"I caught that in Springfield about three years ago, it's a place on the East Coast," he said.

"It took me about 40 minutes to get in - ducking and weaving through the weeds and stuff - it was pretty good."

What makes the catch extra special is that Heerey preserved and mounted it himself.

Beginning the practice of taxidermy about 25 years ago after sustaining a serious back injury, Heerey initially worked with black bears and deer before being forced to scale back to salmon and trout.

He has kept up the hobby ever since.

ELSEWHERE IN SPORT

"I used to be an orderly in the LGH hospital for 13 years and I done my back up there," the fly fisherman said.

"I said to my mate Rob Dargavel 'what am I going to do now?' and he said 'why don't you do a taxidermy course?'.

"I said 'oh ok - I always loved the trout on the wall you got done'.

"So I did that for two months at TAFE and I got basically dux of the class and the fellow that ran the class said 'you should go on with it'.

"I haven't stopped doing trout for 25 years. I love doing it, it's my passion.

"It's only a hobby but it's my passion."

Heerey said it had taken him between four and five months to get his prize catch from water to wall.

"It's a bit of a process," he said.

"You have to take the skin off the carcass of the fish and then you make the body out of foam - there's no innards or anything in the fish, it's just skin and foam and glue.

"Then you put the paint on with an airbrush and then you put about 10 coats of gloss on it."

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