DIY Fish Skeleton

[poppernel]

Keep on posting, very interesting, am enjoying this.

Dave

[clarias]

Ok, the head is nearing completion... the lower jaw, gill rakers, ceratohyals and operculii have been added (sorry, writing Ichthy tomorrow so just practicing my terminology ).

Next the pectoral girdle and branchiostegal rays will be added and Voila!

In case you guys are wondering what glue I used, I used Bostik Clear. I liked it because it is a relatively fast drying contact adhesive, but not so fast that you can't make adjustments and correct mistakes...
others prefered quick-drying things like Q-bond etc.

[chris williams]

Goog stuff, are you going to make the body out of five-minute epoxy, colour it with Pentel perm markers and varnish with Sally Hansen's?

[chris williams]

PS - the fish wouldn't be complete without a brace of the thousands and thousands of Wiet's 3D eyes!

Seriously keep up the good pix, it's fascinating!

[clarias]

I see the votes for the skeleton are catching up as the pictures become less gross....
Here is the completed skull...its two AM, and you've just adjusted the last bone. YEEEEHHHAAAAHHHH, you let out a savage scream just so the whole campus may appreciate this...and now you can start finishing your insect collection for a further two nights straight- believe me, the 'time management' option is a better route to take!

[clarias]

I thought the toughest bits were the gill bones... I had to innovate a bit and use cardboard strips to replace the cartilage that was lost... also used any little thing to prob up bones while drying- matchboxes, beer tops, stationary...you name it!

[pieterkriel]

Ok, I decided to vote now, although I love the look of the skeleton, still it will involve killing that trophee fish purely to obtain its bones, Clarias don't get me wrong, for a learning experience like the one you are busy with studying ichtology(sp) this is fine, but say I catch that elusive 20lb LM Yellow, to be able to get a mounted skeleton, I will need to kill the poor beast, and then start off on a journey to either try and build it myself or bribe a student like yourself to build it for me, with the chances of all this going wrong, and me not wanting to eat the fish in all it will be an absolute waste of:
1) a majestic fish, that could have lived another season or two or even more and in that time spawn at least a good few times more to replenish dwindling stocks
2) good meat, as I said I will not eat the fishe's meat that is cut off for the preparation of this project
3) time, if I spent the time it would take me to embark on such project should I choose to try and build it myself, on fishing rather I would have had the opportunity to catch the 25lb LM.

However having said all this, I have seen some very well done kitchy mounted moulded fish, but would not ever want to hang one on my wall, but still rather that than the skeleton. To build a moulded mount takes taking a picture of the fish and its measurement, which should not kill the beast thus it will lull myself into not feeling guilty for killing a fish knowingly(note the choice of my words here)

With all this said it is choice 2 for me and please keep posting this project as I would love to see the end results of this project.

Keep up the good work in your studies and always keep your fishy passion alive so we the less learned forumers has someone to ask about the ins and outs of the fish we so love to catch, I am in awe that in this day and age a young man still chooses this line of study and have utmost respect for you doing so. We need more people in the know about our fish species.

I hope you get really good marks for this project. Like I said keep posting until we can see the final piece of art.

[clarias]

Thanks a lot, Pieter.
I couldn't agree more with what you've said- I think we've moved on from the days when everything needed to be put on our walls to show friends (maybe the era of more accessible photography has contributed to this?).

You could probably build a fly rod in the time it would take to build a 20lb LM!!

I decided to post the skeleton because it was fun and I really learnt a lot about how a fish works- the whole point of the exercise really...
You can have gutted a hundred fish and not understand how a fish actually goes about eating your fly, but when you look at what lies under the flesh...then everything makes sense, how all the muscles and tendons work etc. deduced from examining the bones... I find it fascinating!

[pieterkriel]

Thanks a lot, Pieter.
I couldn't agree more with what you've said- I think we've moved on from the days when everything needed to be put on our walls to show friends (maybe the era of more accessible photography has contributed to this?).

You could probably build a fly rod in the time it would take to build a 20lb LM!!

I decided to post the skeleton because it was fun and I really learnt a lot about how a fish works- the whole point of the exercise really...
You can have gutted a hundred fish and not understand how a fish actually goes about eating your fly, but when you look at what lies under the flesh...then everything makes sense, how all the muscles and tendons work etc. deduced from examining the bones... I find it fascinating!

It sure do seem like a very enjoyable project, and I am sure it teaches a lot. Like I said we need people that has the guts to study this subjects and is willing to share their knowledge with us who only really know how to go about trying to catch them.

[clarias]

One of the best lessons I have ever learnt in fishing is: think like a fish!

If you study your fish, its habits, diet, biology etc. you will be more successful. The better fishermen on this forum seem to have got this down to a par... they know and love their fish...

Its amazing: one can deduce almost everything you need to know about a fish by looking at a picture/specimen of a fish: it's fins indicate how it swims and thus habitat and feeding, mouth and jaw structure show diet etc. and many other functions can be deduced from its form... had to do this yesterday in an exam, we were given preserved fish specimens and had to say where we would find them, what they eat, how they swim etc...and as a fisherman it's only one step further to determine whether one could catch them!