whats the easiest/ hardest?

[KAMoHunter]

in your opinioin.... what fish loses its scales the easiest/ the hardest... just curious what everyones opinion is on this.  im voting for crappie for the easiest..

[axel]

using warm water fish only, I would agree with Crappie being the easiest and lean towards a walleye being the hardest.

[JUST FISH]

crappie, walleye

[Monty Artrip]

  Spring great lakes browns and cohos are worse than crappie in my opinion. Walleye and smallmouth for the hardest to lose scales.

[30pointer]

using warm water fish only, I would agree with Crappie being the easiest and lean towards a walleye being the hardest.

x2 on that.

[Aaron Stehling]

I would agree with Artrip on the spring / summer salmon. Salmon are worse then browns and G.L. rainbows.

Smallmouth are the toughest in my book. You can have issues with spawning largemouths and walleyes....never smallies.

[John C]

mooneye then smallmouth or walleye, yellow perch, sauger.

[IAtaxi]

Fall salmon- I purposely take em all off
White Crappies
Black Crappies
White bass

[Jim Tucker]

I would agree with Artrip on the spring / summer salmon. Salmon are worse then browns and G.L. rainbows.

Steelhead are nearly as bad then.

In fact I usually mount the skin on the form and then scale the whole thing.  I just use a common sink sprayer to blow them off they come off so easily.

[Ron K]

Coho lose scales when you net them!!

[Randy Budzynski]

I would go with the silver phase Salmon/Steelhead easiest and the SMB, Walleye hardest. I don't mount tons of different fish so this is based on what I see most of the time.

[Randy Miller]

As far as not losing scales, I just did a gar. I think you'd need a chisel.

[FishArt]

I think IATAxi means SPRING run salmon - which I would agree. But, those are easy to do - just scale 'em before skinning! So, in my book you need to throw them out the door because those scales are SO thin that they aren't missed. Crappies are some of the toughest to skin IMO that you NEED to keep those scales.

On the flipside, FALL run salmon are the easiest because those scales are embedded. But, again you almost have to throw those out the door too because that's not a fair comparison. Personally, I'd have to put a Yellow Perch at the top of the toughest list. I think Cecil once said that you could drag a perch behind a car for miles and STILL not lose any scales - lol! The ONLY exception would be the belly area on a VERY, VERY fat Yellow Perch. When that belly is stretched to the hilt, those few scales can come off rather easily. But, in general I believe a Yellow Perch is one of the easiest firsh to start learning on. After a Yellow Perch, I'd have to say a walleye, then smallie would be next toughest to lose scales...

[KAMoHunter]

yeah gar are pretty hard to get the scales out of... not a very commonly mounted fish though