Grand Forks teen takes his taxidermy skills to the next level

Mar. 15—GRAND FORKS — As often is the case with hobbies — or, perhaps, "passions" would be a better word — one thing can lead to another.

Such was the case for Braden Durick and his budding talent for taxidermy. For the second straight year, the Grand Forks teen took Best Of Category and Best Youth Entry honors in the Youth Division at the

North Dakota Taxidermists Association

39th annual taxidermy convention.

This year's event was held March 7-10 in Bismarck.

An eighth-grader at Sacred Heart School in East Grand Forks, Braden, 14, started dabbling in taxidermy in 2021 after visiting Jim Benson's Sportsman's Taxidermy Studio a couple of years earlier. Benson, of East Grand Forks, is one of the region's premier taxidermists.

Benson also is an avid fisherman and knows Braden's dad, Brad Durick, a Red River catfish guide who helps run the Red River Valley Catfish League, held Wednesday nights throughout the summer in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks.

"(Jim) took Braden through the shop, and he petted the dog, and they had a giraffe back there, I remember," Brad Durick said. "He thought the shop was cool the very first time he went through it."

What he saw as a curious 9-year-old definitely made an impression. Always artistic, Braden was drawing pictures depicting hunting and fishing trips with his dad and family friends almost from the time he was old enough to hold a pencil or crayon.

Trying his hand at taxidermy, then, was a natural progression for Braden after visiting Benson's shop. And there's nothing better, after all, than learning from one of the best.

Taking up taxidermy without the benefit of Benson's expertise would have been "terrible," Braden says.

"There are some guys that can do it, but it's a lot better when you have a mentor," he said.

As a mentor, Benson says Braden is off to a great start. The teen does most of his projects in the taxidermy shop, where Benson and other taxidermists who work there can offer help in working through the inevitable snags that arise.

"He watches the best in the business" every time he's there, Brad Durick said. "Every guy that works there is an award winner in some way, shape or form, and all of those guys help him."

Mounts from animals or live fish — as opposed to replica fish mounts — utilize only the fur, hide or skin, which is preserved and stretched over a form that resembles the shape of the creature being mounted and then sewn in place; the carcass is discarded.

Braden orders most of his forms and other taxidermy supplies from a company called McKenzie Taxidermy Supply. Forms can range in price from about $20 for a squirrel to nearly $3,000 for a lifesize moose.

That's only materials, though; the real expense in getting something mounted is the taxidermist's time and skill. Here's how Braden describes the process for mounting an animal:

"First you have to skin it, then flesh it and take the ear cartilage out, nose cartilage ... skin the toes and all that.

"Once it's all fleshed, then usually you salt it overnight, sometimes two nights. Then it stays in a tanning solution for probably about a week. While you do that, you can order the forms, and they'll usually come within about two weeks."

To date, Braden's taxidermy projects have included "a lot of squirrels" — which he says are probably the hardest to mount — a raccoon, a fox, a coyote head mount, deer heads, a perch, a muskrat and an opossum.

Braden received the opossum in the mail from a guy in Brownsville, Minnesota, in the far southeast corner of the state. An opossum is an odd item to receive in the mail for sure, but it wasn't entirely unexpected, Braden says.

"One day, Jim (Benson) told me I was going to get a present, and then it just showed up in the mail," he said.

Braden entered the opossum as one of his four entries in the recent North Dakota taxidermy show. He also entered a perch he caught last summer on Devils Lake, a doe head from a whitetail he shot in October 2022 during Minnesota's youth deer season and a muskrat he picked up as roadkill near Devils Lake.

Entries must score 90 points or better to earn a first-place blue ribbon, and Braden's opossum, doe head and perch all scored blue ribbons to win Best of Category in their respective categories — Lifesize Mammal, Gamehead Deer and Fish.

Even if entrants are limited — Braden was one of two competitors in the Youth Division — mounts must score 90 or better to qualify for Best of Category status, Brad Durick said.

"They don't have to give the Best of Category (prize) — you have to reach the score," he said. "So even though there weren't a bunch of kids (competing), the work still had to reach the minimum score to get the blue ribbon to even be considered for the Best of Category."

Braden's muskrat mount scored 84 points to place second to his opossum in the Lifesize Mammal category.

The three judges who critiqued Braden for this year's taxidermy show were from Minnesota (deer), Wisconsin (mammals) and Colorado (fish). All three judges recommended that Braden move from the Youth Division to the Professional Division going forward, Brad Durick said.

"They told him, 'Just head to Professional because it's more heavily critiqued. ... You're to the level where the way we critique Youth isn't going to help you anymore,' " Brad Durick said. "Hence, a red ribbon in Professional is better than a champion in Youth."

With his blue ribbon perch, Braden also is off to a good start in perfecting his fish mounting skills. Many taxidermists want nothing to do with fish because of the artistry required in making a fish look lifelike, a tedious, painstaking process that involves using an airbrush and requires precision painting skills.

Braden figures he spent about 15 hours on his prize-winning perch mount. Becoming even more proficient at fish is next on his taxidermy learning list, Braden says, along with birds, such as the ruffed grouse and duck that await attention in one of the family freezers.

"I've hardly done anything with birds, so I need to start doing more birds," he said. "From what I've heard, they're even worse than fish."

Braden also has used his taxidermy skills to make gun racks from deer legs and European skull mounts of deer, a process that involves not only skinning the head, but removing the eyes and the brain.

This kid definitely isn't squeamish.

Braden says his friends at school think his taxidermy hobby is "just kind of cool or whatever." Other classmates, he says, probably don't know what to think.

"I don't know that they necessarily understand it," Brad Durick said.

Someday, Braden says, he'd like to become a taxidermist full-time, but for now, his focus is on perfecting his craft. For the first time, Braden will enter some of his work in the Minnesota Taxidermy Guild Convention, set for April 4-7 in Alexandria.

As his mentor, Benson of Sportsman's Taxidermy says Braden definitely has a bright future in taxidermy if he sticks with it.

"He definitely has a love for the art and is showing great potential," Benson said. "Most people his age do not work at it that consistently. He gets a pretty big smile on his face when he finishes his pieces."