WHITETAIL TAXIDERMY
 

Part III Open-Mouth Whitetail Taxidermy Featuring World Champion Paul Cales By Dan Rinehart Sponsored by Van Dyke's Supply

PAUL CALES, from Sandstone, West Virginia, won the Best in World Whitetail at the 1997 World Show in Springfield, Illinois. The judges of whitetail deer were Joe Meder, who won Best in World Whitetail in 1985, and Cary Cochran, who won in 1987.

Recognizing the talent of this man, DAN RINEHART photographed Paul's whitetail techniques for the deer shown at left, explaining the details of open-mouth work.

I'm glad you've return for the continuation of open-mouth whitetail mounting with World Champion Paul Cales. If you have been following this series, you know that Paul has been providing revolutionary techniques and detailed instruction. Each of the first two articles have built upon the other, providing a sequential analysis of how Paul achieves world-championship quality. The goal of this article series is to provide you with understandable instruction of techniques that you can incorporate in you own taxidermy work. So, let's go back to Paul's taxidermy studio and pickup where we left off.

NOSTRILS

1-2. Hide fleshing and preparation is critical for creating a high quality whitetail mount. Excellent hide prep makes an exceptional mount possible. The contrary is also true; a poorly prepared hide makes it impossible to achieve high quality results. Let's take a look at how Paul preps a hide. Paul starts with prepping the nostrils. A fleshing cone is used to provide a smooth and consistent surface on which to flesh. The nostril is thinned around the entire nostril.

By shinning a flashlight through the nostril skin, we can see that the skin has been fleshed very thin throughout the entire nostril. Such a complete and thorough fleshing will enable the...

...Continued in the Spring 2003 Issue of Breakthrough.

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