Dead River

I don't think you're looking close enough, good replicas are casts of actual fish, you must've seen some of the archie Phillips junk. how does this fish blank look fake?

just a teaser taken by the taxidermist on a rainy day, more pics when it arrives

when both fish arrive I'll post some more photos and perhaps some of the reference photos

I just told you why I didn't post a photo, because as the process went on it became more of a composite or amalgam fish...unless you get a custom replica done, your fish is not going to be an exact duplicate of your fish, even if it is structurally identical the fish will have some paintjob nuances that's for sure. you don't have any replicas, I'm about to have my sixth one- I know something about this. to refute your point further, on the f1 largemouth I had him paint, I had him go darker on the war paint on the fish's face than it appeared in the photos. because those are characteristics of a bass that I enjoy viewing- personal preference. I could've livewelled the fish and stressed it out and taken a photo, no way I'm gonna do that. also a fish can look radically different in different lighting situations just as this replica looks different under different lighting. if you caught a giant in a murkey stained pond are you really going to have it painted to look like a golden shiner, we've all seen bass pale out to the point that their lateral line is barely visible if not at all.

we started out operating off a single reference and then used a bunch of different references, so this fish is more or less a composite. the fish looks fantastic, it will be here in a couple of days I will post more photos then. shoal bass is obviously a totally different fish from a smallmouth, its closest relative is the spotted bass, they have the same jaw size - comes to the back of the eye but does not extend past it (largemouth) or end before it (smallmouth). Despite being a close relative of the spotted bass, the shoalie's body is shaped and colored very differently. They have markings which look somewhat similar to a smallmouth but often have a different body shape and different tail, the shoalie's tail looks more like a largemouth and less like a smallmouth (crescent shaped fan). they have a more uniformly thick body than a spotted bass. spotted bass often have large grotesquely distended bellies but are narrow and slender in the vicinity of the tail, anal fin, and soft dorsal. Shoal bass generally have a stockier build like a largemouth if you witll, but not quite as squatty and tank-like as a smallmouth. looking forward to catching some shoalies this year.

those are great fish! thanks for sharing. Big O knows how to catch the big ones. I'd love to fish with that guy. I haven't ruled out moving to Texas at some point actually.

I like Georgia fine but more could be done to grow trophy bass. the northern trout lakes could be managed to produce big bass, trout could be supplementally stocked in other lakes during the cooler months, large impoundments could be managed for big bass, hybrid and striper stockings could be reduced. Georgia is a fine place to fish but the fact is that teener fish are just not very common around here. Nothin even remotely close to Perry's record has been caught in ages. Mississippi is producing bigger fish more consistently than Georgia, remember a 17 + came from North East Miss last year. yeah it's a good place to fish, esp for guys like you and others that live to the north, but I'm just saying my state could do more to see to it that we turned out more fish akin to Perry's

if they really are f1 tiger bass they should be aggressive. I wouldn't have them if I owned pond unless it was female only because of outbreeding depression in their offspring

N.B. these are low res cell phone photos. when it arrives I will post some really good ones..

couple more photos of it in direct sunlight... we strived to get those olive green hues in there fish looks radically different depending on the light

I had Bryan Russell of Anglers Choice Replicas do a Shoal Bass replica for me. I think it turned out great. Note this blank is a relaxed pose as well; when I get another one done it will be an action pose to compliment it. He really did well on the overall hue and the subtle nuances of a shoalie's color scheme that those of us who pursue them know and appreciate. Love the horizontal dotted stripes on the lower section of the fish, hint of blue and teal on the face, the dark spot at the beginning of the tailfan. This girl is still curing but will be here shortly. I'll share some olan mills photos of her on a rock river scene wall mount. These preview pics look good but I am certain they do not do the fish justice. When some incandescent light hits those scaletips the iridescence will be popping off! Thanks Bryan!

But Texas is stocking pure florida strain bass whereas Georgia won't. Granted you don't have to have a pure florida strain bass to produce a giant or trophy, generally speaking the higher the florida allele the bigger the bass. Bear in mind that Perry's bass was an fx likely with a very high florida allele due to where it was landed in the state. Let's be honest though, Perry's fish was caught generations ago... nothing save a fish or two from Marben Farms when it was private have come anywhere close to that. Nothing in the 20 lb range. Texas has a lot of large lakes which produce giant largemouth on a regular basis; Georgia does not. Some double digit bass are caught annually from large lakes but teeners are not common. Private waters, trout stocked lakes, impoundments under 1000 acres (many electric only lakes around atl), and a few trophy managed pfa lakes produce a few giant fish. Is Georgia a good place to be to have opportunities for ten pound bass, sure. But it's no California and it doesn't produce big fish like texas, especially from the large lakes. we have too many stripers an hybrids in the lakes. I'd like to see some dedication at the state level to growing more trophy green fish. Btw, that pfa had to be closed due to the lake draining from beneath. Was an amazing place to fish while it lasted...

LOL those are all different photos of the kicker, it's been a long tough winter man. I'll post up the other fish, I had a 4 lb 10 oz, a 4 lber, and an ugly 3.75# which is crimped badly... ugly skinny fish.

Had a blast except for my iphone inadvertently going into square photo mode on all but one of the shots on the big fish. Landed 5, lost one soon after hookup. those 5 weigh over 20 lbs. The kicker weigh 6 lb 10 oz 22.5"x16" TL Great Afternoon! Great afternoon!

I think a 5 lb bass could gain 8 oz in a month from eating and also gain 8 oz in roe. I think a 5 lb bass could eat an 8 oz meal or larger with relative ease and instantaneously be heavier.

my original point was that a bass could gain a pound of weight by virtue of putting on roe for the spawn and feeding up during the pre spawn. I don't think seeing inflated fish in February, march, april, and may is a very farfetched concept. someone here said a bass can put on 10% of its body weight in roe, do the arithmetic on a 5 lber and see how much else it would need to eat to go with that roe to be that heavy. it's not farfetched at all.

I know quite a few of those biologists guys. as for weight calculators, they're useful when you leave the scale at home but they were extremely inaccurate for the fish we were catching out of the female only trophy lake. I used regular lengths as opposed to the total length measurements and the formulas always undershot the actual weights of the fish we landed, sometimes quite handsomely. In my opinion the F1 fish are heavier for their size than the Fxs, and that's not my mantra originally. a big a-rig proponent on a local lake touted that about the fish at Bear Creek, call it hybrid vigor but there's something to it in my opinion. I do however believe they are inferior because they don't get as long, don't get as big, live as long, and produce inferior offspring. last I heard the record for an f1 was 16 lbs which ain't too shabby

I know, I get it. I am headed out in the am looking for 9 lb hammer!

more like he fishes in texas where those pigbeasts are relatively plentiful.

standings? How about some standing timber

the bite was not as good as I'd expected. I caught three fish stacked up in one location very quickly and then it went quiet. they were not feeding on the flats and off the bank as I had hoped. the fish I caught were near cover and near the banks... was disappointing but fishing blind w/o electronics during transitional weather. I could not get bit around the rock on the dam either... pretty shallow there. managed 7 fish, the biggest almost 3 lbs. took them to a friend's lake which could use some bass. post frontal, but one of my friends caught 37 on another large lake nearby so....

this one succumbed to a 5/8 oz rattletrap on tuesday... 4 lbs 5 oz. the water was stained to muddy and I couldn't find a real pattern of any kind. Did manage to catch a nice pumpkinseed consensually on the trap though. headed elsewhere today, been a lot of good reports coming out of middle and south Georgia, I'm expecting to get my arm broke today, the February feedbag should be in full swing. hopefully, I'll have something to share this evening sometime.

gheenoe