King salmon - "throat latch attachment update"

Nice job on the head, you see, it can be done! I do 99% of my trout and salmon with the original head. If you remove all meat and junk, you can rebuild and make it look nice. The one thing I like about doing it this way is you have a perfect match and the gill plate is as thin as it is supposed to be. It doesn't look thick and fake. Even if you thin it down on an artificial head, it still looks fake. Just My opinion though!

 

Nice paintin' Nokes

 

Ok I'm going to bite on this. Are you folks out of your mind using the real head. It is not a nice job and it has a lot to be said. It's an ok job for the first timer but no where's near the quality of work that could have been done using a re-pro head or cast one yourself. A fish this big is going to have major bleed out and it has major shrinkage.
M.T. I not sure what your point is here about you doing 99% of your heads being real. Sorry but in today's age their is no need to do this and you can give a client a better work by casting and not wasting time trying to rebuild a cold water fish head. Warm water is a yes or very small cold water fish. I personally like to cast 95% of my heads and once in a blue moon use a real head on warm water fish only for client paid me to use a real head.
Any newbies out who think this is the way to go then you might as well pack your fish with sawdust of whatever you can find cheap.
Notes you did fine for your first fish but you created so many problems using the real head and all the real fins. They carry way to much oils in them and I know only one handful that can use real fins and remove the grease and oils from them. They are just a pain. Good luck in doing fish and use as much as reference as you can for your next fish.

 

Beautiful salmon, Frank. Do you cast 95% of all heads? Or the coldwater heads.

 

M.T. I not sure what your point is here about you doing 99% of your heads being real. Sorry but in today's age their is no need to do this and you can give a client a better work by casting and not wasting time trying to rebuild a cold water fish head. Warm water is a yes or very small cold water fish. I personally like to cast 95% of my heads and once in a blue moon use a real head on warm water fish only for client paid me to use a real head.

Reading that I would have to say 95% of all heads. I would highly recommend Franks DVD from TTU. Shows you how to cast a head and carve a correct body. Helped me out a lot.

 

J.Mik Yes I do cast 95% of all my heads.
All cold and warm water and 5% of warm water. Never ever use a cold water head mho!

Thanks Jamie for the plug

 

I will try to stay out of the debate here. I think the pictures of a cast head and fins speak volumes for their effectiveness. I just had to comment about how the "before" shot reminded me of a Chicago mob enforcer......Vito Testosteroni. I can almost hear the fish saying, "Hey, Vinny, we gonna go out and whack some smelt or what?" I think that cigar in the mouth really looks intimidating. Looks like Vito had taken a few punches before getting a makeover.