•Perch – Competition Piece 1991

T
he Perch, a member of the Walleye family, usually thought of as a nuisance to most fishermen because of their small size. Always stealing your bait when you’re trying to go for that big Walleye. But not this one, this was patterned off a one pound Perch brought in with a half a dozen other one pounders. This made a perfect subject for a competition pieced. In national wood carving competitions every piece of the entry must be hand carved or hand crafted. The only exception is the glass eyes. For this piece the driftwood was hand carved and painted, the sand was also hand crafted from wood putty and painted. The plants were created out of copper wires with paper leaves glues to the wires and then painted. I entered this piece in several competitions. The first was the Northern Nationals, a national woodcarving competition held in Minneapolis, MN. It was entered in the “open-class”, the highest level available to fish carvers, were it took first place in the fresh water fish category. It was also entered in the Mankato Taxidermy and Woodcarving Competition, held in Mankato, Minnesota where it took another first place. This piece remains in my private collection and is not for sale.