Nicola the Sturgeon

There can be several causes but the most likely, as global warming kicks in, is oxygen deficiency caused by over warm water or the dreaded blanket weed which grows like crazy and drains a pond of its life-giving oxygen. Different fish respond in different ways. I have found that indigenous fish (those that have been bred in the pond) cope well with lack of oxygen as do older koi but hyperactive fish like orfe and bottom dwellers, particularly sturgeon are at most risk.

Such an event happened three years back in a particularly warm part of the summer. Despite emergency measures (I put the sturgeon in the bath and turned the cold tap on full - there is nothing more oxygenated than tap water) my favourite and biggest Siberian long nosed sturgeon didn’t make it. I was gutted. They’re affectionate fish and rub up against you in the pond like a kitty after food. “Why don’t you get it stuffed?” Val asked. “How can you be so insensitive?” I gently enquired. But 5 minutes later I thought, well why not? Amazingly, if you google ‘taxidermy fish,’ you will find that the Wetherby area is a little haven and my first call resulted in my first challenge. How long has it been dead? - about 20 minutes. Have you got it in a freezer? - no. How big is it - 4 feet long. You will need to freeze it now in a straight line. We only have a chest freezer so where? The Pax - no; Morrisons - no; Sykes House Farm - YES! They were so helpful and with it boxed, wrapped in bin liners and labelled, it sat safely and isolated in the corner in their cold store at about -40º.

There followed a number of calls to various taxidermists - including one who was in an aquarium in Copenhagen where he was assessing how to stuff an amazonian Arapaima (google it!) that had leapt out of its tank - to find someone who could do the job. Very few taxidermists can do fish as well as animals. But how do you know what to expect and whether they were just “fly by nights”. Eventually I found a gentleman in Bolton who spoke the right language - we talked fish and more fish. I wanted to compare an unusual fish I had caught with one he had stuffed. So off I went, Common skate - no. conger eel - no, Mahe Mahe - no, Alligator Gar - no, Ballan Wrasse - no, Coral Perch - no, Snake Head - no, Red tailed Catfish - YES, he had and I had both caught one in Thailand some years back.

The pictures show you the match was uncanny. I had my fish stuffer. The price was agreed subject to me seeing his workshop and a feel for his action. We retrieved the frozen sturgeon from Sykes (along with some sausages) and set off to Bolton. This cannot be right I thought as we sat in our car outside a detached house on a housing estate in Bolton. Have I come to the right place? But he came out to greet us and after the small talk we were into his house and then his workshop in the garden. What a treasure trove - no photography allowed unfortunately - I found myself staring into a full bison’s head (shot in Canada and frozen across the Atlantic - “I have some very wealthy clients”) next to a domestic doggy (“I get a lot of requests to stuff pets”) surrounded by every type of antelope, fox, weasel, a half-done sea trout, a monster carp and many more obscurities. “Ever done a human I asked?”. “No”, he told me, “but it won’t be long and will be the ultimate challenge” said without his tongue in his cheek. It wasn’t a quick job. “I have to be in the zone” he told me “so I can imagine its environment and present it properly”. He explained that the word “stuffed” was not to be taken literally because the only original bits were the skin, fins, tail section and head section, the main part of the body being a mould, “otherwise it will go moldy” he explained, completely missing the irony.