Wife-and-husband team strive for highest quality in Rut-N-Strut Taxidermy

Matt Buchheit says it happens "all the time."

His wife, Kate, usually goes with the flow, but admits "it's frustrating."

What they're talking about are the hunters who come to the Buchheits' Rut-N-Strut Taxidermy business, trophy in hand, and assume Matt is in charge.

But in reality, Kate is the full-time taxidermist while Matt works there part time.

"A lot of people don't realize I do it," Kate said as she shrugged and shook her head. "They just assume he does it. I don't really say anything, but it's frustrating."

Kate and Matt Buchheit pose for a photo with a bobcat mount they produced, which was one of four Rut-N-Strut Taxidermy entries recognized at this year's Missouri Taxidermy Association convention.Submitted

In the male-dominated world of taxidermy, Kate is among a small, yet growing, percentage of female taxidermists. Several of them, such as Kate, are in business with their spouses.

From hobby to career

"We got into it by accident," said Matt, who works full time as the compliance coordinator at Buzzi Unicem Alternate Fuels in Cape Girardeau.

It was during deer season in the fall of 2018 when Matt shot what he described as a "decent buck." Rather than having the deer's head mounted, he decided to try his hand at a "European" or "skull mount" in which the skin, fur and tissue are removed, leaving only the deer's rack and skull, which is then dried and bleached for display.

The result, he said, turned out "pretty good." Several of Matt's hunting friends asked whether he would do similar skull mounts on their deer and soon he "had a bunch" to do.

Matt Buchheit specializes in mounted fish trophies, such as this bass displayed at Rut-N-Strut Taxidermy, a business he and his wife, Kate, began nearly two years ago.Submitted

It was about that time that Kate, who was an assistant manager at the Cape Girardeau Kmart, lost her job when the store closed in November 2018.

"When Kmart closed, I had no idea what I was going to do," said Kate, who had worked at the store nearly half her life, starting in 2004 when she was just 16. She thought about going into the health care field, perhaps as a transcriptionist or medical coder, but since Matt was becoming overwhelmed with his initial taxidermy work, he suggested she could help with the deer skulls.

Kate, who grew up in the Egypt Mills area and learned how to skin and clean animals from her father and brother, accepted Matt's suggestion.

"She was intrigued by the work and got satisfaction from seeing happy customers," Matt said.

The Buchheits converted the two-car garage at their home along County Road 439 north of Jackson and Rut-N-Strut Taxidermy was born.

By then, Kate knew she wanted to pursue a career in taxidermy, so she enrolled in a four-week training program at the Lake of the Ozarks to hone her skills.

"When she was in class, she told me there were two things she would not do," Matt recalled. "She said she would not do fish and she would not do ducks. And now, do you know what our two favorite things to do now are? Fish and ducks!"

Kate still leaves all the fish for Matt to do because to do them right requires coats of airbrush-applied paint.

"And the airbrush and I just don't get along," Kate said as she shook her head.

"Now she does the ducks," Matt said. "She loves doing birds and I do all the fish."

For the most part, they collaborate on just about everything else, including deer, which, for them, is their "bread and butter," especially when bow and rifle hunting seasons come along.

Matt and Kate Buchheit of Rut-N-Strut Taxidermy position antlers atop a deer shoulder mount form at their taxidermy shop at their home north of Jackson.Jay Wolz

'We weren't that close'

It was their mutual love of hunting and the outdoors that helped bring them together when they began dating in 2014 after Kate's brother, who worked with Matt at Buzzi Unicem, encouraged him to ask her out.

"When we first started talking, it was in October and rifle season started in November," she said. "I told him I couldn't talk to him much then because I'd be busy hunting. He said he'd be doing the same thing."

"We didn't know we both hunted at the time," Matt said. "We had just met and didn't realize it."

Although Kate and Matt shared a passion for hunting, they didn't share the same deer stand.

"We weren't that close," Kate deadpanned.

To do so would be a breach of hunting etiquette, Matt said.

"You never show somebody where you hunt and fish until you know them really well," he explained.

Matt and Kate have several shoulder mount deer heads in their home, but they were prepared by other taxidermists before they were in the business themselves.

"We don't like those mounts anymore," Kate said. Now that she and Matt are taxidermists themselves, they say it's easy for them to spot imperfections in the work done by others.

"Your name is everything in this kind of business," Matt said. "We pride ourselves on quality. Each customer's mount is a trophy to them, so we want to treat it like it was our own. We would never let something leave our shop that's questionable to us. It's going to be done right before it goes out."

Kate Buchheit grew up in a hunting family and became a full-time taxidermist almost two years ago after the Cape Girardeau Kmart, where she had worked 14 years, closed in late 2018. She is shown here sewing a deer skin onto a shoulder mount form.Jay Wolz

Quality reputation

Rut-N-Strut's reputation for quality work is apparently getting around judging by the business they've started doing with hunters from states outside of Missouri, including New York, Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee and Iowa.

From skinning a deer (which Kate can do in about 10 or 15 minutes) to completing the final wall-mountable product is a process that takes four-to-five weeks. And while most of Rut-N-Strut's work involves deer, fish, fowl and occasional bobcats, they've also worked with some more "exotic" creatures such as alligators and rattlesnakes.

"All taxidermists have some things they're really going to hone in on," Matt said. "Of course, they're always going to do deer, because that's your big moneymaker. Others get into bobcats, foxes and small mammals."

Regardless of what sort of creature they're working with, Matt and Kate seem to have a good time on each project.

"I say she's the day shift and I'm night shift," Matt said. "She builds them during the day and I make them look pretty at night. We're both just goofy and joke around a lot with each other."

Listening to them talk about hunting and taxidermy, it's obvious the Buchheits enjoy what they're doing.

"You know, they say if you find what you love to do, you'll never work a day in your life," Matt said.

They want others to enjoy outdoor activities -- including hunting and fishing -- just as much as they do.

"We encourage everybody to get out, especially youth," Kate said.

"Less Xbox and more tackle box," Matt said.

Rut-N-Strut, he said, has begun sponsoring youth activities and is getting involved in charitable activities. It also offers a 10% discount for youth during youth weekend hunts and a standing 10% discount for first-responders and members of the military.

The Buchheits recently joined the Missouri Taxidermy Association in order to network and learn from veteran taxidermists. They also entered four examples of their work to be judged at the association's annual conference, held a few weeks ago at the Lake of the Ozarks.

"Everybody said we shouldn't expect to win anything our first year, but we placed with all four of our entries," Matt said.

"When we came back, we were so inspired to do more and learn more and fix things we were doing wrong that we didn't know we were doing wrong," Kate added.

More than people realize

Dawne Stacks of Eldon, Missouri, serves as secretary/treasurer of the state taxidermy association and says more and more husband and wife teams are becoming taxidermists. (In her own case, her husband, Eric, began a taxidermy business in the mid-1990s and she joined him about a decade ago after retiring as a hairdresser.)

"There are more husband-and-wife taxidermy teams than people realize," she said, adding it's also a growing field for women in general.

"Back in the '60s, it was unheard of for a woman to be a taxidermist," she said. "Back in the day, it wasn't kosher for women to do that sort of stuff."

Today, Stacks estimated roughly 10% of the state association's members are women, including Kate, who Stacks met during this year's taxidermy conference.

"It takes natural ability and drive to succeed as a taxidermist," she said. "I'm glad to see people like Kate get into it. I think she's going to do very well because she has that drive."

For more information, visit www.buchheitrutnstruttaxidermy.com and www.facebook.com/Rut.N.Strut.Taxidermy.

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