Throphy fish

After spending some time looking at big fish photos and reading about catch and release on this site it dawned on me that there is very little talk about what needs to be done to get mount made of your trophy catch. Haveing never had a fish mount made what measurements and photos should be taken of the fish? What about a good place to make your fish mount?
Having a fish mounted made just seems to me like the next step in catch photo and realease. Who makes good replicates and maybe we should try to get one talking on the board. What are your thoughts?

my wife just caught a 31 incher last week and i’m getting areplica made at americantaxidermy.com you need lenght gurth and a good side veiw photo hope that helps

Zonar? Just for clarification…was it the fish or your wife you’re getting a replica made?

Sorry, it’s been a long day…I thought it was slightly humorous!

Is this the site? Replicas

Brian, go to bed.

Good question.

If I ever catch a trophy, I don’t want to kill it.

Hey guys. Jamie here from http://www.customfish.com . I’;m new to the site. Looks like a great place! I’m looking forward to being a part of it!!
I don’t want to start of with a plug here..but if anyone is looking for an alternative to killing a trophy, send me a message and maybe I can help you out.
Thanks,
Jamie

Jamie;

I’m searching now to get a replica made.

There are many, many people out there doing it now.

My biggest concern with getting a replica, is that I want a real looking mouth, throat, and gills. I’ve seen TOO MANY “top grade” replicas that look like “Billy Bass, the talking fish”.

Are your replicas to that “level” yet, where the throat, gills, and mouth look real???

This last Summer, while on LOTW, we were at Angle Inlet Lodge. They had some replicas there of a few muskies. I was SOO IMPRESSED with the quality, that you could not tell the difference if it was a real fish or not. It was at that point, that I made a vow to never get a skin mount done again, unless I somehow managed to kill the fish in the fight…….

Check out Fibertech in Brainerd-Baxter area. They are one of the best in the country. Never heard a bad word spoken about them, or the work they have done.

Hey Jamie! Welcome to the site! It’s the best place to be when you can’t be fishing!

Hey? Do you guys do Flathead Catfish replicas? I almost have my wife talked into allowing me to hang it in the living room… …when I get the MN state record of course… 70 pounds and about 50 inches…What’s a fiberglass one going to run?

I saw the full size pictures on your site…interesting…If a guy had a few of them made, you could wallpaper whole bedroom wall…

When you get a chance …you should post some pics of your mounts.

Guys, thanks for your questions.
What we do is Life Size Trophy Prints.
In short…it’s not a mount or a replica. It’s your picture…ACTUAL SIZE! We are the only ones in the country that do this. We use a Vutek UV printer ($500,000)that can print something 72″ wide by 300 feet long!
So…we take your high quality digital or 35 mm picture and blow it up to the actual size of the fish. Let’s say you caught a 50″ muskie….we print out your picture of a 50″ muskie! Life Size!! With you in it! It’s the ultimate in Catch/Photo/Release/ Make friends jealous!
Here’s the best part…we’re about 1/3 the price of a mount. Mounts go for about $10 an inch!! We start at $10.25 A SQUARE FOOT. So that $500+ muskie is now about $200.
A replica CAN, as you stated, look bad. Mounts deteriorate. Ours is THE fish and you. From now til the end of time. It won’t ever change or look bad.
And it’s not just fish…we did a guy’s charter boat last week. And I have an order to do print of another guy’s hunting dogs. Plus I have pre-orders for bucks coming in.
WE are a new business and with a little help by guys like you on this site asking me questions…maybe we can make it in this market. We print on vinyl,cloth,styrene plastic and lots of other things.
Hope I can help you guys out.
If you have any other questions let me know. I’ll be happy to answer them.
We’re just a couple of guys that think that EVERYBODY should have a trophy on the wall and be able to afford it.
Thanks ,
Jamie

Cool. Never new there was such a thing out there. Now I know what to get the wife for Xmas. I havent looked at your site yet but it sounds like you can put the photos on lots of different items. Not just full size photos. Is that right?

Mike,
That is correct.
The Vutek UV can print driectly on anything flat that is up to 2″ thick…we’ve actually printed a door just to try it.
Our preferred media is vinyl. Extremely durable. We can hem the edges, add grommets, roes, etc.
Whatever the customer needs…we do.
Jamie.

Jamie,

Can you scan a regular film photo, touch it up, and then print that, or does the photo have to start from a digital camera?

Thanks in advance.

JLDII,

Thanks for asking!

We can scan in photos as well. Plus both my partner and I are in printing/advertising. So we’re both Photoshop and Illustrator professionals.

If you go here http://www.customfish.com/captlog.html You’ll see some of our work hanging in local shops. The photos of the 5 foot halibut and the 65″ cod were scanned from 3″ x 5″ photos they had on their bulletin board.

If the picture is good..it’ll look great when we do it.

On the other hand, if it’s a bad shot (out of focus,etc) it’ll look really bad at life size.

We recommend that people read out camera tips on the site.

AND…have your regular camera and a back-up dispoasable on board “just in case..”

Jamie

UPDATE!!
I talked this over with my partner and we’d like to do something for you guys because you’ve all been kind enough to check out our site and ask questions.
So……
From now until January 1 , 2005, We’ll do any print for members of In-depthangling for %10 off! All you have to do is tell us that you found us on In-depthangling!
Example..a normal Trophy Print of your bass would be about 3′ x 3′. That’s 9 square feet. Normal price would be $92.25 for your trophy bass. We’ll do that same print for In-depthangling members for $83!
We’d like everyone to have a fishy Christmas!!

Jamie

Hey Jamie welcome to the site!

I run a Mimaki JV3-160SP where I work along with an Epson 9600 for Dye Sublimation. We do quite a bit of digital printing and it’s nice to see a fellow Dig. Printer. Do you laminate any of your prints? We have a Seal Laminater that will do up 60″ wide. We’ve found by laminating our images we can get a better shelf life out of our products.

Again welcome to the site. You have a very nice product thanks for sharing!

Think of the fake id’s you two could have made in college!!!

I plead the 5th….

Blue Fleck,
Nice to meet ya! Glad to see a fellow digital guy!
We don’t laminate. Short answer, the UV ink that the Vutek Pressvu uses don’t need it. It’s about time that happened. For years everything HAD to be laminted, as you know. Now it’s direct and done. To see alot of what I do on a daily basis, you can go to any Home Depot or Lowes and just have a look around at the signage.
So, the reasons we went with a Vutek is 1) no need to laminte 2)72″ wide capability and 3)rool to roll and flat stock printing capabilities up to 2″ thick.
Our next purchase will probably be Columbia or an Eagle. We’ve already got an epson that we use for proofs and a couple Autotype thermal units for film making.

For all you non-printers out there, we now resume regularly scheduled programming.

I just received a 31.5″ walleye replica from FiberTech. I am very impressed with the quality. It is as realistic as the real thing. Price was reasonable and delivery time less than 3 weeks. I would recommend them to anyone.

Hey Jamie,

Welcome! Glad you finally came on board with us

Damn glad to be here!!
Let me tell you…there aren;t a whole heck of alot of sites out there where someone like me can talk about a new fishing business. This one is very, very cool indeed. We were happy to throw a discount out there for you guys only!
Jamie

If your looking to get a replica made of your fish there is a taxidermist in Winona that dose just an out standing job. I got a big bass done and was just blown away at how great it looks. He has replicas at his home that you can check out for yourself. Very reasonable in price and wouldn’t think twice about going back for another. Give him a call if you want info. from him. Ken 507-454-0665

How much do they cost?
Jamie

It depends on the size of the fish the price is per inch. If you call he can give you the right price. I don’t rememmber off hand what it was per inch.

I was just wondering, that’s all.
The ones we deal with here start at $10 an inch for a mount (freshwater) and about double that for saltwater. Replicas fall somewhere in between usually.
We just want to make cool Life Size Trophy prints that everybody should be able to afford. We don’t want to take business away from taxiderists. I mean, if someone has $600-$1,000 to get a muskie done, then I’d say go with a mount/repro.
But, when someone wants to stay under a couple hundred dollars and have it back to them in a couple weeks instead of a year+…..that’s where we come in.
I waited over a year for my mounted muskie on my wall.
I caught my last muskie on a saturday morning and she was hanging on my wall that friday night.
But again..if someone has the time and money for a repro… god bless ’em.

Jamie

Changed a couple things.
http://www.customfish.com/lifesize.html

We’d like to mention that we now have an incentive program for guides, web site owners, shops and resorts. Contact me for details.
Thanks,
Jamie

Just wanted to pass this one along because it’s so cool! When it came off the press this morning all anyone could say was “Holy ####!”

The Cigar makes it special!!

Nice pic