Lax said 80 percent of his fish-only taxidermy business has shifted to replicas that he paints by hand with airbrushes. The only crucial data he needs is the fish's length and a good photo.

This fish would have easily been a 600-plus pounder—and it was painted up like a rainbow trout. Nowadays, it’s trendy to paint replica mounts like the wrong species.

So you’ve caught a big fish through the ice, on a Lake Ontario salmon charter – or just casting off the dock at your favorite lake or pond. You decide to have a trophy mount made of the fish.

One thing for sure — taxidermy, especially for fish, has come a very long way over the past three decades. I can vividly remember my first mounted fish, a largemouth bass of 5 ½ pounds.

Taxidermy isn’t cheap, so I recommend saving it for a truly special fish. Tall Tale charges $20 an inch for both methods — skin mounts are more labor-intensive, while replicas have higher ...

Outdoors column: Fish taxidermy is still something of a sideline for Andy Johns. But the 27-year-old West Ashley residents feels there's a correlation between trying to replicate a customer's trophy ...

Sam Spataro caught and released a possible state-record northern pike, not wanting to harm the fish. Carl Bachtel and others stepped up to get him a replica mount.