A southern Manitoba man is transforming walleye skin into leather wallets.

He’s not the first one to make leather products using fish skin, but as far as Clint Boyd knows, he’s the only using the skins from Manitoba’s official provincial fish—the walleye.

One by one, Clint Boyd sews together the inside pockets for his flagship product: the genuine walleye fish leather wallet.

"I've perfected that if you can eat it, why can't you wear it," said Boyd.

All the magic happens in a small factory just outside the town of La Rivière, 170 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

A taxidermist and trapper for most of his life, Boyd’s shop is filled with an assortment of furs and pelts; however, the walleye is what makes him unique.

"As far as we know, I'm the only one in the world doing walleye skin," he said.

As head sewer and company owner, Boyd's fingerprints are all over the made-in-Manitoba wallets.

He also makes walleye skin boots.

Boyd said it took him 20 years to perfect the tanning process to be able to turn walleye skin into leather products. He experimented with walleye skins that were getting tossed in the garbage.

“I just started testing one day and then it progressed that I think I'm going to make something of this," said Boyd.

These days Boyd gets the skin from Lake Winnipeg walleye. The fish are caught by commercial fishermen before going to the Winnipeg-based Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation.

The skins are also used to make broth for cooking; none go to waste.

"Every fish that we catch, we want to use as much of that fish as possible so using the skins is a great thing," said Freshwater Fish marketing manager Jay Middagh.

Middagh said Boyd approached Freshwater Fish about buying the skins for his wallets and now he makes regular trips into Winnipeg to pick up a trailer-load at a time.

"He makes an excellent product, it's unique in the marketplace,” said Middagh. “There are obviously many different kinds of leathers, but he's the only one with walleye skins."

It’s a product Boyd wants to share with the world. Right now the wallets are sold at craft shows and at Cabela’s retail stores.

Boyd said he can make about 300 wallets each week, but he's looking for manufacturing help to pump out even more.

"We'll still tan it,” said Boyd. “My recipe, I'm the only one that will do that special recipe."

That's a secret Boyd won't be sharing with anyone anytime soon.