Making a LongEar SunFish Lure | World Record Size

hi sorry if this video is a little late I've been changing my mind a couple times on what I want to make but I figured it out this is gonna be dope that is a nine and a half inch long long eared sunfish which up until a couple minutes ago I thought was the world record length of a long eared sunfish but it's not because Wikipedia lies and I've already cut out a nine and a half inch piece of wood to make this long eared sunfish out of and I don't want to waste this wood so this is gonna be at a nine and a half inch long long eared sunfish why is this important I'm gonna do a new kind of video I guess that is like replica quality or at least my attempt at rec replica quality detailed world-record size fish that are swim baits like replica swim baits swim baits that are kind of like replica mounts how do you say this this isn't sounding very dope miss Patricia stout caught that long huge sunfish that elephant but Lake this thing was ten and a half inches long it weighed a pound and 12 ounces jeez caught it on a warm 4 pound test with a Zebco that was a world record so I'm gonna make that it's gonna be a swim bait probably a three piece yeah probably a three piece before we get into fun facts I kind of wanted to explain why I'm making such a big impractical detailed crazy lure for a long time now I've wanted to get into replicas kind of detail quality stuff for now I kind of want to see if I can put that detail into a swimbait see if I'm even capable of making that kind of detail you know it's definitely gonna be a challenge my normal kind of lure carving is just that it's not it's not super anatomically correct but if I can get that on these baits I'll be happy with myself okay fun potentially true facts from Wikipedia long eared sunfish native to eastern North America they reach a length of 9.5 inches we've determined that's baloney with a maximum recorded weight of 1.7 pounds I don't know if that equals one pound 12 ounces it might probably they live or they live to six years they have an exceptionally long elongated ear flap they have a long ear flap so they like dense vegetation so they like dense vegetation the streams that they live in they prefer slow currents so they will eat other little minnows insects and vertebrates no more than any other species of sunfish they feed near the surface of the water I mean to sum all this up it's just a really pretty sunfish fun facts are over now I'm going to cut the fins down to the maximum thickness that they're going to be when this baits finished I kind of cut a channel and all of the high points on the fins and that lines of the blade up to where I can cut the tail and the top and the front of the top fin and everything all at the same time while getting this fin blocked out I just realized something I cut this bait out to be nine and a half inches long but after I cut the joints it's gonna probably be right around 10 and a half inches long which is the world-record size I didn't do it on purpose but always works out in the end you know I'm trying to get an idea of what the top profile shape is gonna be before I cut that out I need to cut the joints on this bait so just to get a better idea of where the joint should be I wanted to do this okay I changed my mind again this is gonna be a single joint glider not a three piece I think it's kind of more fitting more of a sophisticated gliding action for a sophisticated bait you know there's one side on this side I kind of cut off of the line a little bit and the cuts tilted compared to the line and so I'm trying to match it on this side so when I cut these joints completely they'll the the cut will meet and the pieces will break off nicely okay I think that'll do okay that's all it needed not gonna cut all the way through that because I'm gonna get this bait cut out this way and then carved most of the way before I finish cutting that joint [Music] [Music] screw it up a little bit right there cut into the piece where I didn't want to but I'll be able to fill that in but there's the profile the really rough profile and shape of this bait [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay I've got the I think I've got some pretty good shape to this bait now it's time to start rounding off all these sharp edges I'm not going to be very precise or strict with these chamfer lines with this bait I'm going for a realistic so I think I'm just gonna have to carve it how I feel it should be carved as I go but these are just really rough benchmarks on where I should be I think I just got to accept that this is gonna take a long time and take my time and just try to look at a picture and carve it how it should be one parts where I know a bunch of detail are gonna be like in the head and the eye and the gills and stuff I tend to just leave a bunch of wood there and not carve it all away because usually I need more than I think so after looking at pictures of long-haired sunfish I've kind of determined the shape I want for this body and it's gonna be kind of a teardrop shape where it's thinner up here the head still has quite a bit of shape and thickness but up here it's a little thinner and along the back but the belly I want to I want to have a big belly on this bait as they I think Luke the pan fish they look kind of cool when I don't know it'd just be more interesting I think a more interesting looking fish if it had a bigger belly sounds kind of weird you know it's always good to see healthy sunfish a healthy fish in general nice and fat okay I'm gonna get back to work [Music] [Laughter] so after a whole bunch of sanding and a whole bunch of carving this is where I'm at and this is gonna be the general shape of the bait and I'm pretty happy with it that looks good a lot of material left on it so I can just in case I need it for all the carvings but I drew out the spines on the fins or just on that fan the top fin that's actually the high points so I'm going to try to leave the pin marks and then carve kind of like concave everywhere else I think that'll imitate a fin really well you that took an entire day just to do those fins now I'm gonna move on to the gills the scales this thing's also going to need the two fins that come off the bottom and then the side fins too there's a lot of work left to do I'm having a good time though this is pretty pretty chill just sit for hours and carve on wood I'm cool with it [Music] I have got some features carved into this long-haired sunfish and the last of the fins that I have to do or these that's gonna be those two fins on each side the bottom ones right here so these are going to be made out of poplar - I'm gonna cut these out on the bandsaw make a slot and the bait for where they go and glue them in these will be kind of like a fragile piece sticking off the sides but since this is a replica bait a sinking that's kind of okay it's appropriate I'm just trying I'm going for realistic so I don't really need to design durability into it you know [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] I'm just trying to get a taper on this fan to where it's thicker up here where it inserts into the bait then it tapers down to the end right there is where I'm gonna be putting a slot to fit one of these fins in like that I think what I'm gonna do first is go in with a burr bit on my Dremel and can kind of gouge out as much as I can and then just square off the edges with my knife I think that's the best way to do that that looks really good I don't mean to toot my own horn but that looks pretty good [Music] so I've drawn and erased and drawn again these lines like five times but I think I got something I'm happy with I'm going for realism in these scales of course and I thought by just doing it by hand I'd be able to get kind of realistic shape smaller scales up here and back here and bigger in the middle and I don't know I wasn't really feeling comfortable with that so I've got I've decided to use a straight edge and I can still make the scale smaller and larger based on how thick I make these lines and then when they're all hashed out I can go back and carve out each individual scale and give it curve on the backside and make it look realistic but yeah this is like a multiple step process too and I'm trying to be consistent so these look good it's also important to get the angle right there's this angle and then there's the you're just making a whole bunch of X's and the angle of each X is really important because you even want to the scales too to curve with the body so it looks realistic what you're going for is a curve that follows the top profile of the bait that only took like half an hour which is a which is good that's not very much time considering the other stuff I was doing and how long it took okay there's got to be a way to measure this it's like a 50 degree angle yeah that's like 50 degrees so I got to go 50 degrees back this way and kind of stick around that angle it'll change slightly as I go down the bait because I want the scales to curve but I'm gonna start with 50 degrees over here and this is some serious eyeballing this is not perfect but I think you know some good eyeball and we'll have to do okay this is gonna look good I'm gonna draw the rest of this and get back to you guys later yeah I got a lot to do so it goes from small to big to small again on the back it looks pretty natural I think once I get these carved out I'm gonna be pretty happy with that I'm gonna kind of stay away from the belly on the real ones there's not much going on it's really smooth on these fishes bellies so once I get the paint on that won't look so dramatic from nothing there two scales these scales aren't going to be very deeply carved either it seems that on long eared sunfish they definitely don't have a very distinct scale pattern the colors on these fish way over over the colors just pop way more than the scales do is what I'm trying to say now I'm going in with some ink and drawing the curvature of the scale on the backside when I get to cutting these I think what I'm going to do is just come in and cut this incline but I'm not going to be worried about making it meet with the scale in front of it I'm just gonna cut this and then cut off the other side and that way I'm thinking that's gonna give these scales a much more subtle look I'm kind of concerned about that with this bait I don't want these scales to be too like bold you know I wanted to be subtle so I did something I kind of regret something kind of stupid I got the wood burner out the wood-burning engraving tool and I've had this for like three years a long time I've never gotten good with it I don't like it but for some reason I got it out and I started using it on this bait and I regret that now it's I'd say it just never looks good I was thinking like you know you got a practice with something to get good with it so I was being like persistent and okay if you want to get good with something you might as well do it on something you're like needing it to be good on it was my thought process but that was dumb because I kind of made it look bad right here but really it's not too bad I can go back with the knife and fix up all of the ugliness right there right here on these fish - it's the scales get really small and never really looks super clean right here on the real fish either so I'll be able to make this look okay I think yeah I don't promote the use of wood burning tools wood burning engraving tools I don't know what you can call them maybe some of you out there are really good with them that I'm not yeah one scale at a time with a sharp knife and just being patient I think is the only way to go if you want good looking scales so hopefully these look good so I can seem like I know what I'm talking about it is done well the scales are done that took a long time for days yeah I've been working off and on on these scales for four days and they're done now I can move on so a couple more things about this bait I cut this fin off as you can see that's the cutoff piece and I was thinking that it's too thick because I'm going to want both of these fins and this one to be made out of a flexible rubber and be the same material in color on the bottom of this bait I think it's gonna look best that way so I needed to cut it off anyway and I made it thinner this is the new one I have a little bit of cleaning up to do on it but yeah in the time it took to get all these scales carved I figured out exactly what I want to do for this bait because I had quite a bit of time to think about it and I'm gonna put door hens joints on this bait like the integrated resin hinge joints in it they're gonna be made out of resin I'm gonna mold these there's gonna be another joint this is gonna be a 3-piece what else I think that's it for now it might be forgetting something about it I'll just say it later yeah that worked out good there's just a little bit of material left up there that I broke but it meets up nicely worked out good [Music] so that is the size of this and this is gonna get inserted into there when I'm done boring it out and that's what's going to hold the bait together once I put a pin through all that for this and I'm going to put the same kind of pieces like this but two of them on this side and that'll be the hinge for this joint [Music] it is pretty important to make sure that these are straight because these faces the faces of these cylinders are what's going to make sure your joint straight to I sanded that edge down just a little bit to get a better fit because this fends on the way back here that'll be good so I drew out a line on the that joints hinges right there and it's the same shape as this side of the tail piece and it's what's going to match up right there so I'm carving everything down to that line and kind of trying to make it gradual and the same shape as the body this is a pretty important step if it doesn't look like it belongs like if there's just a big bump here on both the hinges it's pretty ugly you know and it is kind of difficult to get between this fin and this joint piece right here because it needs to taper down I can't really see what I'm doing I'll manage don't worry about me guys I'll get this done [Music] so I'm doing finishing touches micro file and sanding stuff to get the carvings on this bait up to snuff and then I'm gonna see all the would spit yeah it's all good to go that back joint looks good front joint looks great got a draw up the pilot holes where the hardware is gonna be smooth everything out and ready to seal it's been like two and a half weeks to get to this point this video is gonna be late very late that's okay though keep chugging along so before I seal the wood I thought I should get a shot of it all put together when it's just made out of wood and it looks good these are the removable fins the two bottom ones that's the how far it'll bend to the sides yeah that looks good I like that so I'm expecting this first coat to get completely soaked up by the wood it's not gonna really add a layer of like thin plastic to the bait this polyurethane isn't it's just gonna stabilize the wood and then if I go any further with it I'm gonna spray it on and that's gonna add a thin layer of plastic and kind of hide imperfections and make everything look smoother so this doesn't need to be pretty right now yet [Music] okay we're gonna chill out in here for like ten minutes make sure that doesn't leak and I think we're good cut yep camera woman doesn't want to cut yet right there sleeking you were making emergency oh we got a big one over here there's another one three weeks we have to say for sure [Music] filmmaking I don't know usually that works good I thought you've never done this that's it well like usually using the clay as a like a gasket works not today a heck this is awful [Applause] [Applause] ah bad there's the front piece this is a tail piece duck got it this one's being difficult all right I've got these molds all set up I cut out the silicon where the where it needed to be cut out so I could pour the resin into the molds and now I'm gonna do that I'm adding microspheres to the resin that way it floats got to be quick this is a lot of resin and it'll set up fast in this container this is the quick-set resin from alumalite so that is going to be the only lead hole on this bait and it's a big one that's gonna hold a lot of lead but for the action I'm going for on this bait I want it to all of the weight to be up in the front and I don't want any mass in the back that would keep it from swimming like the whole an object at rest wants to stay at rest and an object in motion wants to stay in motion if I put more weight in the back it's gonna want to stay at rest so I know I want the head to not move so I'm putting all the weight in the head and then I want the other two segments to move so there's not going to be any weight in those two that will make this bait kind of sink nose-first but I don't intend to use it as a suspending slow action kind of bait it's gonna swim it's gonna be kind of hard to fit under there well it looks like I can do it I just can't fill it up too much I'll do so that's super glue or super glue that's baking soda I'm gonna cover that with some super thin super glue that who got you glue in my nose yeah that uh dries instantly and puts off some pretty harsh vapors and fumes and if it gets in your nostril it hurts but I did that so it'll dry instantly and I don't have to wait for epoxy to cure so I've I sanded that lead hole down I added the base hardware I've gotten this thing all ready for painting and I painted it a little bit already here's what it looks like I've got the white base on it with a little bit of blue and that'll be the base coat for this bait what I have to do now it's a pretty complicated paint scheme this long-eared sunfish and I've done this technique in the past where I use some masking fluid and all of the blue dots on this fish's body is where that masking fluids gonna go and then I can paint the rest of the colors around it and then take off the masking fluid and you're left with something really pretty if it all goes right but I plan on before applying that masking fluid I want to put a little bit of a clear coat over the paint to protect it so when I peel off the masking fluid no paint gets peeled off with it so I'm gonna go to the craft store get some stuff the stuff sold probably like five years old I haven't used it in forever so I need some new of that and some sort of like acrylic clear spray should do fast drying I want to get this done today I'm back price went up on masking fluid get this tiny little bottle for 16 bucks and I decided against getting some acrylic sealer or clear coat I got some more potent stuff comes in a smaller can but it's got acetate and xylene and all the good stuff that makes for a good clear coat and I think and it dries faster to 15 minutes to the touch or no dries in 15 minutes still tacky and 15 minutes you can handle it in an hour so I'm thinking I'll wait a couple hours after applying this and then I'll start masking I'm going to get to it so I'm at the point where I'm putting the masking fluid on the scales and I'm trying to do it with a little bit of strategy a little bit of a pattern on these fish they have lines it seems of the blue dots that go across them this way you can kind of pick that up you know when you look at it and kind of squint your eyes so I want to make sure I capture that or imitate that it's hard to tell if you're doing a good job with this masking fluid because you you apply it and it's that tan color and then like a minute later it goes clear so it's hard to see what you've already painted and everything or it's hard to see what you've already masked over but I think I'm getting it this is definitely a complex paint job and I got to make it look similar on the other side which is my biggest concern right now with not being able to see very well what I did I just kind of have to go off memory make it look good even if it's not exactly the same this is gonna look really good I think it's gonna look amazing taking off this masking fluids kind of taking just as long as it took to put it on but that makes sense if you be careful and you go one little splotch of the time it's a time-consuming process looks cool though this is looking great when I'm done peeling off all this masking fluid I think I'm gonna go back with some pearlized colors and kind of fill the belly back in and maybe use some scale material some mesh and give the imitation of some scales on the belly pearlized silver maybe on the gills and in the middle probably pearlized silver along the lateral line of this bait [Music] okay this is the home stretch right here it's got to finish painting the eyes glue them on clear coat yeah the home stretch involves a few steps but almost done this is the little lighter colored iris around the pupil that I'm painting on right now you can kind of see it there the eyes mostly gonna be red but it's gonna have that little white iris it's not actually white it's a pretty dark silver I think if I just did white that'd be way too bold I'd say this bait deserves a signature sometimes it's extremely awkward to put a signature on lure especially a lure like this with all the fins sticking off the bottom one of the idealistic and truths I've ever made but there it is anyway time to clear coat so I'm gonna do the clear coats for this bait and two applications the first one's gonna be the two rear pieces better light and then the second application is just going to be the front piece and that's the heaviest piece and I'm gonna counterbalance it on my rotisserie up here so there are gonna be parts of this bait that I'm not gonna want to get clear coat on like the slots for the fins and like deep into the joints it's just not gonna have clear coat because it doesn't need it the material that the baits made out of it's not gonna get filled with water like would would kind of a complicated application of brush on clear coat but we'll manage this is a 30 minute epoxy but it has a like a seven minute window where it's like able to be brushed on to the bait and it's not too thick really that's quite a bit of time I don't have to rush this right now comes a point where you just gotta stop fiddling with it and put it on the rotisserie and get on to the other piece because you can manipulate it with the torch and like thin the clear coat up with the torch even if it's set up a little bit on the rotisserie and move it around more afterwards but you don't want to wait too long to get to the other piece because then you can't even apply it onto the plate if the box is too thick so I'll get the big piece clear coated and get back to you guys this was quite the project right now I think I'm three weeks out from my last video so usually it takes me about a week to make the lure but this one took three but it's quite the lure it's worth it it's an awesome bait and since I have a mold of it I can make more though yeah tomorrow and put this thing together and fish with it Wow so I casted some rubber fins for it and those will be replaceable just got to put the hooks on and go see how it swims but my goodness look at that I don't think it's replica quality it's not quite as detailed as what a replica bait would be a replica mount would be but it's as detailed as I can get for sure the fins on this one came out a little messed up but that's okay they're replaceable I can mold some cleaner ones I'm just trying to get out there today and test this thing with some fins on it so I took them out a little early okay let's go test this oh it's heavy so how long your sunfish they worked pretty good it kind of it had a little bit too much of an erratic action for my liking but it had an action and if I make any more for the future I know exactly what I'm gonna do for it probably put more let in and I might make two LED holes but just more let in that bait will help it be more stable for sure I think what I'm gonna do with that bait is put it on display I'm not gonna fish with it it's too pretty it is pretty pretty it is really pretty just like you honey on to the next bait you gonna say it Chelsea go ahead Jesse give him one

Channel: Marling Baits

Views: 1,982,633

Rating: 4.852663 out of 5

Keywords: fish, make, sunfish, lure, world, record

Id: dDPSQABoyoM

Length: 48min 55sec (2935 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 29 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/MrMaxPowers247]

Dude makes awesome stuff but homie is going to die from never wearing a respiratory or gloves when handling toxic stuff 🤨