Ok Gang.
I am working on the replica of my dads Smallmouth Buffalo from this spring. I have reached the point where I am working on the eyes.

Does anyone have any higher resolution Buffalo Pictures that are focused on the eye or head.

Anyway i thought I would ask because I know we have some fantastic photographers on here.

My email is joshua@knuthart.com

Thanks a bunch
~Josh

I have a closeup of the head of a smallmouth I will send you later today. I think Mike may have taken the pic.

I think I have original at home. It would be a much larger pic but I could e-mail it to you if this is helpful.

Pics sent.

My pics are on my external hard drive and I am in Seattle for another week. I'll check when I get home.

Thanks a bunch guys!
The pics you have sent were a huge help.
Ill be looking forward to more if people have them, You can never have enough pictures.

I have seen some smallmouth buffalo mounts, and it's very easy to overdo the gold ring in the eye. The camera tends to accentuate the subtle ring; you could get by with a black marble and skip the ring. If the ring is too bright, it looks unnatural. Just my opinion.

Thanks a bunch Corey
I agree on the gold ring, It gets tricky.
Eyes are one thing I have always tried to get right, I just started making my own eyes out of clear resin.
so these pics will help a TON

Here is how i am making my eyes now.
I did a post on my Blog on the creation of a bull Shark eye. I am not sure if anyone is interested, but here it is.
http://www.knuthart.com/joshua/blog

Great read Josh. I'm floored with your ability to recreate eyes for your mounts. Really awesome to see such incredible attention to detail, and without my nose getting any browner, I'd like to say that pride in ones work is increasingly lacking nowadays but you certainly don't lack any. I have been fishing hard for a 36"+ longnose Gar and if and when I catch one I'd like you to consider the job of mounting. If you have the time could you please PM me detailed instructions of what I should do from the time the fish is boated.

Take Care,
-Will

And that's why Josh is the official taxidermist of roughfish.com

Josh, I'm floored. Those eyes are amazing.

lol well I am glad you guys are interested in the process. Its so much fun to do.
I end up looking very close at the fish I catch.

as far as what to do with a fish.

Try to avoid it from flailing about too much.
freeze it as soon as you can.
for a gar I would wrap it in a wet towel and lay it flat out in a freezer.
Other fish I am planning on keeping for a mount are put in a cooler of icewater until they expire, then I lay them flat on a piece of waxpaper and then on a flat board. This is set in the freezer overnight. then I will take the fish out and quickly run it under cold water and refreeze it, then a half hour I do it again.
I do this about 4 times. This glazes the fish in ice.
Then I wrap it in a wet towel and freeze it.

Gar have hard scales and are hard to make a replica of, so they are normally skin mounts. so dents in the skin are less of an issue. However with softer scaled fish the dents of the towel will put divots in the skin. this will show up on the replica later after the mold is made.
Thats why I freeze them before wrapping them.
Also avoid those vacuume sealer bags at all costs. they leave a hashmark pattern on the fish that will never go away.

I hope that all makes sense.

Good luck on the gar.

My dad and I are heading out for Buffalo on monday, then perhaps to prairie du sac later in the week for Smallmouth buffs and that fish that shall not be named. I figure Ill try it one more time before I hit the Chipp.

Wow Josh, those eyes are very cool! If you think about it, please show the Buffs eyes when you get them done.

Have you done any quillback mounts? I've been looking at their eyes recently and they are pretty interesting too.

lol
I am working on a quillback as we speak.

Here is the eye for that.
It was done a bit differently then the shark, and how I am planning on doing the buffalo. (I was Product testing for a glass eye company)

They do have very odd eyes. a strange pupil shape.

Funny!

I was just looking at the eyes of the various quillbacks I've caught and their pupil shape does vary quite a bit. A couple had eyes very close to the one you just displayed. Others had a very elongated pupil, like this one.

Wow, great stuff Josh. Can't wait to see that Quillback replica. My new favorite rotating header for the site is from a quill that Avidfly caught a while back(the bastard, I can't cach one to save my life).........anyway, the eye seems to have a vertical stripe in it, and it is very cool. Look for it on the header. Also, I have a quill's scale pattern as my desktop background. A few folks have commented that all their scales seem to be different, without any kind of repeating pattern. Different sizes, shapes....pretty cool, though......

If you need more shots of smbuff eyes or closeups of their heads and lips, PM me~andy

Wow Ive never seen a quill with that type of banding.
Very cool.

Ill let you know when the time gets closer for the painting of the buff.

MAN I love these fish.

Walleye and bass are sooooooo Boooooring.