Sean C. Morgan
There’s a way to save that monster caught while fishing on vacation in Alaska and eat it too.
It’s been around awhile, but Doug James’ father was the first to set about molding and casting replicas of trophy fish in 1961. James of Sweet Home is carrying the torch his father started through his taxidermy supply business, located at the corner of 43rd Avenue and Highway 20.
“I kind of grew up around it,” James said. “My dad did for about 40 years.”
A person can bring him a fish, and James will make a mold from the fish then reproduce an exact copy in fiberglass. Taxidermists can also send pictures of a fish to James for customers.
Fishermen can take their salmon home and eat it instead of wasting it, James said. “They get their pie, their cake and ice cream too.”
As rivers go more and more to catch and release, the importance of what James does increases. Persons can take a picture, let the fish go and still have a trophy to show.
Traditional skin mounts tend to fall apart and approaching the precision reproduction of fiberglass as the skin is stretched over a carved foam body can be difficult, James said. Some taxidermists are good at it while others are not. The skin mounts get primer and paint over them anyway.
James does much of his business reproducing fish parts, like fins, tails and heads. Taxidermists use those to help put together skin mounts. Supplying details like those or providing fiberglass rocks, knotholes, bark wedges and other mounts are a major part of his business.
James takes his cue from his father, Bob James, who died recently. His father received a special citation from the State of Alaska. He worked for the Fishermen’s Hall of Fame. He worked for another man when he was about 20 years old and learned skin mounts.
“He couldn’t stand them,” James said. His father learned of a man at a university who was making molds of fish. He made his first reproducton in 1961.
While some were experimenting with the process, James said, “for about 15 years all of the taxidermists laghed at them.”
Now, the practices is used all over the place, James said. Seven or eight persons are doing it on the East Coast, but just two or three are doing it on the West Coast.
“I’m going to break ground on the West Coast,” James said.
James got his start working with his father, growing up around fish reproductions. He also worked with his father six years ago. He moved to Sweet Home after that where he borrowed $20 from his father-in-law. He took that money and bought a fiberglass modeling kit from Wal-Mart and made a fiberglass rock.
The business took off when he took a fake rock to Research Mannequins in Lebanon. The company liked it, and James has been making the rocks for the company. The rocks are cast from James’ molds using colored resin so they do not even need painting.
“I was 8 or 10 years old, my dad was making these rocks, so it’s not new to us,” James said. Since moving to Sweet Home, he has sold some 5,000 of the rocks. Some of them are large enough to house two cords of wood with room to cut the wood.
He has always been into the fish, but as a product, it’s been the last six months that he has gone full force into them.
“What happened was I got into the rock thin and it buried me for five and a half years,” James said. He was kept busy, with perhaps three days in that entire time where he could say he was “caught up.”
“It was just kind of a stepping stone,” James said, until he could get the opportunity to work on the fish.
“I get a real pleasure when they’re finished, looking at them on the wall and creating different stuff out of fiberglass. There’s just no limits to what you can do,” James said. That passion may be genetic. “When I was a bout seven years old, my dad molded my face.”
His father had casts of James and his brother and two sisters when they were young. Already, James’ own son, Phillip, 6, is working in the shop on his own fish.
Following in his father’s footsteps, James crafted a giant last year in Albany when he built a 16-foot Pteradactyl for Starvin’ Marvin’s Pizza, with a 30-foot wingspan. His father made a 16-foot eagle in Alaska. Starvin’ Marvin’s went out of business, and James is not sure where the giant dinosaur is. He also made the stone table tops and tusk table legs for the restaurant.
He is looking at building a one-third scale “genuine flying saucer” next for Plant Pizza in Lebanon. It will be eight feet across and two feet tall. He hopes to make a mold of it when done.
Business is going well, James said. He has flyers out in five states and plans to reach four more after the first of the year.
“I’m swamped,” James said. “I’ve got enough fish to carry me.”
He credits his wife and partner, Sheila for the success he has had so far. With her help, he was able to access the Linn County Business Development Center and Cascades West Council of Governments for help financially.
“I would never have got it if it weren’t for my wife,” James said.
James plans to put eight persons to work in the next year in mold making, shipping and receiving and other areas.
James doesn’t get to go fishing often but “maybe when I get some time this next summer, I might,” James said. He caught a sailfish in Mexico in 1976, and the largest salmon he ever caught was 35 pounds.
“Mostly I do my fishing to get away from all this,” James said. Still the reproductions are important to him. “I don’t know, I’m obsessed with all of it, or I should say I have a passion for it, all of it. I get excited over a dead fish. I get excited over painting or a new mold.”