Why don't you two stop wasting valuable discussion space to take out some old personal vendetta or something...I really don't know what is up your craw, but I suggest if you want to be taken as serious avid anglers here, you check it at the door. And I'm glad you released an 8 pound brown 7mm...because that's nowhere near a trophy brown, or even a big brown. Don't care what you caught it on. That fish could grow another 20 pounds in these systems.
Just like a 40" musky...is not a big musky. If you mount a fish lower than 48" anywhere in the musky range, and someone who knows what they're talking about sees it, they'll either grimace, or laugh, or both. I had a guy begging me to let him mount his 43" this week, until I explained to him that that was like mounting a 4 or 5 pound largemouth...I have 48.5" mount onthe wall at home from Kinkaid, skin, due in part to the fact that hte fish died right at the boat, but otherwise I wouldn;t have mounted until I got to 50" which hasn't quite happened yet. If someone wants a mount, I want them to have the best lookingmount they can have...while lots of skin mounts are done terriblly and desecrating to the fish, the best ones, like my brown and musky done by the same guy in Illinois, are amazing.
I'm sorry, most of the fins on fiberglass replicas even of muskies, look like cartoon fish, plus they never get the pattern quite right. It looks like it belongs more over table 5 at an Applebee's than it does commemorating a memorable trophy catch for generations to come. If you want fiberglass that's fine. if you want skin, make sure the fish is a TRUE trophy, not some 8 pound brown or a 43" musky. Granted, yes, you have to harvest a fish to do it, but let's say you mount 5 fish in your lifetime, all trophies, at the end of their span They've passed on their genetics, been caught a few times, I see no problem in the keeping of truly gigantic fish for display. In alot of ways, that's what has perpetuated our sport, how many guys have come into a bar only to see a big musky hanging over the liquor racks and think "God I gotta get me one fo those"???
Btw, Bob, where are your musky pics dude? Always like swapping pics and stories man. You seem to know so much about then...btw, I'm not fishing in the upper river bud, I'm fishing in the lake...you know, deep water, breaklines...REAL fishing????....
Sorry Fordman, I try to stay civil, but when stuff like this comes at me, its hard to turn to the other cheek.
no , any browns worth mounting from cf would be 30"++ and a male razorback.
