About Stuffed Fish & Taxidermy

Taxidermy refers to both creating a synthetic recreation of an animal as well as preparing a dead animal to re-create the appearance of the animal being alive. One of the most common animals used in taxidermy is a stuffed fish.

Taxidermy Laws

Before performing any work on the fish you plan to stuff, you must first make sure that it is not an animal that can be found on the Endangered Species List. If the fish or other animal is on the Endangered Species List special permission must be obtained in order to perform taxidermy on it.

Fish Taxidermy

The fish is often considered one of the harder animals to prepare and mount in taxidermy. This is due to the fact that a large amount of the liveliness of fish needs to be recreated through the use of paint, and in some cases the full head must be recreated. When planning to perform taxidermy on a fish, there are a two things you can make sure to do in the field to help ensure you have the best mount possible. The first is to not allow the fish to flop around on the floor of the fishing boat or within the cooler. The second is to put the fish on ice as soon as you possibly can. By undertaking these two steps, you can help to ensure that the fish is undamaged.

Mounting Materials

In many cases, taxidermy fishes have their skin mounted on fish mannikins. If the skin was especially hard to remove intact a synthetic head may need to be used during mounting. Additionally, in some cases no part of the original animal is used in mounting; this is most common in catch-and-release fishing and with saltwater fish.