About Rod Gardiner

My type of taxidermy is a traditional, old ‘museum’ type, working with the skin of the fish as practised for hundreds of years. I've heard it said that it does not last but that is relative to what you consider to be a long time, many museums have specimens that were stuffed in the 19th century – it depends on how youlook after your trophy.

I have been told that stuffed fish shrink – IMPOSSIBLE! When I worked in Melbourne years ago (we mostly did trout), as the fisherman presented his fish it was placed on a sheet of white butchers paper and an outline was pencilled around the fish and signed by the fisherman. When the fish was finished about 10 weeks later the paper outline was included in the package to prevent the cry – ‘It shrunk’.

Having a beer in a rural Queensland pub that happened to have a good size cod on display, ( I had stuffed the cod about 8 years previous) a local caught me checking out the fish and explained that a mate of his caught it, breaking all local records, but, of course it had shrunk a bit over the years!