The Hunt for Trophy Rainbow Trout – And More Wall Space to Fit Them
When Hanna caught her personal-best 27-inch rainbow trout on Alaska’s American River in August – matching the one I’d caught on the Little Ku just a few days earlier – we had a moment.
Apparently trophy fish are our love language, because she said exactly what I was thinking: “Should we get two replicas of these fish?”
This is one of the many reasons we’re married.
But we also quickly agreed that it wasn’t time yet.
We’re headed back to Bear Trail Lodge next September, in part because every guide we talked to said that’s typically the best time to catch a true giant – one 30 inches or over. We’ve decided that’s the mark it’ll take to be replica worthy.
So for now, we don’t have a rainbow replica on order. The only salmonid we display is the replica of the 18-inch cutthroat I caught on our 10th anniversary trip to Montana.
When it comes time for one -- or hopefully both -- of us to get the rainbow trout of a lifetime immortalized in fiberglass, we won’t undertake the choice of who to employ lightly. These are gorgeous fish with complicated color patterns and unique combinations of spots and markings.
And if you’re going to the trouble and expense of creating a replica, you want to get those details right.
So we’ve been doing a little research. Here are some of the rainbow trout taxidermists and replica artists whose work has caught our eye.
For now, we’ll keep looking at other people’s beautiful replicas and wondering what a 30-inch rainbow would look like on our wall.
Hopefully, we won’t have to wonder for long.
We’ll be back at Bear Trail Lodge next September, chasing the kind of rainbow that might finally make us pull the trigger on that replica.
If a trophy rainbow is on your bucket list (it really should be), maybe it’s time to start thinking about your wall, too.
Dreaming of a trophy rainbow trout? See our 27-inch Alaska rainbows and the replica mounts we're considering for the next fish of a lifetime.