Devils Lake Again...

[RRSmith]

I should have been steelhead fishing but only had partial days to play so I spent a couple of three hour sessions flailing away for coastal cutthroat in the flats. I am trying to find a fish for Canadian scientific illustrator Paul Vecsei to draw for me. For those on Instagram, check out "fish_as_art" - the guy is amazing. He'll draw your fish for what I think is a reasonable price but he's uber picky about how what he expects as far as photos of your fish. They either need to be laid on a flat surface (tough on fish), in a cradle net or with a photarium. I decided to go photarium.

Day one produced only two grabs resulting in two hookups with one fish to the net. It was actually a little too big for my photarium and it's not exactly what I am looking for (lots of spots).



Today the fishing was much better. Lots of grabs, several hookups, most of them came unbuttoned before I could get a net under them. I only hooked a couple of decent fish but most were dinks (8"-10"). I got to try the photarium so it was good to go through the process of transferring the fish to the tank. Below is an unhappy cutthroat - for me, not a candidate for Paul to draw but close.



I caught the one below this past November and it's exactly what I am looking for. I sent several pics to Paul and he didn't really like any of them. There should be some nice snotty cutthroat fishing weather on its way so I will likely head out again to continue my quest.

 

[ptychocheilus]

Paul does really nice stuff! I've spent about 20 years sampling with and taking fish reference photos for Joe Tomelleri to illustrate (or for my own use in scientific publications), and also do scientific illustration of fishes as well.

A couple comments (and apologies if Paul has already suggested the same): If you're shooting in a photo tank, wipe the water drops off once the fish settles down. I use a separate pane of acrylic to gently hold the fish against the front of the tank. Make sure you're shooting horizontally at the same level as the midline of the fish. It's hard to get some fish to flare all of their fins so that you can count rays and or see pigment patterns, if you have a problematic fish, transfer the fish to a net (like your 2nd photo) and hold a piece of heavy white paper (rite-in-the-rain works well) behind each of the fins as you photograph each fin individually. A close-up of the head, with mouth closed (or in a natural position) and with the gill covers & branchiostegals closed is often helpful. A second benefit of the white paper trick is that it allows you to correct white balance and exposure post-hoc.

 

[RRSmith]

Paul does really nice stuff! I've spent about 20 years sampling with and taking fish reference photos for Joe Tomelleri to illustrate (or for my own use in scientific publications), and also do scientific illustration of fishes as well.

A couple comments (and apologies if Paul has already suggested the same): If you're shooting in a photo tank, wipe the water drops off once the fish settles down. I use a separate pane of acrylic to gently hold the fish against the front of the tank. Make sure you're shooting horizontally at the same level as the midline of the fish. It's hard to get some fish to flare all of their fins so that you can count rays and or see pigment patterns, if you have a problematic fish, transfer the fish to a net (like your 2nd photo) and hold a piece of heavy white paper (rite-in-the-rain works well) behind each of the fins as you photograph each fin individually. A close-up of the head, with mouth closed (or in a natural position) and with the gill covers & branchiostegals closed is often helpful. A second benefit of the white paper trick is that it allows you to correct white balance and exposure post-hoc.

Thanks so much for this! Paul wasn't quite as detailed so your comments are quite helpful. The goal for me would be to try to get as many detailed images as possible without stressing out the fish for too long. The photarium seems like a good option but maybe there are others?