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How to mount a muskie without killing it

Mon Sep 05, 2016 8:00 pm

http://www.twincities.com/2016/08/27/ho ... taxidermy/


By Dave Orrick | dorrick@pioneerpress.com
PUBLISHED: August 27, 2016 at 8:00 am | UPDATED: August 26, 2016 at 2:27 pm

Taxidermist Rick Lax holds a replica of a tiger muskie that was caught and released by an angler. Lax started out as a traditional taxidermist, but with the onset of catch-and-release fishing, he has made a niche for himself in reproducing fish that were returned to the water, based on photos and detailed measurements. Lax was photographed in the studio of Lax Reproductions in Conover, Wis., Friday, July 8, 2016. (Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick)

Taxidermist Rick Lax holds a replica of a tiger muskie that was caught and released by an angler. Lax started out as a traditional taxidermist, but with the onset of catch-and-release fishing, he has made a niche for himself in reproducing fish that were returned to the water, based on photos and detailed measurements. Lax was photographed in the studio of Lax Reproductions in Conover, Wis. (Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick)

CONOVER, Wis. — The studio of Lax Reproductions is walled with trophy fish, mostly muskies, that are still swimming in the lakes where they were caught.

While they appear as natural as any traditional piece of taxidermy — scales, eyes, teeth like X-Acto knives — the mounts aren’t the actual fish but plastic replicas, based on measurements and photographs taken during the few adrenaline-injected minutes spent with a fish of a lifetime. The fish was released; months later, the replica was completed.

This is the norm today in muskie fishing, a realm of strict possession limits (54 inches is the statewide minimum keeper size in Minnesota) and a pervasive culture of catch-and-release intended to protect the larger but less-common cousins of northern pike. The result is a time-consuming, often pricey passion where the goal is not a fish fry, but the thrill of a rod-and-reel battle with an acrobatic, 50-pound torpedo which they will — following high-fives, measurements and photos — promptly release back into the water whence it came.

With the approach of fall — trophy muskie season — anglers casting big lures for big fish will be heading out on lakes from the metro to northwest Ontario knowing that if they want a keepsake muskellunge, they’ll have to commission someone to make a replica.Orrick

One of the choice craftsman-artists for muskie mounts is Rick Lax, who runs Lax Reproductions, where 20 years of making replicas hasn’t merely led to becoming a leader in the niche market of freshwater fish replicas. The quality and convincing realism of replicas also has aided the entire catch-and-release movement, which is widely recognized as a primary reason why fish exceeding 60 pounds are once again being caught in Minnesota after disappearing for much of the past century.

So, it might surprise many muskie fanatics that a procession of dead muskies — 120 and counting — have been crucial to the success of Lax.
FATHER-SON PIONEERS

Lax has run Lax Reproductions (formerly Lax Taxidermy) since 2003, when his father Ron retired.

The father-son duo had been operating the business together since the early 1990s. Traditional skin-over-Styrofoam taxidermists by training, the Laxes were early adopters of muskie replicas, a technology that previously had been practiced only on saltwater species. Early examples of replica muskellunge — a fish that is native only to a portion of North America centered around the Great Lakes — were weak, with body shapes and teeth looking more like those of a barracuda than a muskie.

“When it came to muskie reproductions, we putzed around ourselves until we figured it out,” said Ron Lax, 68, who still takes on a few traditional mounts from deer and moose each hunting seasons but no longer creates fish replicas. “We never learned nothing from nobody.”

In the early 1990s the pair saw the catch-and-release movement taking off, but replicas were pricey and sub-standard, so most anglers who caught a trophy that could be legally kept (minimum sizes were lower throughout the muskie range) killed the fish and opted for a traditional mount. That process involves using the actual head and fins from the fish, but only the skin of the torso, which is tanned and wrapped around a form, often foam or wood.

Without special care, skin mounts become brittle, and oils leech from the head, leading to slow but inevitable decomposition. Ron and Rick Lax knew replicas could last decades longer and require little care, but they had few reliable ways to make the replica mounts, which were then fiberglass, match the shape of real fish.

“We maybe did 50 fish in a year, and most people didn’t want the reproductions because they cost more and didn’t look as good,” Rick Lax recalled.

But there was no shortage in the supply of dead muskies.

“They were still killing a lot of fish back then,” Ron Lax said. “People were bringing us all sort of dead muskies, so we decided to start making our own molds from those fish, instead of buying these blanks from a third party. That’s when things started changing.”

120 DEAD MUSKIES

Take the dead fish, give it a pose — flared gills, arched back, etc. — and then create a mold of that fish, right down to its teeth. Then you can reproduce that form by injecting plastic into the mold. Make separate molds for enough heads, jaws, teeth, fins, torsos and you’ve got the ability to match the basic dimensions of almost any fish out there. The father-son team kept making molds as new shapes and sizes of dead muskies rolled in.

Costs evened out, although it’s not cheap. The basic rate for Lax is $14.95 per inch, so a 50-inch muskie will be around $750.

“Today we have molds from about 120 muskies,” Rick Lax said. “If you have a 44-inch muskie, we’ve got eight molds for that. I haven’t gotten a request for anything that I don’t have. I have molds up to 59 inches and 60 pounds.”

That fish, from the St. Lawrence River, was taken 15 years ago. Even though killing a muskie is taboo today, an occasional carcass still arrives at Lax’s shop, located along U.S. 45 in northeast Wisconsin.

“Sometimes one will die on someone, despite their best efforts to revive it,” Rick Lax said. “If the fish is legal, they might do a skin mount. We’ll make a mold if it’s something we don’t have.”

Recent example: Last year, an Atlanta angler brought in a 57-inch muskie caught with a guide on Lake Minnetonka.

Increasingly, he recognizes the fish in the photo as one he’s done before.

“The markings on a muskie, they’re like a fingerprint,” he said, referring to the fish’s vertical bars or spots, or combination thereof. “Every fish is different. So if you’ve seen those exact markings before, you’ve seen that exact fish before.”

Photographs can confirm such happenings. “I’ve done a replica of the same fish three times in one year. I got three jobs out of that fish and it was still swimming! It’s proof that catch-and-release works.”

Lax does other fish, as well. Walleye, northern pike, largemouth and smallmouth bass, and trout and salmon are the most frequent, as well as perch, crappie and sunfish. Because reproductions can last a lifetime and need little more than a damp cloth for cleaning, reproductions are becoming the norm, also from plastic injected into molds he has created.

But there are still challenges. He has had to turn down business. “Sometimes, every now and then with a big trout, someone will have a fish that I don’t have a mold for,” he said. “I’ll tell them that either I can do a skin mount if they kept the fish, or I just can’t help them.”

TRADE SECRETS

Lax isn’t the only acclaimed shop making reproductions. Artistic Anglers in Duluth and Jim Fittante in Antigo, Wis., are among those often listed.

The small industry — Lax does between 200 and 250 mounts per year, each with a roughly eight- to 10-month turnaround — is nonetheless competitive. On my recent visit, for example, Rick Lax was skittish about letting me photograph or shoot video of his actual production process.

“I guess we have a few trade secrets,” he chuckled.

Lax does all the work himself with occasional extra manpower conscripted from his brother Chris and high school-age son. He said the techniques he and his father fine-tuned over the years change little now. Instead of large still photographs, he works off a computer tablet, allowing him to zoom in to a examine fish’s markings.

As for those distinctive markings on a fish, they’re less craft and more art. While some taxidermists use a brush, Lax prefers to exclusively airbrush his mounts, employing mesh or other stencil-type tools to achieve certain mottling or the look of scales. That final step is as crucial as any, he said.

“It’s an artist who does the finished products, and you’re only as good as your paint jobs.”

Lax was at the forefront of a minor revolution in fish taxidermy, and I asked him what he thought the next revolution might be. For example: Could the combination of smartphones and 3-D printing render even the replica-making taxidermist irrelevant?

“That’s an interesting idea, but I’m not worried and I don’t see the need to change. I’m 50, and I think there will be enough business around to take me into retirement.”
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