Soulstrifer
10-05-2013, 11:40 PM
So I figure I should probably just group all of my tail drawings together in one post for my own reference and purposes. I'm a very ... ambitious person and will be attempting to make my first tail as soon as I've got the money to save up and get everything I need at once. I'm a perfectionist and I want to be sure that everything is as close to perfect as I can get it so there will be a lot of trial stuff happening when I begin the process of making my tail, which will hopefully happen before next summer.
Now I'd like to point out that I enjoy accuracy a lot, which is why most of the tails I've drawn and designed are done the way they are. I've been taking requests and don't mind taking more so long as I'm not overwhelmed with them.
Let's start with the first tail I'll be making.
https://scontent-b-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1240185_717617004931408_383000179_n.jpg
This tail is designed after a Black Bass or a Largemouth Bass. My reasoning for choosing this as my first tail is that A: it's simple. No fancy fluke and simple fins. Really the most complicated thing about this is the colors and pattern. B: I'm a bass fisher... errr woman. I grew up on a boat fishing with my mom and dad and Bass are awesome fish with a hell of a lot of personality. I know Bass intimately now. I've spent the years swimming with them in the lakes and of all the fish they are the ones that will challenge a swimmer before swimming away. They are curious and just completely awesome.
C: Because I'm a tournament fisherman I am an advocate to the conservation of these fish. We are serious about catch and release. While we understand that people eat them and there's nothing wrong with it, there is the problem that most only keep the big ones. Here's the trouble with that. The larger fish are usually females. Now I've seen some good sized bucks on beds before -I apologize for my fisherman lingo I'll post explanations at the bottom. - but the females are the record breakers and that's just the fact of the matter. The females are bigger because of the fact that they are the ones having to carry and produce eggs. They swell up nice and fat in the spring time around Feb and March. People take these big females out of the lake and it might not seem like it but it hurts the cycle a lot to have all these fish the same size in the lake with no big fish.
A lot of people want to argue that fishing tournaments is worse than meat fishing but BASS fisherman and the people running tournaments do everything in their power to keep their fish alive. From personal experience we've weighed in early for the sake of our fish and cost ourselves the rest of the day... or we've tossed them back and zeroed. I plan to use this tail during tournaments when I'm not fishing myself, and as an educational jumping point to teach people about the species and the good they do and how important it is to take littler fish and not just the big ones.
[Lingo! Bass fisherman call males bucks. Their nests during spawn are called beds. Some basic info. During the spawn the bass come up into shallower water on gravel banks preferably and the bucks move up on the banks and fan away circles with their tails to make a bed. The females then come up and they pair up and sit for a while together over the bed. They stay on their beds to protect the eggs and become highly aggressive. ]
Now I'd like to point out that I enjoy accuracy a lot, which is why most of the tails I've drawn and designed are done the way they are. I've been taking requests and don't mind taking more so long as I'm not overwhelmed with them.
Let's start with the first tail I'll be making.
https://scontent-b-lax.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1240185_717617004931408_383000179_n.jpg
This tail is designed after a Black Bass or a Largemouth Bass. My reasoning for choosing this as my first tail is that A: it's simple. No fancy fluke and simple fins. Really the most complicated thing about this is the colors and pattern. B: I'm a bass fisher... errr woman. I grew up on a boat fishing with my mom and dad and Bass are awesome fish with a hell of a lot of personality. I know Bass intimately now. I've spent the years swimming with them in the lakes and of all the fish they are the ones that will challenge a swimmer before swimming away. They are curious and just completely awesome.
C: Because I'm a tournament fisherman I am an advocate to the conservation of these fish. We are serious about catch and release. While we understand that people eat them and there's nothing wrong with it, there is the problem that most only keep the big ones. Here's the trouble with that. The larger fish are usually females. Now I've seen some good sized bucks on beds before -I apologize for my fisherman lingo I'll post explanations at the bottom. - but the females are the record breakers and that's just the fact of the matter. The females are bigger because of the fact that they are the ones having to carry and produce eggs. They swell up nice and fat in the spring time around Feb and March. People take these big females out of the lake and it might not seem like it but it hurts the cycle a lot to have all these fish the same size in the lake with no big fish.
A lot of people want to argue that fishing tournaments is worse than meat fishing but BASS fisherman and the people running tournaments do everything in their power to keep their fish alive. From personal experience we've weighed in early for the sake of our fish and cost ourselves the rest of the day... or we've tossed them back and zeroed. I plan to use this tail during tournaments when I'm not fishing myself, and as an educational jumping point to teach people about the species and the good they do and how important it is to take littler fish and not just the big ones.
[Lingo! Bass fisherman call males bucks. Their nests during spawn are called beds. Some basic info. During the spawn the bass come up into shallower water on gravel banks preferably and the bucks move up on the banks and fan away circles with their tails to make a bed. The females then come up and they pair up and sit for a while together over the bed. They stay on their beds to protect the eggs and become highly aggressive. ]