Caught a few of them, Marlin too. Used to spend lots of time in Cabo. 4 buddies and myself owned a 100 space rv park in Cabo San Lucas. We developed it (along with a Mexican partner) in 1982 and it was a Gold Mine. Used to fish a lot. That's where the Dorado came from.
Painting is the key to a great mount. Sending pictures is really necessary as fish of the same species coloration varies a lot, depends on the water and location where it was caught. View attachment 36289
This 50# Dorado was mounted about 30 years ago. It is a fiberglass repro. Still looks great. This species has color variations all over the rainbow and pictures are mandatory if you want the fish to look like you remember it.
Yeah pictures lots of them I known this guy even asked us to try for many pictures with different lighting if possible cause the angle of the sun and shadows can play the colors out differently. Ive had two fish mounted now this guy i went with cause the previous guy that did my walleye wasnt confident enough in his painting abilities to do trout and salmon. He said there harder to do then the warm water fish (pike, bass, walleye, etc) so I found contacted 3 guys and this taxidermist was the only one that was taking in new work at the time.
Yeah, I can't remember exactly the cost as its been a few years ago. I just looked up their price and a 95 inch sailfish will set you back $1520. I believe I paid about $1200. Shipping was $800. It arrived in a huge wooden crate delivered by an Estes semi tractor trailer. I know I had $2000 in it at the time. I had buyers regret almost immediately. We had been drinking all day and caught 2 95 inch sailfish and they sold me the mount right there on the boat, taking advantage of the excitement and booze. To back out of the deal I could only get 50% of my money back so just went through with it and chalked it up to a lesson learned.
Yeah, I can't remember exactly the cost as its been a few years ago. I just looked up their price and a 95 inch sailfish will set you back $1520. I believe I paid about $1200. Shipping was $800. It arrived in a huge wooden crate delivered by an Estes semi tractor trailer. I know I had $2000 in it at the time. I had buyers regret almost immediately. We had been drinking all day and caught 2 95 inch sailfish and they sold me the mount right there on the boat, taking advantage of the excitement and booze. To back out of the deal I could only get 50% of my money back so just went through with it and chalked it up to a lesson learned.
Yeah, I can't remember exactly the cost as its been a few years ago. I just looked up their price and a 95 inch sailfish will set you back $1520. I believe I paid about $1200. Shipping was $800. It arrived in a huge wooden crate delivered by an Estes semi tractor trailer. I know I had $2000 in it at the time. I had buyers regret almost immediately. We had been drinking all day and caught 2 95 inch sailfish and they sold me the mount right there on the boat, taking advantage of the excitement and booze. To back out of the deal I could only get 50% of my money back so just went through with it and chalked it up to a lesson learned.
It can get pricey for sure i guess then the question is when you see it does it bring back good memories of the trip and what not. Both my fish mounts weren't cheep by any means but both were the first fish I've ever caught of that species. And wanted to keep the memories for the future
It can get pricey for sure i guess then the question is when you see it does it bring back good memories of the trip and what not. Both my fish mounts weren't cheep by any means but both were the first fish I've ever caught of that species. And wanted to keep the memories for the future
Finally getting around to posting about my trip to the UP. The first day it was really windy and the 14 ft aluminum wasn't doing to good on the lake so we went to town and stopped at a few other lakes on the way to town and caught a few small perch and my dad caught a nice pike from the boat launch area. Then we visited a lighthouse and a casino before heading back
Friday morning we got up early to try and beat the wind by getting out there before it got to windy. We fished for about 1.5hr before the wind picked up and anchor wouldnt hold. We caught a few good perch before we packed up and took the wet ride back to the lodge.
After changing and getting dryed up we left to go to some nice trout stream. I finally got to use my new waders and try out fishing that way. It was fun I had several follows and one big strike but never could get on on the hook. The weather was kinda cloudy and cool which made the cold lol. Then we just traveled some back roads and found another river to fish from. This was much warmer but decided to bank fish. We caught several small mouth and perch. Along with nice pike that spit the line right at shore. It was a great day even though we couldn't get on the lake with the boat they provided. The cabin was very nice and right on the lake. Ill provided another post with what we did the last 2 days some time tonight
The second post about the last day an a half in the UP fish trip.
Saturday morning we woke up early and got on the water at 745 am. It was glass calm and was predicted to stay that way all day. We got on the marker that the lodge own had put out on the large weed bed where they had been catching all kinds of perch and some pike. We were using a mix of minows and worms. As soon as we put the lines down for perch we started pulling them up it was great it stayed that way till we ran out of bait at noon and had to go in for more bait and to clean the perch we caught. We ended up catching roughly 450 perch that morning only keeping the bigger ones 35 total. We also used a few perch that swolled hooks for pike bait. My brother ended up landing a nice 31.5 inch pike
So after getting the perch in the tumble scaller we quick ran to the bait shop and reloaded up on worms and minnows. Got back qnd cleaned up the perch and the pike we had caught before eating lunch.
About 3 ish we were back on the marker and anchored up. We were catching them just as we were in the morning we had some smaller perch that swallowed the hook and we set out two pike set ups. As it got closer to 530 we started getting a hot pike bit. It was intense several hits and they just kept going till dusk when we called it a night. Caught another 200 plus perch including my brothers big guy at 12.5 inches and my dad caught a 10.5 inch one as well. We ended up getting about 25 more keeper perch and 3 pike also had 5 pike either spit the hook at the boat or broke the line. It was a great great night. I ended up with my first pike and dad got his first 2 ever keeper pike.
We juat put them in a cooler with water and ice to save for morning to clean. We talked to the lodge owner and he didn't have people coming Sunday so he said we could check out late and fish Sunday morning. We went back out Sunday morning and at 745-11am so we had time to pack up qnd clean fish. We did well even with the wind picking up a little and dragging us along slowly. The bit wasn't as hot as Saturday but we still got 15 more good size keepers and ended up with 2 more pike in the boat had to more pike spit at the boat. We got back and the lodge owner was great and showed us a better way to clean perch and how he get the y bone out of the pike. He was very surprised how many pike we caught said most groups are lucky to get 1 for the whole group. The lodge owner was was very friendly and great to talk to. We are forsure putting that on our list of places to go to again.
