hookjaw brown trout

Today was a better day on the water. This is my buddy Bruce with his 8lb 4oz hookjaw. This fish was caught 6' of water. We were toplining and rippin' the rods through a bunch of underwater stumps.

Bruce has a twin hookjaw that also weighs 8lb 4oz so he's mounting so this one will be mounted next to it.

Enjoy the pics...

Mark
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MuleyMadness
WOW!! Fantastic. Tremendous fish!
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bigbuck92
wow. great fish. i always wondered how do ya mount a fish :-k can anybody tell me
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ABert
Love all the pics you've posted of these big browns. I've caught every type of trout with the exception of a brown. One of these days... Congrats to your friend with that beautiful hookjaw!
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Mark
"ABert" wrote:Love all the pics you've posted of these big browns. I've caught every type of trout with the exception of a brown. One of these days... Congrats to your friend with that beautiful hookjaw!
 Do you have any lakes up there that hold good browns? They are definately harder to catch than rainbows. It's a whole different game to catch them consistently. If your fishing for browns and your catching bows, your too deep. We fish in 5' to 10' of water. When there's no wind, we downrig in 25' to 50' of water at a depth of 12' to 25'.

Lures are Rapalas with custom paint jobs. F13 when toplining, F18 when downrigging. When toplining we run 200' of line and rip constantly with a nice steady rythym. The key is shallow water with structure. Rocks, stumps, ledges, anything that will provide a hiding place for a big fish. Shallow!
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bigbuck92
ya so how do you mount them. do you just get a mold of it or what
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Mark
There are a few options. One is to do a mold of the fish and paint it to match. Another is to use a form and skin mount it. Another is to just paint a replica of the fish using pictures of the released fish.

A molded mount is the preferred method around here because you get back the fish you caught, not something close to it's size.

Case in point; the guy that caugt the 12lb hookjaw that I posted had a skin over a form mount done. His fish lost 5" in girth so his mount has the proportions of a 9 or 10 lb fish.

I don't know if the molded mounts use the skin or are just painted. I've never had the luxury of having a fish mounted! I think I set the bar too high on that. I may have to lower my standards!
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bigbuck92
ok thanks
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