My daughter's first aytempt at walleye skin mount.

[OntarioHunter]

It's looking good. She needs to work on completing teeth today and seal it up. I seem to recall this client wants it mounted on a chewed up moose shed. Not my choice. The right piece of driftwood could work. Or the vintage look with a yellowed wood plaque behind it? Open to suggestions. Let's convince this guy there's a better way. He wants to hang it in local outdoors store. My daughter would like to display something that will reflect well on our business.

 

[Brittany Chukarman]

Very good, especially for a skin mount. Seems to be a dying art.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Well, "skin mount" is a bit of a stretch. The head and fins are fake. She will need to make the fins look a bit ragged and a spot ahead of the tail could use some more scale tipping. It's getting there. I am proud of her.

 

[Don Fischer]

Great job!

 

[Sask hunter]

Well, "skin mount" is a bit of a stretch. The head and fins are fake. She will need to make the fins look a bit ragged and a spot ahead of the tail could use some more scale tipping. It's getting there. I am proud of her.

Lots of people can’t do the fins. That’s my biggest gripe on fish mounts

 

[OntarioHunter]

Lots of people can’t do the fins. That’s my biggest gripe on fish mounts

The fake fins/tail actually are very realistic ... but too thick. This evening she asked me to show her how to finish them up. I already came up with the idea of tapping fins with a fine drill from my Dremel kit and gluing in it a piece of paper clip so they could be stuck on the fish form and positioned for final epoxy fix. Worked great. Anyway, using the Dremel drum sander attachment I carefully feathered the edges of plastic fins to make them appear natural (i.e. thin) and then used fine cutting disk to notch jagged edges. Turned out a lot better than either of us expected. I love the challenge of thinking outside the box for stuff like this ... almost as much as I love showing her how to think outside the box. Life is too short to waste it following the beaten path.

 

[Chugger]

great job