Anyone make "fish skin"?

I have done it a couple times with mixed success but was wondering if anyone else has ever done it?

Basically you take the fins and skin of the fish and dry it to a leathery texture that can then be used to tie in on jigs and flies. It has a natural scent obviously and should be really good for fishing for crappie and gill with jigs to add that natural scent. Might even try it with minnows for an even more natural predator response. I have always used the fins of Rainbow trout to make mine but any fish is supposed to work. Even caught a couple trout on it putting a piece of it on a spinner and a small plug as well as just a small hook and just the fish skin.

How do you dry it? Do it have a purpose other than scent? Cool Idea if it works.

After reading my own post above, I hope crappie do not bite based on grammatical correctness.:D:D

The "fish skin" can be used for scud bucks, body material and pretty much anything that requires a skin when you make it. I have used them for larva casing on scud patterns as well as caddis fly larva patterns.

I dried mine in a food dehydrator and have used the oven to do it. You can also use salt to remove the moisture out of the skin/fins. I have heard you can use some type of chemical to actually cure the skin/fins but I don't remember what the chemical is.

I have salted my own minnows with rock salt for winter fishing since many of the local bait shops do not carry them in the winter. They sure would add some scent! I have to keep them out in my shed because they get pretty smelly and the wife would kill me if they were indoors.;) Seem to stay on the hook better than fresh minnies. They do work very well, but once in the water, they rehydrate quickly. I would think the skin would be a single use fly.

Do you have any picts of something you have made?

I don't have any pictures because I did this a long time ago. Last time I did it was well over 6 years ago. I did notice that the skin did not last very long after a bite and did not last more than an hour or so in total.

The fins on the other hand were very durable, especially the tail and dorsal fin of salmon and steelhead. Trout tail were durable and last a couple trips if I kept good care of them. Keeping them dry after fishing was a key so they didn't mold.

The skin of a crappie or gill or maybe even a sculpin should be much more durable because it is so much tougher than a minnows. I imagine a properly fleshed sculpin or catfish skin would be very durable and could last a long time. I will have to try this again this spring once I catch a brown bullhead again or get lucky and finally catch crappie or bluegill again.

I know there is an article on line somewhere because this is where I learned to do it. Will post it if I find it again.

One thing I do remember is that I had to pin down the tail of the fish to get the skin to dry flat and workable. If I didn't it shriveled up and I had to get it wet to make it pliable enough to work onto a fly. Remember that I did not "dry" them. I left them in the dehydrator just long enough to make them leathery and get rid of some of the slimy feeling. I did not wash them of course except in clean water to prevent any lingering bad odors.

I think a borax and salt cure might help preserve the fins better and make them last longer. It might also get some of the slime feeling out of the fins. I am gonna try both methods, with salt and borax and without to see if one works better than the other. If I get some bullhead skin or crappie skin and fins I will them too. The bullhead tail and fins might even work better because the skin is thicker and more rubbery. Will also have to work on doing the same with the skin of many different fish to see which one works better.

Check out Taxidermy.net Forum:eek:

thats got to make for one smelly tackle box...especially if one "goes bad"