The Lake Country Replicas Line of Fish Reproductions
At this point in time Lake Country Replicas has five distinct lines of Fish Reproductions to offer to the Taxidermy Industry. They are defined as follows: Premier, WPremier, Signature, Traditional, Lyons &O’Haver.
PREMIER Series
These are the majority of our fish molds and provide the high quality Fish Reproductions that have established Lake Country Replicas as the leader in freshwater Fish Replicas. They are the resulting products of our unique silicone molding processes. The bodies have been set up and molded capturing outstanding scale detail right down to the lateral line and the pours in the scales. The heads have been molded separately to capture sensational mouth detail. The fins have been removed and molded separately in a thin actual form from which using our proprietary fin material produces realistic translucent fins unique to the industry. For those open mouth poses, the full set of gills are molded separately providing that great see through effect of real gills. The bodies are rotary molded eliminating all seams and the heads are pressure molded to capture every bit of that mouth and tooth detail that our molding process captured. All of our Premier products can be used for Pedestal Fish Mounts and settings.
The Premier Series are offered in three forms.
- Unassembled in which all the pieces have been pre-fitted so they drop into place. The normal assembly process should take about an hour to be ready to paint.
- Assembled for which the eyes are inserted and the fish is assembled and primed so it is ready to paint. The pectoral and pelvic fins will be left off to facilitate shipping and painting.
- Painted so you can open the box and present it to your customer. We request pictures to paint to if they are available. Custom painted reproductions CAN NOT be returned.
WPREMIER Series
Wall Premier blanks have all of the same great qualities as the Premier Series with ONE exception. The back side of WPremiers are NOT what we would consider good enough to be used as pedestal mounts. They should be considered for wall mounts only.
SIGNATURE Series
Signature Series molds are the initial first silicone molds created by molding actual fish. They have all the great scale and mouth detail of the Premier Series. However, by necessity they are two piece molds which leave a flashing. Also the tail, anal and dorsal fins are on the body. Only the pectoral and pelvic fins are separate. Since these silicone molds will eventually wear out, we will at that time remove the tail, anal and dorsal fins to create a complete fin set and new mold. In addition all the pieces are re-sculpted and blemishes fixed in order to create master blanks for our Premier or WPremier series molds. In the mean time as Signature series reproductions, there is a more time required in finishing these blanks to the Ready to Paint form.
LYONS & O’HAVER Series
As we strive to expand into a more complete line of saltwater Fish Replicas, we had the opportunity to acquire a great line of approximately 250 West Coast saltwater molds from the well recognized Lyons & O’Haver taxidermy shop which was being retired after more than 50 years. These excellent two piece fiberglass molds were originally created from the actual fish similarly to our approach to molding. As a result we can now provide high quality saltwater Fish Reproductions not previously available to the taxidermy industry. Although not necessarily the equivalent of our Premier Series reproductions, they are certainly at the highest quality level available from anywhere else and we will continue to seek ways to place them at the top of the industry along with our other product lines. The unassembled blanks do have seams and the mouths must be formed. They are also available ready to paint and painted. These fish reproductions CAN NOT be returned in any form.
TRADITIONAL Series
Back in 2006 the Hawkins Taxidermy shop decided to close up and we were offered their line of Fish Replica Molds. Although these traditional molds were excellent in comparison to the existing industry standards, they were well short of the new Lake Country Replica Fish Reproductions being produced from our new silicon molding techniques. However, we recognized that this line had molds of certain species like large Lake Trout, Arctic Char and Brook Trout that were practically non existent anywhere else in the industry. Consequently we agreed to purchase their molds in order to make these products available to the taxidermy industry. Being strictly one sided two piece fiberglass molds, the reproductions have seams and require creation of the mouths. They are available Ready to Paint and Painted and CAN NOT be returned in any form.