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Brown Trout Colors


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I just got my brown back from the taxidermist and it has white rings around the red dots.I have caught browns with lots of red and no red all black dots.I just dont remember the white rings.Is this common or is this a way of highlighting the red?I searched the web for closeups of browns and can only see faint white rings on some of them.My taxidermist is one of the best in the area [schwarz Studio] but I just dont remember the white rings.Any help?Thanks

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I have a picture of a brown that a buddy of mine recently cought that has fairly big white rings around the red spots on its side. I can't get the picture to post on here but I sent you a PM with my eamil and would be happy to send you the picture.

Nathan

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I have a White river brown on the wall, mostly black spots with a couple of red ones, no white outlines on the red spots, but a handful of the black ones have outlines that are more of a tan color than white. I would not think that a taxidermist would mess with painting outlines around the spots, but I could be wrong. You could probably give them a call and ask them if they did any "enhancements" to the natural color of the fish. I don't have a digi camera else I would take a picture.

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Go to Ozarkanglers.com on left side of page towards bottom click on "Useful Links" when that next page comes up go to bottom center and you will find "Flyfishing Missouri & Arkansas" click on site go to Fishing Report and find Taneycomo, click on it and scroll down and you will see a picture of a big brown with what looks like white around the black spots.

"God gave fishermen expectancy, so they would never tire of throwing out a line"

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Man you would think of all the brown trout this board and myself included have caught my question would be a gimme.Thanks for the picture of the mount but no help.Im sure a good taxidermist studio like Schwarz would have the colors down but just don't remember white rings around the red dots.Well I guess I could go fishing and check for myself :D Thanks again.

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I've done enough paintings of browns, and studied them enough, to maybe give you a good answer...

Color varies with individual fish, time of year, clarity of water, etc. AS A GENERAL RULE, the red spots on bigger browns will have a more or less visible lighter (not white) ring around them. You'll see traces of a lighter color around some of the dark spots on the sides, as well, although usually not on the spots that are up closer to the back.

The thing is, every skin mount MUST be repainted, since the life colors totally disappear in the process of curing and mounting the skin. Ditto with replica mounts. So the realism of your mounted fish is totally dependent upon the artistry of the taxidermist. Most taxidermists use an airbrush to paint the fish, but that's not how a real fish looks. The red spots actually cover a cluster of about 3-5 scales, have darker outlines around each scale, and then there is a ring of scales around that cluster that is lighter than the "background" color. The colors of a live adult brown trout are very difficult to reproduce, because the colors are iridescent and change under different lighting conditions. There is actually a lot of blue and violet showing in the background color of the sides of the fish under some light conditions, and the scales in that ring around the red spots tend to have a somewhat faded and less iridescent color than the other scales in the same area.

In studying various mounted fish and talking to taxidermists, I believe that trout are one of the most difficult fish to produce a good mount job. The skin is fragile and there are a lot of areas that shrink considerably in the curing process. Most skin mounts of trout are pretty ugly, in my opinion.

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After reading your post I looked at the trout closer under better light and it is painted just as you describe lighter rings tannish not white afew around the darker spots and black dots no rings closer to the back.Thanks for shedding the light on the white.

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