LADIES IN THE FIELD
HUNTING & FISHING NEVER TASTED SO SWEET By Meredith Kay
I
t’s one thing to eat what you harvest, but it’s another thing to eat a redfish or a white-tailed deer for dessert. There is an incredibly talented lady deep in the heart of coastal South Texas who creates stunning and edible masterpieces for those who love to hunt and fish. Dusty Sinclair, “The Cake Taxidermist,” started Sugarbelle Sweets in 2014, and today she continues to create hyper realistic hunting and fishing themed cakes out of her kitchen in Flour Bluff. Her creations are truly works of art that require ingenuity, engineering, and artistry in equal parts, and she has customers all over the state of Texas who place orders for her creations, sometimes a year ahead of time. Born in Mineral Wells, Dusty’s family moved to Port Aransas when she was young, so she grew up hunting and fishing with her family and her grandparents. It was her great aunt, Wilma Jo Loughmiller,
who taught her about taxidermy and the art behind preserving animals. Dusty says, “Aunt Jo is lauded as the first known female taxidermist, and she taught me how to process an animal with skill and respect, and that you never stop learning.” Today, Dusty practices taxidermy as a hobby on animals that she harvests on her own, and she uses some of these same skills when sculpting the cakes into their unique shapes. Dusty and her husband, Ryan, have three children. Their son, Landon (9), is already an avid hunter and fisherman, and his younger sisters, Hunter (5), and Peyton (6 months) aren’t too far behind him. The family feels strongly about raising their children to feel comfortable around guns and teaches them proper gun safety, how to put the right shot on an animal to take them respectfully and cleanly, and the importance of utilizing the whole animal. When speaking of how important it is to her and TexasDoveHuntersMagazine.com | 23
