12 How To Make Fish Mounts 



Of course, the specimen must be put back in Formalin when 

 you get home. 



When working with Formalin, water should be within easy 

 reach in case the hands come in contact with the chemical. 

 Reaching for a fish in Formalin— if the hands remain in the 

 Formalin only long enough to remove the specimen— is not 

 dangerous providing the hands are immediately washed with 

 water. However, using rubber gloves will be safer. Formalin 

 is extremely dangerous if splashed into the eyes accidentallv. If 

 this occurs, run fresh water into the eyes immediately. Again, 

 do not work with Formalin if you are not familiar with it; be 

 sure to read about Formalin in Chapter 12. 



Skinning in the Field. The angler who finds it difficult to 

 bring his trophy home in a frozen state or preserved in Formalin 

 should skin the fish in the field before it gets soft, even if the 

 intended mount is to be cast in plaster or in a synthetic ma- 

 terial. In the event that a cast is desirable, the skin can be re- 

 constructed in the home or laboratory so that a plaster mold of 

 the fish can still be made ( see Chapter 2 ) . 



For directions on field skinning read the first section on skin- 

 ning in Chapter 4, then return here. But before you start the 

 actual skinning, make a careful outline drawing of the fish on a 

 piece of wrapping paper. Photographs or measurements of the 

 fish, or both, will also be of assistance in reconstructing the 

 specimen. It is easy to stray from the form of the fish in recon- 

 struction because a fish skin will stretch or move into different 

 positions if the original, exact contours of measurements are not 

 employed. In order to preserve a skin in the field for future 

 mounting, it is not necessarv to clean and flesh the skin thor- 

 oughly if time is important. If there is time and it does not 

 interfere with fishing schedules, by all means do a finished job. 

 But the finer points of removing every bit of flesh from the skin 

 —around the bases of the fins, tails, head bones, and cheeks- 

 is time consuming and not necessarv if the angler is rushed. This 

 part of the job is done much better later at home and at leisure. 



