I am practicing taxidermy for a number of years.(part-time) birds and fish.
and I have mounted many spanning walleyes with swelling bellies full of span
and every time I have a kind of a guilty feeling when I remove all does eggs.
How are you guys feel about this.Am I to sensitive on this. Give me your opinion on this.
Return to Beginners Category Menu
Send them to me. They are delicious and we don't get them on the west coast. The more guilty you feel the more you can send. I'll give those eggs a proper burial.
Tony
I wouldn't feel bad about it at all. If the customer wants a big female mounted, that's what we're in this business to do. Here in Michigan 80% of the walleyes caught were stocked by the DNR, and natural reproduction is very low. Adding to that, the biggest females are likely past their prime as egg producers. These purists who worship catch & release and try their best to shame a guy for keeping a big female to mount or to eat don't have much of a biological leg to stand on.
...If you think about it this way. Fertility drops off drasticly with age, the largest fish are the oldest, obviously. The trout hatcheries around here don't use breeders over three years old anymore. The percentage of hatching eggs dropped off with the four year old fish that they stopped carying them that long. There may be a lot of eggs in the largest females, but the fertility is lower. I've talked to a number of biologists that think they should be doing a lot more research in this area. The state is reluctant because it "looks" impressive when they strip the eggs from the huge females for thir stocking programs.
Lots of good input up there in regards to the egg issue. Don't ever start doing those big spawning salmon, you will probably have to visit your doctor for a prescription.