Kelly Reark tattooed tarpon boca grande florida art

When I’m forced to stay in my home office to finance past and future fishing trips, I take solace in the numerous fish replicas Hanna and I have hanging around the house. We’re fortunate that we’ve been able to take some great trips, and that artists around the continent have been able to reproduce our memories in three dimensions. We have my personal-best bass from Lake Fork Taxidermy, my personal-best musky from Lax Reproductions, and five more from the masters at Canada’s Advanced Taxidermy. They’re all great, and indeed we are living in an era where there are lots of options to get a perfect-down-to-the-last-scale reproduction of your prized catch.

While tattoos are not as central to my happiness as taxidermy, I am fascinated by them, and I’ve written extensively about the fishy variety in various blog entries, including here and here and here and here and here.

Now, we have an example where those two great tastes can taste great together.

Kelly Reark of Florida has created fiberglass fish replicas since 2009, but she does it with a stamp all her own at the “Home of the Tattooed Tarpon.”

She decorates her mounts with tattoo-style paintings of iconic scenes or scenery related to the fish in question – so, for example, a tarpon might share scenes from Boca Grande, Florida, or the boat on which it was caught, or both. Many of them are sepia-toned, to give an antiqued look.

Kelly Reark tattooed tarpon sepia toned turtle lighthouse fish art

She’s also created versions with UV light-sensitive paint that glows when placed under a black light.

Kelly Reark tattoo uv paint black light for charity

Furthermore, many of her works are donated or sold to fish-centric non-profits to aid in her cause. That’s an additional feather in her cap, as far as I’m concerned, but what really wows me is that fact that when you see one of her works, there’s no question who made it.