Suggestions on Alligator Rug.

[scooter9715]

Last Monday my husband snagged a 11ft 3in gator. That was after his first gator which was 7ft 3in. We have decided to make that bigger one into a rug because to us since we are from Ohio and we do not have gators here its equal to getting that big buck and we wanted to be able to show if off as a trophy. Being from Ohio we have found no one that creates alligator rugs. We wanted to see if we could get some suggestions on the best places the names and if they have web sites to see pictures of the rugs they make. We have found one place John Walker that does them. Does anyone have any experience with them? Thank you for your time and suggestions!

[mbeck]

Lots of people do them.
Few in my opinion do them well. ( I'm not a taxidermist)
Keep looking

[bubba z]

I have dealt with John walker before and he is a good guy to deal with. He is not award winning by no means but he puts out a consistent and decent product to his customers.I've had people bring Him several over the years to do mounts and rigs and tan hides and they never had any problems and he is a nice guy. He has mounted a lot of big gators before and they are some of the better ones I see done in my area but there are better taxidermists out there but they will be expensive. He isn't the cheapest in this area but he is the only one from Sanford to st Augustine I would even recommend dealing with.

[JEEP EDSON]

walker does a boat load of gators.  i have a couple from him and like bubba said they aren't bad but they aren't something you would take to a taxi show either.  so if you want award winning talk to Dan (pyscho) if you want something a little less expensive but you can still be proud to look at give walker a call.  just remember you get what you pay for.  and a rug is not cheap at all.  and if this is a once in a lifetime trophy for yall i would go all out. 

[mbeck]

Didn't mean to bad mouth John Walker. Everything said about him is true easy to deal with and reliable.
I have a " shoulder" mount on the wall from him.

[bubba z]

For the price he does a good product but I'm sure their are better gator guys out there but you are going to have to pay for exceptional quality. He's mounted most of the top ten sci gators in each category so he has more experience than about anybody on doing big gators. You didn't bad mouth him mbeck. He is a straight shooter and easy to deal with and knows all about shipping them and such so if you deal with him you won't have problems. I'm sure there are good gator guys around the state but in my area he is the only worth that I'd even fool with and if you go around and look at different gator mounts you'll see why. He does a tan/soak combo that he keeps secret and a lot if the others dry preserve and formaldehyde them and there are very noticeable differences in quality.

[mbeck]

Just to clarify why I made the comment to "keep looking".
My first gator was a monster I had never given a thought to mounting one til I had him in the freezer. I started to look at different taxidermist work and in my opinion there was not a lot of good quality options Price wasn't a huge factor for me I wanted to do it right.
I chose John Walker and I'm glad I looked around  a lot and educated myself a little.

[scooter9715]

Thanks everyone for your comments! I am making a list of ones that we like and then will look further into them. Its goods information to hear feedback from different places since we have no experience in this kind of area.

[bubba z]

I learned the hard way on this I killed two gators both over 13' in two nights and one had some of his tail missing and had somebody cheap do some rugs for me that got screwed up. I ended up cutting the heads off them and throwing the skins away and ended up giving the heads to sone of my buddies the next year when I got another big one I did the head on.

[psycho]

Scooter9715, I sent you a PM.  If your gator is in Florida still I can recommend someone to you if it is in Ohio with you then my PM will answer some concerns and questions for you.  Thanks, Dan

Thanks Jeep for the compliments.

[aostertag]

I have done tons of alligator and croc. rugs, you can see my work on our website at
http://www.reflectionstaxidermy.com/store.aspx.