Fish Reproduction
This article is about fish reproduction in the fish taxidermy sense of the word. If you are looking for information about how fish reproduce, please see this pdf.
If you catch a trophy fish you might want to have a trophy made from the fish. A fiberglass fish reproduction is normally the best way to achieve this. In addition to allowing you to release the caught fish back into the wild, a fiberglass fish reproduction will also last longer and usually be more lifelike than a traditional mount made from the actual fish. To make a high-quality fish reproduction requires a lot of skill and you should therefore always make sure to hire a expert fish taxidermist to do the work. The prices might seem steep, but this is not a buy where you want to be cheap. It is better to pay more to get a fish reproduction that you will display with pride than to pay less and get a bad fish replica that might en up hidden away in a cupboard. Of course, a high price does not automatically signify high quality and vice versa.
Fish reproduction is done from measurements and photographs provided to the fish taxidermist by you. If you want to know more about what information the taxidermist will need, go to our page about how to get your fish mounted.
The actual fish reproduction process is carried out in steps and will often but not always involve two different artists; one that creates the body of the fiberglass fish and one that paints this body. There are however taxidermists that will take care of both the creation of the fish replica and the painting of it.
The fiberglass body of the fish reproduction is done in a mold designed to duplicate every exterior part of the fish, all the way down details like the texture of the scales. The fins are normally molded separately and fitted later on together with mouth parts. Once the body has been molded and processed it is painted to reproduce every dot and pattern on your fish.
Different fish replicas require different skills and it is therefore not unusual for a taxidermist or taxidermist shop to specialize in a particular type of replicas, such as replicas of saltwater fish only.