Pioneers In Our Industry

We can't forget to mention Mike Orthober in this discussion, as he has probably forgotten more than most of us know. Randy Desarmou was another inspirational fish guy.
Both were responsible for moving me way ahead in my fish work. Neither held back when giving seminars, I only wish Dale Cornetet had been a little more generous with his knowledge. His work on steelhead and king salmon was outstanding. The only work I ever took pictures of for reference, lol.

 

John Rinehart, he was a great business man and got alot of people started down the taxidermy road,also his mannikins with preset eyes,and many others.

 

In turn these innovators have you, the ones with the open minds and those who listened and had a thirst for success to be thankful for. Where would they be without you? I like to read these posts and learn from the best in the business, but I have also learned from individuals outside this craft. You'd be surprised at some of the ideas both blue- and white-collar individuals come up with over a beer. Talent is everywhere. You just have to listen.

 

I have been doing taxidermy over 30 years and I live close to AP shop and him and his wife have allways been nothing but nice to me and if not for them I probably would not be sitting here typing about taxidermist I know a lot of people didn’t care for Ariche but you can’t take away what he did back in the day when taxidermy was not easy to learn like it is today i still have books from 30 years ago that Ariche wrote and still remember all the hunting and fishing shows he did back then too I still go to his shop and get fish forms and other stuff and his grand daughter that’s running it now is just as nice as they was to me

 

I don't necessarily regard him as a "pioneer", more of an alt rock star. But I just saw Mike Kroessig's site says permanently closed.

Def one of the most gifted I've seen with an airbrush. I imagine his enormous talent has led to new opportunities.

 

Being wholly green and unable to dedicate much time to fish (because lack of demand makes it hard to justify) but really enjoying fish I haven't heard of most of the people listed, and only have any real experience with 2. One is Rick Krane, who I have purchased videos for the only 2 species I have really ever worked with/care about... The other is the person who refered me to Krane, a guy who saw a post I made in a FB group and reached out to me, gave me his number and invited me to call him, and whom I have had continued correspondences with and absolutely cannot say enough positive things about. I don't know enough about the sub-industry to know if hes an innovator or not, but no one deserves more credit for sparking my own personal improvements than Bubba

 

For me i would have to say that i have surely improved by getting a lot of information from Dave Smith. He really did not mind sharing techniques on painting fish with me. When i first came here guys like Rick Krane, Paul C and Dave Campbell also helped me out a lot. Of the newer guys i would say that Jimmy Lawrence is up there with the best.