Mounted Fish; What Parts of the Fish are Real?

I have been mounting fish for over 32 years, and the one question I get asked most often about fish taxidermy is, “What part of the mounted fish is real?”

As long as we are referring to a customer that brings the taxidermist an actual fish, and expects to get their actual fish back (we refer to this as a “skin mounted fish” or “skin mount.”)

The answer to this commonly asked question, if fairly simple...only the “skin” is from the original fish.  Actually, the word Taxidermy means “To move, the skin.”  Taxi and Dermis.  (Taxidermy)

On a fish, the skin would include the fins and fleshy appendages such as the adipose fin on salmon and the tendrils on catfish.  The eyes are always artificial, and usually the gills are artificial.  Fish eyes can be glass or plastic.  Gills might be made from red felt, pipe cleaners or molded plastic.

On the back side of the fish, a long incision is made from the meaty part of the tail all the way to the gills (It follows close to the fish’s lateral line.)  Using a special type of skinning knife, just the skin is removed from the body.  At this time the skin is cleaned of any remaining meat and preserved with powdered borax.  

When the fish skin is mounted over a body form, the fins and mouth are held in position until the skin dries completely.  Once dried the shrunken areas on the fish such as the top of the head and the jaw lines may be filled with a type of epoxy putty which dries hard.  The skin is usually sprayed with a couple coats of clear shellac before it is painted.

Fish mounts also need to be painted since during the drying period the pigment or coloration in the scales fades away to various shades of gray.

So there you go!

Only the skin, and fins are real - when you have a fish taxidermist such as Murphy's Fish Taxidermy mount a fish for you.