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I spent 12 days at the Artistic School of Taxidermy in Kooskia Idaho with Troy Rose.
I just retired from Law Enforcement in January 2013 after a 25 year career. After being a policeman for 25 years I became very skeptical of society and am not an overly trusting person. I have been dabbling in taxidermy for the past 2 years and most of my learning came from video tapes. I decided that I was going to do taxidermy as a part time business about a year ago; at that time I began looking into taxidermy schools. I knew that after my pension I would not have to make a full time living out of taxidermy but being an extremely competitive person and wanting to be the best at what I do I had to find a school that would meet this criteria as I plan on entering area competitions.
Artistic School of Taxidermy offered one on one instruction, which was something I thought I would really want, but long days sewing in the shop became very lonely. Also allowed unlimited access to the taxidermy shop, which was extremely beneficial especially when I had to sew that life-size bear up and keep on schedule. The cost of this was $300 per day which also included my room and board. I did not have to travel back and forth to a hotel or worry about where, when and what I was going to eat. My private room was beautiful along with my private bathroom. I was up every morning at 5:30 am and when I got out of the shower my coffee was on the table. Spending 12 days there I was at some point going to have to do laundry and had full access to the laundry area of Troy’s house, he would not wash my clothes for me though. Troy also did not dictate what I was going to mount and allowed me to pick specimens from my area; he was able to accommodate this all except my turkey as we had to do a Merriam instead of an Eastern.
I chose to mount a life-size black bear, 2 whitetail shoulder mounts and a strutting turkey. Troy kept no secrets and told me that this was going to be a lot of work in the time I was going to be there.
I arrived on Saturday evening and my class was to begin on Sunday morning. After a long travel day all the way across the country and a substantial ride from the airport I arrived on time to my dinner waiting for me. After dinner Troy showed me around the shop, his house and the hides I was going to mount.
For my first day we prepped both deer and the bear and began the grueling process of mounting the bear. The days that followed were all work and no play. The bear took me a day longer than expected as my sewing was slow but I wanted it to be perfect. Troy set the shop rules by telling me he would stay with me into the early evening but after that I was on my own to sew, he never left. He showed me ways to do things I would never have learned on a video, you have to go to find them out as I’m not telling. He stayed with me until well after midnight to make sure I learned how to get that turkey right on my last day.
For you skeptics out there, Troy did not mount a single specimen of mine. He demonstrated how to mount a whitetail on one of his own and left mine up to me. When I had a question he was there to answer, when I made a mistake I had to redo it myself. Several times after watching him take apart something I spent hours on. I now feel confident in mounting my own specimens 2700 miles away from The Artistic School of Taxidermy and that is exactly what I wanted as Troy won’t be close by to help.
For you nature lovers out there on the 3rd day of my stay I woke up to 16 elk standing 60 yards outside my window. Every morning 3 Tom Turkeys came in for breakfast and every evening several deer came for dinner. The landscape was beautiful.
In closing, because of my personal nature, I did not go on this trip to make any friends. I was spending a good deal of money and wanted to get the most out of this process. But in the end I came away with an unbelievably great new friend. We did have a lot of fun in the shop, even more fun on our two short days. I will be going back to Kooskia but it won’t only be to enhance my taxidermy skills.
If you really want to learn I strongly suggest Artistic School of Taxidermy You won’t regret it.
