Skin Mounting

• You want warm-water fish with large scales and tough skins for skin mounting. Skin the fish by making an incision down the back and removing the carcass. To preserve its skin and prevent rotting, carefully flesh it; this also prevents creation of oil pockets that could remove lamination from the paint.
  
  Once you have prepared the skin, either mount over a manikin or pack its body cavity with a filler material that you shape and let harden (if you see shrunken areas). Since fish such as a bass, bream or crappie are not that greasy, you mount them with natural skull intact; original fins and tail also remain. If you need to remove oil during the drying process, clean the fish with solvent. Do not paint the fish until it's dry; your finished product may take several months to a year to dry.
  
  Watch for possible cracks to develop with humidity changes or as result of the paint. Rigid fillers do not flex the way the skin does, and the skin's changes could result in paint bubbling off the mount.
  
  

Skin Mounting With Foam

• If you have cold-water fish that have greasier bones and skins, you will have trouble mounting them over a regular manikin. If you have to use paste or lump of mache to keep it intact, you and others will notice it and the mount will lose its natural-looking quality. Fish such as char, salmon or trout---with their fine scales and smooth, think skins---should be mounted over a smooth foam manikin.
  
  Grease bleed-through, shrinkage and spoiling may prevent you from using natural skulls, so take a polyester-resin-cast artificial head and attach it to the natural body you mounted.
  
  

Replica Mounting

• Many cold-water and saltwater fish call for replica or synthetic mounting. Some fish are greasier or larger than others, making them tougher to mount, and you will have trouble skinning a fish such as a catfish. For these fish, use man-made materials and re-create an artificial rendering that lasts far longer than most taxidermist projects.
  
  Use flexible silicone to construct a mold of the fresh fish, from throat to tail. Cast its body and fins in fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin (take caution with the fiberglass). With the mold possessing no color or markings, you need to create the whole coloration on the mount, to ensure the appearance of a live fish.
  
  Unless you have lots of money set aside for molding and fiberglass fish reproduction, you do not need to craft a special mold for all of your catches. If you want a particular mold of fish, look into buying a fiberglass fish blank from a taxidermist who has constructed multiple reproduction fish. For instance, if you took a picture of your sport catch but released it back into the water, you could provide a picture to a taxidermist who has a varied collection of molds to see if he has a match. You then only have to prepare the fish and paint it convincingly.