Almost the record Montana Brown Trout

[LuckyMike]

Years ago I mounted a Brown trout that weighed 27lbs-15oz for a fellow named Don Grover. Don was fishing in the Missouri River below Canyon Ferry Dam on February 22, 1972 with his friend Carl Blankenship. While trolling a Rapala along a steep cliffy embankment Don hooked the huge Brown weighing 1oz shy of 28-pounds!
These pictures show Don (shorter) and Carl (taller) with Don’s trophy of a lifetime. The more recent pictures are of the huge Brown after I did some free gratis renovation work on the mount for my friend and barber, Don’s son. My goal was to fix up this mount of a truly remarkable fish well enough so that it can be viewed and enjoyed by others for another 40 to 50-years. To the best of my knowledge, Don Grover’s Brown Trout is still today, the second largest ever caught in Montana.








The mount now hangs in the Barber Shop on Last Chance Gulch in Helena, Montana.

 

[kansasdad]

luckyMike---I thought Mr Texaco could be Buzz H's father. Monster fish

 

[Matt Foley]

Nice work!

 

[Deleted member 16014]

Cool story, thanks for sharing.

 

[Marshian]

I've seen some nice fat browns caught in Lake Michigan , although none nearly that big. I love it when they take on that football shape.

 

[noharleyyet]

Old B&W hunt/fish pics

Like...cool thread.

 

[pointingdogsrule]

Cool

good luck to all
the dog

 

[1_pointer]

Cool story, thanks for sharing.

+1

The Buzz look alike was a great catch as well! Ha!

 

[big28hunter]

Holy cow what a brown! Very nice.

 

[mdhunter]

I am a fuel distributor and an old Texaco guy. I love the story and the uniform!

 

[Southwind]

I love everything about that photo. What a whopper of a fish and nice mount and restoration.

 

[worm]

Job well done

 

[Big Sky]

WOW and WOW! Freakishly big brown and very nice restoration.

 

[elk_hunter]

That is super cool. Total football fish, just awesome.

Okay, knowing nothing about fish taxidermy, do you use any pats of the original fish caught when doing mounts or do you just size a mold to match?

 

[LuckyMike]

That is super cool. Total football fish, just awesome.

Okay, knowing nothing about fish taxidermy, do you use any pats of the original fish caught when doing mounts or do you just size a mold to match?

I use the entire hide including the skinned out head. Once the hide is cured it is glued on a form or manikin of the fish which I carve out of polystyrene foam. Once everything is dry the coloring is replaced by painting.

There are a couple of other common ways to mount fish. One is to use cast artificial fish and paint to match the real one as well as possible. Another is to use the same skin mount method as I do except for the head which is replaced with an artificial cast head and then painted.