Enjoy Part Two of my story on Josh Kelly, a “Black Knight” in the realm of taxidermy. This is the final part of the story that could be running in the Lone Star Outdoor News on your newsstand right now. Again, we have NO way of knowing here in Denton, unless we read the online version. I like the ink stains on my fingers, so I will wait for my chance to pick one up somewhere in DFW.

“I was probably eighteen when I started having my own clients,” and now at twenty-five Ron is sending more clients his way.

“I’ve had Josh do several things for me. He does nothing but great work. He gets something done, and I’ve got something else for him. I have had work from other people in the past, and what impresses me the most is the way he can get detail – he just did everything right on,” Eddie Rhodes of Garland, Texas, said.

Working from pictures and measurements, Josh was able to create a replica of a peacock bass for Rhodes that he called “exceptional.” “He’s done all kinds of fish for me and right now he’s working on a paca (another variety of peacock bass) for me,” he said.

Josh gets requests for a large variety of fish as well, ranging from huge Texas alligator gar to tiny exotic fish. “I did a fish that was an inch long, caught by scuba divers in two-hundred feet of water. It was an extremely rare fish the size of a paper clip,” Josh said. He plucked a boar hair to do the detail painting on that fish. “That same week I did a nine foot marlin as well,” he said. The main two fish he reproduces are largemouth bass and peacock bass.

Although Josh has made a splash in the world of fish taxidermy, his Father Ron still gets the calls for the exotic jobs like his upcoming trip to Brazil this week, to mold the newly recognized IGFA world record peacock bass caught in March.

“I am going down with Emu Outfitting to mold that fish, and in the past I’ve been to Alaska, Dubai, Mexico and Africa to do our work. Over the years, I’ve done work from all fifty states, ” Ron said.

The internet has really opened things up for Josh’s business. “I counted thirty states that I had orders from last year, and I recently did a peacock bass for someone in Cuba,” he said.

Josh and Ron try to match the exact fish, with molds in quarter-pound increments. They can also work from photographs to get the coloring, as well as match the unique characteristics on fish – down to the fins being jagged where a piranha may have taken a bite out of it.

Their studio has fish molds stored everywhere, with original bass molds up to twenty-two pounds, a world record bluegill of five pounds, and even a five pound crappie. Now they are concentrating on giant alligator gar molds – including rubber mouth molds to duplicate the teeth exactly.

Josh’s art isn’t going unnoticed by the taxidermy industry either. In 2009, he won first place, master level, at the Texas Taxidermy Association show, and in 2009, he won First Place at the national show as well as finishing with a first at the world show – all on the professional level. Josh and Ron’s next competition is in Kerrville, Texas, on July 8 – 11.

Josh and Ron work together in Rockwall, Texas, and can be reached at 214-663-5299 and Josh’s web site is www.artisticfishdesigns.com.

note – Do you have a trophy hanging on your wall at home, or have you seen a fish hanging somewhere that is interesting to you? I will be accepting photographs of any wall mount, standing mount … whatever mount, fish on an ongoing basis, and once I have a good number, we are going to create a trophy page of the photographs. IT MUST BE DEAD and replicated – fish of any age and condition (preferably old and decrepit) are invited to apply. I know some of you guys, and you have fish on your walls. I’ve seen them! Send in a photo, don’t worry about the file size or anything, just send them in.

This is part one of two parts on taxidermist Josh Kelly who recreates fish for those fortunate few who may have caught a fish worth having on their walls. If the story seems familiar, it could be running in Lone Star Outdoor News right now, but we don’t get that publication in Denton, and I prefer to read the paper version over the online version.

You may not know him, but in taxidermist circles he’s known as a “Black Knight”. His name is Josh Kelly, and the young taxidermist from Rockwall, Texas, is making waves in the increasingly artistic world of fish taxidermy.

Organized competitions between taxidermists are one of the measures of their creativity, and according to Josh’s father, Ron Kelly, “A “Black Knight” is one of those guys that comes out of nowhere, an unknown, and they come in and win everything,” changing the standards for creativity and artistic style.

The art of fish taxidermy has changed quite a bit since the old “fish on a board”, and that’s where artists like Josh have the advantage. “The rocks flow. The weeds flow. The base flows with it, like a fish in a current,” Josh said.

Ron Kelly, Josh’s Father, has been a full-time taxidermist since 1979 and remembers how he used to bring Josh into the studio to play while Dad worked. “ He used to sit on my lap. I would give him an airbrush to play with, or a cardboard fish to paint … he was five or six,” Ron said.

“By the time I was eleven I was working in the shop, and by the time I was sixteen, I was painting fish,” Josh said. “Now, he’s combining replicas with his contemporary art, and it’s becoming the popular thing as Josh is beginning to set the standards,” Ron said.

“I love the detailing and airbrushing, so I specialize in fish, and there aren’t that many people out there who just do fish,” Josh said. “I have a lot of abstract art around my house where I use airbrush, and I do art for restaurants and orders from places like Bass Pro,” Josh said.

In The Black Knight Part 2 – More about Josh, as well as photographs of Josh and his work. You can find Josh at at 214-663-5299 and his web site Artistic Fish Designs.

Many fishers can trace their roots back to a father who first exposed them to the mystery of fishing.

The countless hours fettered away at one end of a line, for some the drainage ditches of South Texas, to the mountain streams of the Rockies, all keeping us out of the house, out of Mom’s way and where we should have been all along – in nature.

At first we stood next to our Fathers, learning to cast, bait, and cast again, all under watchful eyes so as not to “fall in.” Then, we would go further down the bank, still in sight of course, but edging the envelope of distance. Then, we would disappear and only come back when the hollering, to go because it was getting dark, had started.

Maybe we had brothers and sisters to contend or compete with, and maybe not. The act of fishing, in all its forms, can serve to enhance an only child’s sense that it’s OK to be alone, and it can enhance the sibling bonds of being together – helping each other out, and even little brothers and sisters showing their “olders” how it’s done.

If we were close to fishing grounds, the chances were that the we would continue thinking about fishing even after we had gone back home for the weekend. It could be that you were like me, and sat down at your work table and religiously disassembled your reel after fishing, cleaned the sand and salt out, greased it and put it all back together. It could be that you were a young fly tier, who saw something, went home and tied it, and presented it the next day or weekend. It could be that your life became more interesting, and fishing waned, or was just an occasional postcard event. Of course all forms of our original experiences are valid to our geography and situations.

Perhaps you, like me, are from one of those dynamic modern families (the odds are good that you are), and had biological and steps and halfs as part of the prefix of your life. Depending on your generation, the stigmas can be great or small, but sometimes the good fortunes of those modern family dynamics only reveal themselves over time. My fortunes were good.

I remember asking my Stepfather (technical terminology) why he didn’t still fish with my Mom like we used to when I was young? My Mom and Father both answered almost simultaneously, “We did it for you!” I was shocked. I would have sworn they were having as much fun as I was … youth is so easily fooled.

I don’t know if my Grandpa liked fishing as much as I did either, but he was a good sport about it. I was the boat driver, and backer-up’er. I started backing the boat down the ramps at about 13 or 14, and quickly got pretty good at it – after all, the quicker we were in the water and moving, the quicker we got to Three Islands, or whatever our destination. That was about the same time I became the boat driver as well – trying to keep Grandpa comfortable as we crossed wakes with other boats on our way out the Arroyo Colorado, and south along the Intracoastal Waterway to Three Islands.

I would be remiss if I did not recall the time, when at our annual Fourth-of-July family gathering, we had the boat in a slip at Jim’s Pier on South Padre Island for the whole week. About midweek no one would go fishing with me, so Grandma said, “I’ll go!” Off we went to the far side of the old causeway and the “Tarpon Hole” just south of the Port Isabel abutment as I recall. We sat on the edge of the hole for awhile before seeing a six foot long shark cruise through the hole – fin out a’ la “Jaws”. I had a reliable Hump Lure on and gave it all I had to cast and hit the shark on the nose. There was no drama, but that fin did submerge, depart and the shark story emerged. Hats off to Moms and Grandmas who step in in whatever ways they did for your youthful memories of fishing.

Although I never fished with my Dad’s parents, my other set of Grandparents, they were widely known for their fishing as well, and my Grandmother Drawe (Pattee) had deep roots in Port Isabel, Texas, and her story of her involvement in a 1930′s Tarpon Tournament is legend to me (and way too long to tell here).

So let us now pay our respects to our fathers, stepfathers, dads, grandfathers and those who played those rolls regardless of their actual designations. We may now find ourselves known by some of those same names, or we may look forward to those roles with measured anticipation. Regardless, we thank you for your early influence and determination that now bears the fruit of a good, clean and honest communion with nature and the bounty of fish she shares with us.

For – George and Grandpa