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Here's a King Salmon I am working on that I caught a few years ago and mounted a few years ago. Just decided to do some touch up and detail I was too tired to do when I initially mounted him. Procrastination of a hobby project lol. Anyway, here it is in the works. Was a 41 inch 32 lb King caught in the East Branch of the Cal 2012 or 2013 I can't remember.

Awesome fish

wow nice!

Have you been on taxidermy.net? Tons of useful info on there. I've mounted a few fish and birds over the years. I really have an appreciation for the guys who do it the best like Rick Krane.

Are you using the real head and fins? People don't realize how much work goes into cleaning out all the meat, etc from a big fish. What about the body? Did you use a manikin or carve it from foam?

I've never painted any replicas, but would like to take that up someday. Even a replica blank is terribly expensive.

Taxidermy is a smelly, dirty hobby that requires tons of patience and dedication. It's not for everybody. Youre doing a nice job on your first fish. Keep it up.

Team Triggerfinger,

It is coming along. I have mounted around 10 salmon. Some for me, some for others. I skin mount the fish. It is a ton of work. I am pretty fast at skinning them, but it is making sure you have all the meat out of the skin which is the trick, as in out of all of the spots. I custom carve the body out of foam for the uniqueness of the exact fish. Sometimes I use a artificial head. In this case part of the natural head is used and then some techniques I taught myself. The fish has come along even since the pic was taken you guys have seen, but it takes so much patients for parts to dry etc. When it is done it will be nice. I have other fish in the works as well. A 58 inch long nose gar and another 50 something inch longnose. I decided to get into taxidermy of salmon just because of my love for the fish. I feel the taxidermy is like a 3D photo. I mount all of my fish straight so as to be true and respectful of the trophy. No distortion of length. I only have so much wall space so I do fish sparingly. Right now salmon wise I have 3, 40 + kings, 1, 39 in king, 1, 32 in king, 1, 37 in skamainia,. My biggest steel I got (in our spot) 39 in male was released 1997. I'll upload a pic of the king when it is done

Done for now.

You're becoming good at it. Do a google search of Rick Krane and look at his insane paint jobs. He sells paint schedules, too.

Interesting that you carve the manikins. Takes a lot of measuring and patience.

Well done!