Saturday, April 7, 2012

Fish Mounts

Our 2012 sport show season is over and as I was putting away the booth I started to think about the fish mounts that we display. Mike Thelen of Fiber Tech Productions is responsible for them. I personally use Fiber Tech Productions and this is who I recommend to my my clients. These are all fiberglass replicas, not skin mounts, and in my opinion, the best way to go when you decide you want to "hang one on the wall." I base this on first hand experience. My father had over 90 fish mounted in his life and the vast majority were skin mount. What you'll see through time are oils in the skin of a fish will eventually bleed through the paint and severely degrade the overall appearance. A fiberglass replica will not do this. They stand the test of time.
Another upside of a fiberglass replica is durability. I can't tell you how many fins on my father's collection of skin mount fish are either bent or broken. This won't happen with a fiberglass replica.

Finally, a fiberglass replica is a way of making sure the gene pool continues. When you catch your fish of a lifetime all you have to do is take the measurements and snap a few photos before releasing. CPR......catch, photo, release. A good taxidermist, and Mike Thelen of Fiber Tech Productions is one of them, will be able to make an accurate representation of your catch.

2 comments:

Dave Anderson said...

I have a nice Humpy mount. I wanted an unusual fish and we had caught a nice one. My brother ws holding it so I used his fingers, a caliper and deduced it was 28" long. When I called it in the guy said that the world record was like 28". Well, I sent him the picture and said to make it. I got it back and it was a male yet the one we caught was a female. Oh well, it's pretty impressive either way!

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