2026 Texas Taxidermy Convention LIVE

It’s very hard to do justice with a cell phone.

Altitude sickness said:

It’s very hard to do justice with a cell phone.

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100% agree and the lighting is horrible

I tried getting better pics of monkey

Any leopards this year?

By far my favorite mount!! So life like and original

Huntforever said:

Any leopards this year?

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Mo only the 2 lions and the mnt lion

The lion and lioness mount, took 1st place Studio Division, Double Nickel Taxidermy.

Courtney with DNT took first place with her bobcat in the Masters. I thought the other bobcat with its paws on the rock was better.

Some very nice work.
Glad to see some cats being done well.
Thanks for making the effort to share the show with us.

wesheltonj said:

The lion and lioness mount, took 1st place Studio Division, Double Nickel Taxidermy.

Courtney with DNT took first place with her bobcat in the Masters. I thought the other bobcat with its paws on the rock was better.

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There were only 3 enteries in the studio division. I think this was first year recently they entered something. But yeah Courtney does well in individual.

WOW those birds look amazing. Like the lions also. Amazing talent being displayed there. True artists. Thanks for taking us around @buck wild

MB

I wish there was a good taxidermist in my home state of Arkansas. All the guys around here do deer and birds.

wesheltonj said:

Courtney with DNT took first place with her bobcat in the Masters. I thought the other bobcat with its paws on the rock was better.

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So the bobcat on the rock, mounted by Cody Wier, was the BEST lifesize small mammal in the Masters category. That mount did indeed "beat" Courtney's cat. That is not a knock on Courtney or anybody else who had a blue ribbon in the same category.

You compete against a score sheet and are critiqued by judges. There can be multiple first-place "blue" ribbons in the same category, as well as 2nds, 3rds etc. There can, however, only be ONE Best of Category and Best of Show. That goes to the HIGHEST scoring mount in a category. In this instance, the cat on the rock was the highest scoring Masters in the small, lifesize mammal category.
There are probably 8-9 categories so you might be seeing lots of FB posts about being Texas State Champion, as there are several based on the category a person had the highest scoring Masters entry.

Then there is the professional division, also with a Best of Category, but they can't win "Best of Show" as that category is judged slightly less harshly than Masters.

The Studio and Original Art are not judged, thus they don't earn ribbons. They are decided strictly by the popular vote of attendees who are registered for the show. I do indeed think the two lions were the best of the 3 studio entries this year, but there have been a few in the past where I wondered why my artistic eye was so different from the popular vote. I think 2 great entries here can hurt, as it might split the vote and allow another entry to sneak by.

Although the overall entries were down, I'd say collectively it was the best group of Master entries I've seen outside of Worlds. Texas is by far the hardest show to do well. There are entries in Texas that will do better in other smaller state competitions.

Please don't read my posts as throwing stones at anyone here. For full disclosure, I have a Blue Ribbon in Masters deer heads and was voted People's Choice Original Art, but I have never earned a Best of Category or Best of Show.

bobcats are tough. Best not to try too hard to make them fierce?

buck wild said:

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What is the antelope?

steve white said:

What is the antelope?

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Looks like a black lechwe to me or a Kafue lechwe with A LOT of black on his shoulders.

The taxidermist that mounted it referred to it as a "black lechwe", but it was killed in Texas so really no telling what kind of mix it was

Any Honey Badger mounts at the show? I currently have one in process at the taxidermist shop

Stubbleduck said:

Any Honey Badger mounts at the show? I currently have one in process at the taxidermist shopView attachment 774562

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Those would be very rare to show up at a Texas taxidermy convention. Altho we do get them to mount over here, a lack of resources such as the actual body, available forms and reference, plus dealing with "African skins" makes it highly unlikely someone would try to compete with one.

Here is my HB I mounted a few years back to go on my sable/roan base