few years it's been quite small because obviously covid and all the rest of it, but this year it was. It was big again. I never really got to see it, but it's kind of like one of those. You have the friday, all the gamekeepers rock up and all the estate managers and that's their kind of day. But you still get the the, the guys doing the timber work, the ferret displays, the birds of prey, all of that still actually goes on. So it is still a family there are. It's not as big as the cla or anything anywhere near that you can see the whole place in a day, but it is still a good fun day out to go to, kind of thing yeah, that's what a lot of them are missing.
Speaker 2I find that just don't have the visual stuff anymore. No, I, yeah. So like the british shooting show fantastic show, you know. Like I said, my favorite really, for like everything you want, but there's nothing. There's the airgun range, yeah, but there's no fly time, there's no thing. You know, and a lot of people don't like it if they don't have a lot of friends who are at the shows.
Speaker 2You see yeah, yeah I just think the internet, because I I know so many people. I'll spend all day just trying to chat to the people I know. But you need to have all these activities to keep everyone else entertained when they're just there wanting to look around. Otherwise you're done in an hour or two yeah, no, I.
Speaker 3I think that's that like the scottish game for is exactly that everybody rocks up just to catch up with people and you probably can't walk down any aisle without bumping into somebody you know and you stand there for 10-15 minutes and all of a sudden it's like I've only done two, two rows and it's already lost time, kind of thing that's what the game fair was like.
Speaker 2I went with um camo ken and I think, all day. We only did the first two rows and that was it. You know, we sort of go three stands and you'd be chatting for half hour and go a few more stands Same again.
Speaker 3But that's what? It's? A social occasion. But I think the game fair's time with, as the Internet's developed and all the rest of it, a lot of the skills have all been put on a YouTube channel. So people, so people just go. Well, I'm not there to see it anymore, because I can watch that when I get home, kind of thing yeah, and there's no deals anymore because it's all so cheap online.
Speaker 3This is I think that's it. They were there. You used to go to the game fair because you go there, you'd save up all your money. You'd turn up at the game fair, you wanted to buy something. You'd haggle away on the stand and you get a deal. Now, well, the the deals aren't there, because the price you see on the stand is basically the price you get it online.
Speaker 2Oh, sometimes more I've had it before where it's cheaper online from the same company. That's there, yeah, but it's yeah, yeah, they got a cover so. But our shows in england are very different. If you look at online of videos of hunting shows in europe or america, they're totally different. Yes, yeah, like the taxidermy there and stuff is insane I think that's the big thing, though.
Speaker 3yeah, as you say, it's that, but the european still hunting is still very much ingrained into society. It's still a very traditional thing, and the Americans, well, for them it's it's it's their biggest pastime, isn't it Really?
Speaker 2Yeah, but I can never understand. You know, now I'm not doing the shows, as little the no taxidermy there. Now no one else does. I used to do the live demos which you don't see anyone else doing. Dad always did the live demos on the birds, yeah, yeah, but usually you look at sci conventions or these big hunt shows in europe. They got piles of taxidermy.
Taxidermy Process and Proper Trophy Care
Speaker 3It's absolutely insane what they have there but do you think taxidermy because taxidermy for buying it in this country, like people want to buy it, it's a huge, uh huge after sales like our antique shop buys every they're desperately trying to buy as much taxidermy as possible. But do you think it's one of those trends that's kind of disappeared, unless people are having it done and they'll just happily have like a european skull mount?
Speaker 2well, people in england is tighter on what they spend. You know it's the same with the hunting english guys. They don't, especially with africa. The english guys don't go there, spend big money like most english guys that go. They're just doing coal hunts or the cheapest packages they can find. It's not like we're spoiled here, really aren't we? We are so cheap. Yes, you know what we have access to and what prices we get it for is the cheapest in the world? I think no. That's why can you hunt such quality for such little money so guys in england don't want to spend. You know, if they can shoot a big trophy deer so cheap, they don't want to spend all that money on a mount yeah, yeah, I completely understand that, if you had to save up.
Speaker 2If, say, of a gold medal robot costs five grand here and you had to save up for that, you would then spend 350 quid getting it shoulder mounted. Of course you would, yeah. But when a lot of people pay, you know, even going right for clients on a big outfit is 1500, 2000 maybe for a gold. But you know a lot of english guys with their makes or people that know they're paying 600 to to 1000 quid for a good gold. They don't then want to spend half the money of the hunt on a mount no, so they'll just have the skull mount to get a medal for it.
Speaker 2You've got to see. Look at America. You look up whitetail hunting, the price of them, or elk. It's crazy money, yeah. And even the guys that live there, you know they get a tag and they're self-guided. Those guys will spend 10,000 pound on feed, yeah, thousands on track. They'll spend 20, 30 grand a year and kill one or two white tails.
Speaker 3Because they've been tracking that white tail for the last five years, making sure it's coming in and growing.
Speaker 2Yeah they're hunting public land or what you know. Anyone can take that deer so that they're spending so much time, money, effort to get it. When they get it, they respect it so much more and will always get the mounts yeah yeah, you know, I, I completely agree and I do.
Speaker 3I do think, yeah, we are. We're very spoiled in this country, as you say, because, literally, if you've got a mate and he's got some deal and the chances are you can go out and do some shooting, and if you want to pay for it, it isn't going to cost you. Well, what is it? You can come and shoot a stag with us for 650 quid exactly.
Speaker 2It's cheap, but like you say, you couldn't go shoot a whitetail for less than like if we went to america it's going to run you five thousand dollars or more yeah, and that's, and that's just to get, and that's a tag with the chance that it might not, might not turn up or you might not see it yeah, you know, with an outfit so that you know.
Speaker 2There's a guy I hunted with when I was in america last in, uh, dave stucky, and there's a video on youtube where they go to his trophy room and every deer he's ever shot is all shoulder mounted in there. Yeah, he's quite a big, you know well-known hunter, but I think he's I can't remember it's 18. Maybe it might be less whitetail in there between him and his son, but they're all mounted. You know, it's not really like you might have one or two euro mounts, but nearly all of them are shoulders.
Speaker 3Yeah, you know, they just treat them like that because that's a whole lifetime of deer for them yeah, no, absolutely, and it isn't like they go out every weekend and they can get to shoot something. It is you go go out and you go after that one particular deer that you've been searching for.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's like I say to people you look at, you know meat eater, you know he's like a huge hunter, but how much does he really shoot a year? It's not that many really. No, absolutely. It's not that many really. Unless, absolutely, unless you are literally a multi, multi, multi millionaire, you're not shooting that much over there.
Speaker 3No, no, no, and and it is, it's, it's, yeah, it really does put it into perspective how, how lucky to have the number of deer we've got in this country and the availability and access to go and shoot pretty much whenever you want. Really.
Speaker 2Oh, so lucky. I mean, even if you price up Robux in France, spain, germany, you know the prices are way, way, way more than what they are here. Yeah, no, no, no. That's why all those guys want to come and hunt with us.
Speaker 3Yeah, no, absolutely, well, we've seen it. We, those guys want to come and hunt with us. Yeah, no, absolutely we. Well, we've seen it. We've had french clients all season, uh, italians and all sorts all coming over just to come and hunt stuff, because they they say it is it's cheaper to come and have that time up in scotland, or something like that yeah, that's it, and that's exactly that's the whole problem with then the taxidermy.
Speaker 2You know people don't. This year I must have had over a dozen good gold medal robux just for skull mounts right you know, and some of them were 150 cic plus heads. You know monstrous heads and it pains me to just boil the skull out. You know, all I want to do is shoulder mount it. Yeah, it's the cleanest skull. I can't bear it.
Speaker 3I would always shoulder mount any gold I ever shot no, no, no, I can understand that because, obviously, just uh, just to tell our listeners, I'm sitting looking at a picture of behind you and there's a fantastic wall. I think we've got a fox, uh, chinese water deer, munt jack, uh, is that a red? And then you've got a seek, a couple of seeker at the top, um, so yeah, that's just a few, just a few of his.
Speaker 2His mounts on on the wall behind them, absolutely stunning yeah, there's one of everything on the wall there, more than one of everything so so you're yeah, because you're obviously busy with.
Speaker 3I think you just said to me before we started recording, you had a, a number of reds to tan and stuff like that. And how does your year run? Is it always busy or are you, um, is there a real peak or trough in in in work?
Speaker 2it never really makes much sense to me. You'd think it would go with when the season's starting stuff Obviously in the ruts. I get a bit of an influx of stuff when the ruts are on, but I've hardly had any skull mounts in for the last few months. A lot of people haven't really been shooting a lot lately.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2Which is surprising. But, like I said, I've only been. I only went full time at Christmas two years ago, just coming up two years full time. So I'm new in the business. Really, I'm not snowed under with work like some of these guys that have been in the business for years. That's why they've got backlogs of three, four years, yeah. Yeah, they're so well known, their names are so long-standing. They just get so much work. You know we're only I know it's my dad does it as well, but my work's mine and his, is it? You know we're only one man in a shed.
Speaker 3You can only turn out so much every day and that's it so if we want to get our mounts done, we need to get them to you quick, before you get really busy and get a three-year waiting list.
Speaker 2Yeah, at the moment I've only got about. I did count up early. I only got 25 shoulder mounts to do ahead of myself.
Speaker 3Right, and now customers want you know how long does a typical show amount, for example, talk us through the process for somebody send you something. How long is it going to take before they see it again?
Speaker 2I try and get everything back to you between three and six months. At the moment I'm tailing closer to the six month, right, it all depends. Some stuff sort of jumps the queue by default. It just it all depends what's going on, you know okay depends what deer it is.
Speaker 2When you say if you brought me a chinese today and it's rolled up, or you've brought it in, it's already frozen and I've got so much work on, like I said to you earlier, I've just had 12 deer come in to tan for someone to go abroad.
Speaker 2You know, I got no time to start that because I've got 12 skins to prep and getting tan and flesh all this week. I'm just going to chuck that straight back in the freezer, right, you know, and then I might not get it back out for months to even tan it. You know, yeah, yeah. Whereas if you bring me a big deer, like if you rolled up with a red stag with the head you know the head still in the skin yeah, I've got skin that and put it straight in the town today. You know, generally the smaller deer I'll get on with faster than the big ones. The big ones are a bit more. There's more work in the tanning involved and like a red stag, you've got a day's worth of work and just taking the skull out, skin fleshing it down, washing it, tanning it, prepping it all because you know, like a big red stag, his face is bigger than a whole robot cape absolutely, yeah, it's, it's.
Speaker 3It's massive when you compare the size of it yeah, there's.
Speaker 2You know there's more tanning work in the face of a red stag than a whole row, so obviously the row is a lot faster for me to get on with and on the fleshing machine. I can be sat there for over an hour with a big red getting it real fitting. Okay, yeah, in that hour I could bang through, you know, half a dozen or more row, get them all down ready to go right. So those big reds take a lot more work.
Field Dressing for Best Mount Results
Speaker 3So for people that don't know if they wanted to bring you I don't know, say somebody listens to this and they decide they want to want to get something taxidermy. If they wanted to get you a skin, what, what would that? What's the process? Do they need to salt it, freeze it? What, what? How do you want it presented and brought to you really?
Speaker 2ideally just fresh, fresh, but you know you need to get it. This is the thing people I don't know why they don't think about it with skins. You need to treat your skin like it's a piece of steak that you'll want to eat. Right, you know you've got to treat that skin the same as you would the carcass you're going to eat. Yeah, just leave it sat in the truck overnight. Leave it sat in the truck for two days. Hang it in a tree overnight. You know you want to be shooting that, getting it straight in the fridge. You don't have to cape it straight away. Okay, you want to get it in the fridge and get the cold air blowing on it and chill down, chill down. Yeah, ideally, if you've got the time, you'd cape it straight after you shot it and then what just just chill.
Speaker 2Still chill the skin down as quick as possible, yeah but hang it in the chiller by its antlers is the best, right, okay, you just drop it in a heap on the floor. You know the top gets cold and the bottom's hot still. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, the best thing to do is hang them up. Tie a bit of string around the antlers and hang them up like you would the carcass. But it's no trouble to leave the skin on for a day or two, as long as they're hung and not lent against the wall of the chiller right but they are easier the skin when they're hot, you know yeah, yeah totally.
Speaker 2It's like skinning if you're going to do the meat. It's much easier. When they're warm, it just peels off. Yeah, yeah, um, but yeah, brought to me fresh and the chiller is always best, but the smaller at deer. You know your roma, jack, chinese. They're easy to just cape off, roll the cape up around the face and chuck in the freezer if you need to right, okay, and that has no ill effects on the on the skin no, no, no, as long as you wrap the bag and you've not got a freezer that pulls really hard, you know the freezer burn it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2I could go in the freezer for months, no problem as long as you're opening up, but obviously, like your big deer, you're not getting a red stag in the freezer with the heading not, not.
Speaker 3Unless you've got like a walk-in freezer, I'm gonna say it's.
Speaker 2It's not the easiest of things to do yeah, I have had people do it, but you know you've got to have a big freezer. Yeah, the red stags and that are best bought in fresh within a couple of days, right at the end of the day, the better you bring me the skin, the better your mouth's going to be right now that it's kind of good that there'll be people out there that are suddenly thinking about this.
Speaker 3They've, they want to go out, they want to get their deer shot and they're suddenly thinking, well, who do I take it to? They'll listen to this, they might get in touch, but at least they've got some idea of of what the process is, because I think there's there's not a lot of information out there for people. You kind of have to know somebody that knows somebody that's done it.
Speaker 2But, as you said, you might do another video or something like that, that at least you can help people I need to make a proper video because even a lot of pro hunters guides, you know they don't really know the best way because they just haven't done it or don't know and a lot of people end up sticking the deer, the bleed it, which then every cut you make I have the sit and sew up. You know it takes me ages and on short hair deer those cuts are going to show yes, yeah, you can't.
Speaker 3You can't always hide them, can you?
Speaker 2no, no. And especially if you've stuck the knife from the outside in, you can cut the hair. Yep, I can sew the cut up, but I can't make hair back where it isn't if you've cut it. If you know what I mean. Um, I always say to people whenever you shoot anything, if you're even thinking that you might shoulder mount it, just field gralloch it yep and I don't bleed any deer I shoot, shoot never.
Speaker 2I just feel gralloch immediately okay. So every deer I shoot whether I'm mounting it, keeping the skin or just if it's just a cold deer I still always just feel granicum. So I just go from the pelvis to the sternum and then I just reach up, grab everything out, grab everything and pull it all out of there. If I know it's a car animal and I'm definitely not having a cape, I'll just go from the pelvis to the sternum and then I'll open up the throat a bit so I can tie the food pipe off there and pull it through.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah but generally you don't get much coming back out of that if you just cut it anyway I was going to say, if you're dealing with it on the ground and it's not been hung up or anything like that, yeah, there's very little that's going to go up there, unless the thing's falling down a hill, pointing downhill and his stomach's running back up his mouth.
Speaker 2And if you do it immediately so the stomach's not started swelling up and blowing up there, then you don't get anything. But like we said earlier, if you know you're caping it, it can't go to the game dealer anyway. So how you granite, it doesn't really matter, because it's your consumption. So I just feel granite and pull it out and then you can leave that and carry on stalking. You know, if it's winter or cold, that can say exactly.
Speaker 3It'll chill by itself quite happily, won't it yeah?
Speaker 2but in the summer if you shoot a good trophy, you know you want to just grow like it. Get it in the truck and go home early. Don't stay out stalking for no, exactly.
Speaker 3Well, it doesn't cool, does it exactly?
Speaker 2if you shot a really good roebuck or something really nicely you want to make a mount of you know, take it straight home and get it in the fridge. You know that becomes the important thing. If you decided that that's a nice deer and you want it mounted, your priority should switch to being keeping that in top condition absolutely, no, absolutely.
Speaker 3And I think that's probably probably that you probably see it, and I think that's where people come and start. They'll shoot something, they'll um and ah about it, they'll spend the rest of the day out. They'll get home suddenly go. I'd like that mounted, but then by that time the skin's still warm, things are going to start to slip and there's going to be problems. Isn, isn't there?
Speaker 2The usual is they've cut the throat all the way up and then decide they want to shoulder mount it and then cut it all the way to its chin. Yeah, and the other reason I say the field gralloch, it is because if you don't so, a lot of people like to shoot them and hang them up with the guts in still.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And then they cape them and then gralloch them. But the whole problem with that is obviously, if you haven't stuck it because you don't want to make a hole, you hang it up, you tape it.
Speaker 2Once you go to cut the head off, all the green and all the blood then comes flowing out that pipe or yeah, yeah yeah, and then often I get skins bought in that just look like you put them in a bucket of blood and green and dirt and once you get that blood on the fur it's not easy to wash out.
Speaker 3I was going to say it's normally the blood that seems to cause problems with the skin and forces it to slip quicker, and stuff like that, isn't it?
Speaker 2Yeah, especially the stomach acid as well. Yeah, the blood stains it and I have to wash them and do all sorts of extra steps to try and get that blood, especially like fallow when they've got a white bib and you cover that in blood or a white fallow even. Sometimes I can't get it out completely, no matter what I do.
Speaker 3So you end up with a pink fallow.
Speaker 2It sort of goes like a brown. You know, the blood goes brown after the tan, that's right, yeah, yeah, so it does kind of just look like they're a bit dirty, but it's the blood stain and. But you know, if you really want that best condition mount, do your field gralloch. All your blood's gone out there. Then later on when you cape, there's no rubbish going on your cape, it's just I was going to say that that's the key, isn't it?
Speaker 3it's just making sure you get everything out in the field and and try not to contaminate. Well, yeah yeah, when you cut the head off, cause that, that's exactly where it's going to go. It just comes straight out of the tube at the other end Normally even when you're skinning down, you're nicking.
Speaker 2If you're not super clean at caping, you're nicking close to the surface and then the cake just ends up bloody. Yeah, if you look whenever you I post a picture of my cakes they're like pure white. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's not.
Stalking Skills and Traditional Hunting Methods
Speaker 3There's no blood or anything, because all the blood's been removed before yeah, and I think the key is it's it's again, it's knife skills, as you're taking that skin off. When people are doing it, guys just they rush a bit or they're trying to get it done quickly because they want to get away, or something like that, and you end up nicking the skin and things like that oh yeah, normally I end up with steaks and meat all over the cape.
Speaker 2It's funny the best capes I ever get are from the most novice people it's probably because they've taken their time to just get everything off so slowly yeah, that is the key point. They have taken their time and given it effort, right yeah it's always when I get a young lad like an underkeeper or something. Their capes are always the best the first year they've ever caped and it's better than top pro guides, you know well, the top pro guides there to just get it done as quick as possible.
Speaker 3If it's got more meat on it, he's not cut the skin. Therefore, we'll get it out of the way. The taxidermist can sort it out.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, that's the main problem. You know, if you're guiding these deer and charging the money, your priority should be to deliver the skin to the taxidermist. If you've just earned, you know your red stag stalking's cheap. You know you've earned the 600, 800, whatever you've charged.
Speaker 3That's part of the service is that you can give them their trophy it'd be nice if I saw that money, but as a guide, you don't see that money. That's going to the uh. That's all going to the uh, the stalking agent.
Speaker 2At the end of the day, oh yeah, but you know what I mean. That's part, yeah part of your job as a guide. Isn't just hunting it, it's the after hunt it's the whole.
Speaker 3It's the whole thing. It's the, the whole package. At the end of the day, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2You know. You should be able to deliver the customer with their, their product at the end.
Speaker 3Well, uh, I, ours are all um, well, pretty much everybody just has like a year amount skull back and uh told me of the stalker, he does, he does all of the skulls and cleans up and preps up for them. So yeah, nobody ever seems to complain. They all come back. Nice, it's amazing how many guests don't actually want to take their trophy away with them yeah, that surprises me, to be honest yeah, we, we either have.
Speaker 3Can. You saw the antlers off. I'd like to take them home to make them into candlesticks, or I've shot a bigger one before.
Speaker 2No, I'll leave that behind, thanks I think that's sometimes the thing with those hill stags, because a lot of them aren't huge heads.
Speaker 3You know it's not it's what's there at the time, isn't it? The stalk might be you've had a fantastic stalk, but actually the animal you've got into isn't massive. He's the biggest one that was there, but he isn't going to be something you potentially.
Speaker 2Last year you shot something bigger yeah, and, and you know, it's not like these lowland reds when you're charging two, three, four, five, ten thousand for these big slags yeah exactly you're talking.
Speaker 3Those guys are gonna want they want everything, they want the whole.
Speaker 2Thing yeah, yeah, yeah, because some of these you know not many gold medal red true gold medal wild reds are ever shot in england each year. But you're talking five grand, bare minimum for one of them upwards, the only, the only one I've ever been offered. That was a genuine wild gold. You know that was six and a half. Yeah, too much for me. I would have loved to have shot it, but you know they're just hard to come by well, that's it.
Speaker 3And again, it's one of those things as soon as they, as soon as they're there, somebody will take on, somebody will take it, and that's it. It's uh, it may have taken 10, 15 years to develop into that. You've already got to pull the trigger and it's, it's away, isn't it?
Speaker 2oh yeah, I mean that's a bargain price compared to the rest of the world. You know, if you look at red stags abroad, red stags in europe, they are serious money.
Speaker 3The hunt, yeah, yeah, good big ones, some of these new zealand ones, gee, I wouldn't like to know the price of them no, that, that, that uh, that new world record one, that uh, that made it into the press was a fair monster, wasn't he?
Speaker 2brian's one. Yeah, he shot four world records in one trip. Yeah, wow, yeah, he beat the world record four times, broke the thousand inch mark and if you look at the photos you'll see he now has the sci number one with a rifle, a muzzleloader, a bow and a crossbow. He's number one in the book for all those disciplines, weapon disciplines, and overall he has SCI 1, 2, 3 and 4. Wow, yeah. But if you look that guy up, he has some beautiful trophies, absolutely. He has six of the top ten biggest sable in the world Wow, himself, yeah, and he has them all full mount going up a staircase.
Speaker 3But I suppose if you've spent that much time out there and you've got them, you might as well have them on display, haven't you?
Speaker 2Oh for sure, these American guys, they have some beautiful mounts, these big guys. You've got them. You might as well have them on display, haven't you? Oh for sure, these american guys, they have some beautiful mounts, these big guys.
Speaker 3And they just well some of that, some of the houses. You see, I think we've shared a few photos. They're just the stuff and you can look around and it's like there's everything. It's like a full scene on the on the side wall and stuff like that and a lot of them.
Speaker 2That Brian I can't think of his surname off the top of my head, but I believe he opens his as a museum what's called a museum Right, his collection, and when I was in Texas this year I went to a collection the same that was like a museum and he opens it to the public, but a lot of it's his trophies. He's hunted fantastic everything under the sun in there so, so it is different.
Speaker 3So, going on from that, is there anything in particular that you would like that you haven't hunted in the uk, or anywhere that you want to go after this year?
Speaker 2UK. I want to hunt goat. I haven't hunted a goat yet. Okay, a big old billy goat? Yeah, it's on the list. I have got a guy lined up for it. It's just having the time and the money to go chase one. I'd like to do a bit more in america, right, but again, it's the price of all of it. You know, yeah, yeah, I quite, I quite want to do an alligator, you know, in florida or somewhere I was meant to do a few years ago but a hurricane rolled through and messed that up, that's gonna.
Speaker 3That's gonna slow things down there, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 2we had. We had the tags, everything, you know it was typical just couldn't. All the boat ramps were closed, full of debris, so we couldn't get out. You know it's a shame. Yeah, um, and just more in africa. I'd like to do right. You know there's so much and more in my bow, that's the the main thing I've like.
Speaker 3I think the boat, as you're going back to that topic, like the bow really is that there's still it seems to have been people are becoming less offended by in this country, but, um, yeah, the bow certainly does offer a huge amount more skill yeah, they still get offended when it comes to shooting big stuff with the bow. Even though the power it develops at 30 yards, as you were saying, if you look at all the characteristics it's phenomenal.
Speaker 2Some of these guys in Africa. They shoot 100-pound compounds and those with a 600-grain arrow set set up.
Speaker 2You're smoking a buffalo better than a than a 470 nitro, you know yeah, and the thing about it is, it's the penetration, it's almost through one side and out the other, and it's, it's phenomenal oh, it's when I was over there last the, the guy was telling me he was a young lad, my ph, and he'd just been at the school, not the year before, and um, the ph came out one day and it was like a ton sack of sand, right, he said. He said to them all right, what do you think is going to penetrate this better than any of the guns? You know they all, look in. You know 470 and 375 and all that, and they go. You know the 375 and he goes. I bet you this bow will penetrate that bag, and they go. No, no way. You know you shoot the ton sack with the rifles. None of them go through. No drawback with the bow. It went through the ton sack and out the other side. Yeah, yeah, it'd been.
Speaker 3No rifle could ever push through no, because that's, that's the beauty of it, that bow and it's, it's designed is just, it's designed for full penetration, really, isn't it? It goes straight through.
Speaker 2Yeah, I, I hunted buffalo before and I shot my bullet sub 30 yards with 470 nitro and I shot behind the shoulder, straight in the heart, and that 470 nitro only went in behind the shoulder and it stopped in the middle of the heart. Yeah, I pulled the bullet out of the heart when I granite it. But you couldn't believe that great big 500 grain you know, I don't know how many thousand foot pound of force in that thing and it only made it through the behind the shoulder into the heart.
Speaker 2Yeah, you watch a video of a guy shoot a buffalo, a bow, and that arrow just whizzes through it. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, yeah, you can't believe it. And they, but I suppose quicker.
Speaker 3Yeah, we're still trying to. I suppose the whole uk thing is we've still got a lot more education and people don't understand the concept of what the bow is actually doing and and how, how good and clean it actually will dispatch if the shot is in the right place that's the problem and the main thing.
Speaker 2The shot has to be right, and that requires a lot more skill than the shot being right on a rifle.
Speaker 3Yeah, you get away with the hydrostatics of a rifle and humans in general.
Speaker 2You know the skill level across the board, isn't so? You watch all these videos of these pro bow hunters. Yeah, they are killing stuff very well all the time, but that is always the problem and you get the novice guys thinking they can shoot like that. And that's when you run into a which you get with the rifle as well.
Speaker 3It doesn't. You get it with the rifle as well. You just get that it's. You put them up on something and it's the buck. Fever kicks in and all of a sudden their heart's racing and and the shot goes to crap kind of with the bow.
Speaker 2Geez, did I get buck fever? Holy moly, I've been. You know, buck fever's worn out for me on the rifle really, um, especially like last year, I shot so many big trophies. There was nothing. No, I didn't get any of that theory, I was just numb to it. And I tell you, when I shot that duiker with the bow and he fell over, you know like I'm shaking so bad. It was like shooting your first ever deer with a rifle, sort of thing yeah, yeah yeah, it was so hard to hold the bow steady.
Speaker 2You know, I've been practicing on targets and could hold it like put a pin on the end, you know, on the end of the arrowhead, and then, once you've got that animal stood in front of you.
Speaker 3It's not the same thing no, no, I can understand that. I think, um, yeah, especially when you're that close and it is, it's right there, it's. That's the whole difference, isn't it you're?
Speaker 2you're in its space, kind of thing well it, like I've said, the people it's just like when you first ever shoot, your first ever buck or your first big buck walks in front of you, you get that huge rush. You know like it, it's just like going back to that. That's why a lot of guys I know a lot of guys have shot tons of a rifle and then they end up going to a boat. Well, it is? It's just a whole different kettle of fish, you know takes it to the next level, doesn't it?
Speaker 3You have to. You have to use all that fieldcraft skill that you've got, all that knowledge, to be able to get yourself in close and personal and still compose when you actually want to take the shot.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think it makes you a better rifle hunter as well. Yeah, from that, because you know especially what I've learned in Africa, walking and stalking with the rifle and with the bow. You know now I can walk and stalk fallow in the woods and get I shot two fallow last week, you know with 24 yards yeah yeah, I've run fallow crept in, you know, years ago.
Speaker 2I never have been able to creep in in woodland. You know, creeping that close on fallow I'd have got spotted miles before you know yeah, yeah, but it just it. It gives you the skill set to, to allow you to do it, and I think that's that's the key yeah, paying more attention to the wind and even down to you know how you place your feet when you walk. Yeah, I walk through the wood and if I've got a client who drives me mad, you hear the crunching coming behind yeah, I've been there.
Speaker 3As they stomp along behind you, you close the car door that loud. Everything in the woodland is gone by the time we get there yeah, see, I always step onto my toe.
Closing Thoughts and Looking to 2024
Speaker 2I step on my toe and slowly put the rest of my foot down, and if there's a stick, you'll feel it before you even go flat-footed. So if there is, you just stay on your toe, if you know what I mean, and skip that step. That keeps you a lot quieter through the wood yeah, it's, but it's that that's.
Speaker 3That just takes us back to the traditional method of hunting and all the rest of it. Our forefathers must have been absolutely silently moving through the forestry oh, we're spoiled now, aren't we, with thermals and all the gear.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's still. But actually I think it goes on to that topic of conversation it doesn't make you a better hunter and I think actually all the modern technology, things like thermal and stuff like that is taking away the, the skills, the spotting skills that stalkers should have. Yes, it's great if you're calling, but if you're out just for yourself stalking, I don't think you should be taking the thermal out with you.
Speaker 2I think you should just have your set of binos I do like it, I bet, yeah, I agree, yeah it's. It's a lot more challenging to use your binos, but you'll, you'll, you'll walk by, so much you don't see oh, totally, yeah.
Speaker 3No, but that that's all part of it, isn't it? At the end of the day, it's you're supposed we're supposed to observe, but most people clearly walk past huge numbers of things without even knowing they're there. But when they've got a thermal they see a bit more and uh and and can get on it at least oh, especially in the word.
Speaker 2You've walked through and just think there was nothing in there, but the reality is you were just pushing it ahead of you the whole time yeah no, no, absolutely you never got. The saw it, that was it time. Yeah, no, no, absolutely you never got the sore.
Speaker 3That was it. So, um what, I think we're pretty much there, unless there's any questions that uh you you want to answer or or anything else that uh that you think you might uh want to tell us about. I think we're pretty good.
Speaker 2To be honest, nothing in particular, unless there was anything else on the text no, I think you've covered all of that.
Speaker 3So what we'll do is we'll draw this podcast to a close. Hope you enjoyed that podcast. It was, uh, it was good to record tom, and I did realize afterwards very few messages that we had failed to cover quite a lot of the topics in the taxidermy area and potentially there is a second podcast to be produced, uh, covering more of sort of the process of of producing a shoulder mount. Anyway, uh, he did say that if anybody was interested, send him a message, send him questions, remember to go and look at his feeds and subscribe. And if you want anything taxidermied and you're down in the south of england actually if you're anywhere in the uk he's probably more than willing to do it. Obviously don't inundate him because I don't want it to have long delays, um, but yeah, his work is second to none.
Speaker 3Podcast 23 ends 2023. Kind of convenient really that I've timed it that way. The next time you'll hear from the outdoor gibbon will be in 2024. We've got lots of guests lined up and I've got a load more stories and other types of podcasts to to record and get up for you. So please continue listening, please keep telling your friends about it and yeah, we'll see you in the new year.