RE: fish
Whitetails has the best method. I prefer people to wrap in news paper vs. towels. Towels can leave impressions in the scales from the terry cloth whatchamacallits. lol. Outside of a monster fish, the fins are what you are looking for in a nice mountable fish. Fins that are not missing, broke or split will have a much realistic and nicer finish than fin reproductions. In many case its easier to cut off a bad fin and replace it then it is to try and fix it.