Wondering if anyone has thoughts on preserving the skeleton of a walleye. Always see the washed up dead fish on the shore with just a skull and some tissue left and thought it would be really cool to get a preserved walleye skeleton up somewhere? Anyone have any idea how to do that? Boil? Let nature run its course and just grab the bones after a year?
Anyway saw a dead carp skull recently and thought about trying something like that.
After filleting my fish I bury the leavings in the garden and by the next year the only things left of the walleyes are the jaw bones with teeth and maybe some vertebrae – no skull. You’d also have to assemble all the pieces together because the soft connective tissue would be gone. Not sure how it would be done, but post a pic if you do it.
If man can build a ship in a bottle he can certainly reconstruct a walleye skeleton. Gonna take time and precision.
Your best bet might be to soak it in the strongest isopropyl alcohol you can find for a few weeks then seal it in resin.
If it works it would make an awesome coffee table.
Here is a thought.
You might try soaking the fish in solution of lye (sodium hydroxide) like you were making Lutefisk. The meat would become translucent and you could possibly remove it from the skeleton. Be sure you rinse it well and work with eye protection and rubber cloves.
Your best bet might be to soak it in the strongest isopropyl alcohol you can find
Isopropyl alcohol won’t do anything to it.
Fish bones are so delicate, you’ll probably have a problem removing fleshy parts without harming the bone structure. Maybe try boiling it? After you get the flesh off, hydrogen peroxide should help whiten it up.
Good luck. I’d love to see it if you succeed!
My wife likes it when i put things like that in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator.
What about beetles like they use on deer skulls?
My wife likes it when i put things like that in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator.
I hope your wife is not my wife. They are all the same. 
Isopropyl alcohol won’t do anything to it.
Was talking a 70-90% solution and it is widely used as a preservative for specimens stored in jars. My thought was if the skeleton was clean enough it could basically be “pickled”. Once sealed in resin assuming it was preserved enough it could last indefinitely.
A better solution to use would be 10% formalin but I’m not sure on availability to the general public.
Hatcheries will often have eggs and different life cycles of the fish they raise preserved in this manner for demonstration. Granted the biggest ones I’ve seen are only 4-5″ long.
Is it ok to do all that stuff while the fish is alive or should you do it when it’s dead?
I’d love to see a pic when u finish this…it may be pretty neat.
Was talking a 70-90% alcohol solution
Why would you waste such a good drink?
What about beetles like they use on deer skulls?
Many actually use maggots to strip flesh from the bones and this might be the only way to get remotely close to a skeletal structure of a walleye. Keeping those tiny bones in place after being cleaned will be another issue.
If you google “how to clean a paddlefish skull” you will get some information that may be helpful for your walleye skeleton project.
Here is an interesting Youtube video:
Buffalo Fishhead
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