goose stuffers ????

[e-burghunter]

how hard is it to make your own goose stuffers if any one has done this any info on how to get started wuold be great thanks

[LoneWolf]

Are you referring to making your own body?
It has been along time, but I used to do a little bit of taxidermy on my ducks. Seems like we used excesleir (sp). It was like a straw packing that you could shape quite well and bind with twine.
Of course I don't have a single one of those mounts anymore, so that tells you how well of a job I did, and how well they held up.:D

[skeet]

A friend and I made quite a few(100 or so) back quite a few years. It was expensive then and even more so now. We had some help as far as expense from a couple of older fellows we hunted with. As far a doing, it is mostly time consuming. Not really hard. And they work great. You have to get forms etc from a supply house. We still have some that we did more than 30 yrs ago. You have to find a way to keep vermin out of them and also can't use them in the rain. They'd be perfect for where I live. We had almost 4 inches all last year. Probable cost now would be 40 bucks each. Maybe a bit less. Spend more time preparing the hied. They will last longer.

[LoneWolf]

Hmmm, sounds like I was way off... now there's a surprise:rolleyes:

[skeet]

All told between my friend and I and 3 other people we bought enough stuff(about 1978) to do over 200 decoys. The other fellows we knew pretty well of course but we bought all that stuff together and split the cost. Surprisingly a few years ago we started to hunt together just a bit. We still had 60 of ours left(some were getting a little ratty...or mousy. And they had about 40 of theirs. We put them all out one cold winter day. Some on a frozen pond with a hole in front of the blind(bubbler) and the rest around the pit and we ran 31 hunters through the place in 4 hours. Everybody we could get ahold of...including my daughter and grandson. 2 of our decoys were also killed by falling geese. I think my friend has about 18-20 left and I left him my 2 dozen Bigfoots and 2 dozen GHG full body decoys and we also had about 200 silhouettes. We had a rig of over 1000 decoys at one time and used them all more than once. But the geese almost always landed to the stuffers. BTW it is illegal to sell stuffers...at least in Md and I think it is Federal. Migratory game birds, ya know! BTW that blind on the edge of the pond has sliding spring loaded doors and will hold as many as 15 shooters. No more than 4 ever shoot at one time though. We have a pit captain when all the places are taken and he says who will shoot. Don't know how many geese were killed there this year but we averaged over 800 a year though the close of the goose season in the early 90's. Last year we shot about 400. We had 7 different pits and blinds and 3 ponds....and a 100 head of dairy cows to keep the geese interested

[e-burghunter]

keep the info coming thanks like how to do the hides and what to use on them

[grayghost]

I would start by buying a book or video on bird taxidermy. It takes some practice to get used to skinning, let alone fleshing. Leave fat inside and you'll have a greasy bird in short order. Learn the basics and get your supplies from Van Dykes or WASCO supply. It will take time but the end result is hard to beat.