Replica will last forever. Skin mounts have a shelf life.
IMO dealing with replicas everyday, I can get more detail from a replica than skin mounts. Replicas are a blank canvas and if you are proficient in airbrushing it really comes alive. When it comes to the actual "blank", the raw unpainted replica, there are hundreds of manufactures of them. Make sure the "blank" is of the highest quality. Clear fins, best mouth detail, gills that are casted from the real thing, not carved from foam or something that looks like red pipe cleaners, scale detail and the action of the fish. All of these things come together to make a replica look like the real thing. Ours, you can look through the mouth and out the gills and gill plate like a real fish. Some are just closed up inside the mouth with some details. Below are examples of our "Elite" replica. Thanks so much for lookin!



Mouth detail



Custom

Great work!

Very nice!

Very nice. I just need to catch a lunker now.

I like the idea of replicas, but had no idea they were so expensive.

I guess one advantage of the replica, you can always add 20% to the size of the fish when you tell the shop how big to make it

I had no idea they could make it look so life like. That will for sure
be what I do when I get that bass of a life time.

Well I tried those replicas and I do not like them at all!



They were hard to fillet, didn't cook up worth a darn, and they tasted like fiberglass. I'd have to be awful hungry to eat another one!

^

Shawn I would go with the replica also unless you need the lunch.
I had a 12.37 speck done years ago before I knew of or if a replica was available and often wonder how I might have impacted the fishery by taking her.
Although I am not a meat hunter or trophy collector, I do collect memories.

I got my double digit replica from Lake Fork taxidermy. Imagine my surprise when I noticed that someone at bass pro shops had caught the same bass that i had....the identical mount as mine is hanging on their wall.

Yep. The mount I received also only had half a tail and the fish I caught had a big full tailas you see below.

Just keep in mind that when you get a replica, you are really getting a replica of someone else's fish...