is there anything i can do to trout + salmon so i don,t lose alot of scales during my skining and fleshing process ? i do all right on warm water fish , but always have problems with cold water fish. would i be better off scaleing the fish before skinning,and if so how will it look with no scales when its finished?thanks,stoney
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Stoney,
You can get all of the information on this you want by;
A) clicking on the search button at the left, and typing in "scales" or "loose scales,"... etc....or
B) scrolling to the bottom of the FISH page and clicking on a season of historical answers (archives). There you can scroll through and look for a title similar to what you want.
You question has been thoroughly covered by those of us who have "been there did that.
Good luck...eh?
Doug
1st try skinning these fish when they are some what frozen. Trying all the while to keep the skin as flat as possible.
If you do not like that method try soaking the fish in alcohol for 30 minutes. This will tighten up the scales. Remember that if these are real bright spring or early summer fish you will loose scales . I try to tell my customers that what a mount to be understanding about this. Using a real heavy brush on type of gloss will help to hide this in the end product.
As far as your final question about scaleing
(sp) Certain fish will look better scaled. Once again you may want to use the heavy gloss on these if you decide to scale it. Its the imperfections that show once you paint it. And if you get agravated with these you are not alone. Sometimes i feel like a car body repair shop! best of luck.
With a little practice you can take a water based paint and touch the area where the scales were missing and blend it in, just highlighting the scale pocket. size and shape. Once finished painted with the colors it is very hard to tell what happened.
That's salt in case you didn't know, and I dump it all over the show side of the fish and back and belly after making my pattern and before skinning out the fish. About 30 minutes is optimum and rinse it off before scraping.
I saw this in a taxidermy shop in Alpena Michigan where the guy does a lot of Great Lake trout and salmon and it works for me.
Cecil