My 30-pound payara was the fishing highlight of a very good year in 2019, and when my friend Leroy Boss got his replica before I got mine I was more than a little jealous. Two weeks later mine arrived from the great white north and it was truly worth the wait.

Romney Dodd used to paint clogs for Nordstrom and other retailers, but her latest passion has been to take old skin mounts of fish and repaint them in distinctive and decorative manners.

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.