Underwater Cameras

[Jerry Blake]

We've been "playing" with Darryl's Aquaview Scout here lately and it’s a very useful tool for understanding what you’re seeing on your graph and identifying what’s in the water beneath you.

Darryl has been operating the camera with it hanging down over the side of the boat so that it is in the outer fringes of the view of the transducer on my Matrix 12. If I move the boat backwards and towards the side the camera is on I can see the camera on my graph.

The camera shows as a solid line that goes up or down as he raises or lowers the camera. With my Fish ID on and with the Fish ID sensitivity adjusted properly the graph will show an occasional fish symbol and target depth over the sonar return from the camera but usually just while he lowers the camera. Apparently the Fish ID picks up on the movement of an object to help it determine if it is a fish.

While moving forward slowly objects that appear on my graph show up on the camera a few seconds later. With this set up I can control the boat so the camera moves towards objects I see on my graph and we can positively identify the objects with the camera.

We’ve learned or confirmed several things with this set-up.

1) Even with good sunlight and fairly clear water the camera has to be pretty close to an object to see it clearly. But by controlling the camera by raising it up and down and slowly moving the boat towards objects of interest on the graph we can get a very good composite image of what’s in the water. If the camera gets close enough to fish we can tell whether they are bass, walleye, bream or crappie, etc. and we can even tell whether crappie are white crappie or black crappie.

2) A honey hole we just recently started fishing that has been producing some very nice crappie for us is a big pile of big rocks with no brush or other cover on it.

3) The bamboo beds we put in three years ago are still in very good shape and appear to be providing excellent cover with a lot of the small limbs still attached to the main stalks.

4) Bamboo condos we just dropped a few days earlier already have crappie and bass on them.

5) Crappie like to back up into the fork of a tree limb and will go right back to their little nook after being disturbed by the camera.

6) Crappie don’t appear to be threatened by the camera unless it is moving right towards them. They are actually curious about the camera and will sometimes swim right up to the lens so close that their eye covers the whole monitor screen.

7) Crappie, bass, walleye and bream all hang out together.

8) The object we’ve been seeing next to and on the deep side of one of our very productive block type bamboo condos is a big tree. We’ve caught a lot of crappie not only from that bamboo condo but also from around the tree and from between the tree and the bamboo.

9) What a stump looks like on my graph.

10) One of the honey holes where we catch above average size crappie is a sunken houseboat.

11) Even though we’re catching crappie in the upper portion of a condo there are crappie hanging out a lot deeper in the condo that don’t seem to be interested in biting.

12) The camera is effective in low light conditions due to its infrared LED light.

13) When we see a ton of fish on the graph on some condos but only catch one or two crappie a lot of the fish we’re seeing are big shad.

Darryl can probably add a few more observations.

[GRIZZ]

Wow that great info. I seriously want one of those. I just got a dvd from In Fisherman thats an ad for those and it was fascinating. Have you tried it pointing straight down. If you have one of the fish cameras I think it has a clip you can hook the cable to in the tail so you can point the cam down instead of sideways. I wonder if you could look right down the cone of your fish finder. Those scouts aren't really that expensive unless you get the new quad cam one.

[Cane Pole]

Hey Jerry

Plug the camera into your laptop and record some stuff. Is the camera color or b/w?

[Jerry Blake]

Hey GRIZZ:

We've not tried pointing the camera straight down. We're talking about putting a peice of stiff wire on the camera that will hold a hook a foot or so in front of the lens and then baiting the hook to see if we could watch a fish come up and take the minnow.

Of course we would then be fighting the fish with the camera cable, which wouldn't be too good if it was a big catfish or striper. If we can come up with some way of attaching a minnow to the wire without a hook so the fish doesn't get hooked that would probably be better. Or we could put a downrigger type release on the wire and have the hook attached to a line on a separate rod and reel.

Hey Tom:

The monitor is B/W so I suspect the camera is too. We may need you over here to figure out how to hook it too a laptop though - probably need your laptop too.

[anchorpuller]

Now THAT is just plain cool!

Great observations. Gives me a lot of curiosity.
If you and Tom can come up with a setup to record it via laptop, I'd absolutely LOVE to see it!

[Darryl Morris]

Yes, you can point the camera straight down, but the viewing distance is still the same (usually not more than 3-4 ft.). When horizontal and if the brushpile shows to be stacked with fish on the Matrix, the camera proves it.

The bottomline Scout model I have only has Video In and Video Out A/V jacks. In order for me to use that and record, I would have to switch the Aquavu into video mode and use a TV as a monitor and VCR or DVD recorder hooked to the TV on the boat (which are of course all 110v.). Maybe there'sa simplier way, but yes getting some video of it would be fun.

Jerry wants to attach an 8-10" piece of ortho wire with a hook and minnow onto the camera (which looks like a fish itself) and watch another fish come and take it away from it. The only problem is getting the camera with it's rig down into the brushy strikezone with tearing it up.

(14) The camera is a fun toy and has served as a useful tool to confirm alot of things. Here's fact number one -- you can't run the camera and catch fish at the same time, LOL. If you want your thump, put the camera away and fish.

(15) Bass are curious but keep their distance. Crappie are curious and will confront the camera head-on.

(16) It's a great tool to build your confidence in reading your sonar unit (which is what we all should know and trust to find fish). You see a return on the sonar that looks a certian way and then a few seconds later you see it on the camera. You actually get to see what each thing's (brushpile, bamboo condo, stump, rockpile, fish, etc.) sonar return looks like and know for sure what it is.

(17) A very sharp drop off with a pile of rocks on it and at the bottom looks like a brushpile on the graph because of the way the sonar returns to the graph. Either way, it held and produced fish.

(18) It was great teasing Jerry and Jim about the fish they just caught by saying, "Hey, I recognize that fish, I just saw him." They weren't amused, LOL.

[Cane Pole]

I gonna record some stuff next year. It is pretty easy to do. What I have observed is that a color camera is good in clear conditions, but a b/w is better in stained and deeper water. Hard to do by myself. When folks come to see me, they wanna fish, not play with me toys. ha....You know one of 'em. Yep. That big ol' guy...

My observations have been similar. Even clear water I can onls asee about 4 feet...I can ID the fish. They do swim up to the camera. All of them. Bass, bream, crappie. And they all hang out together. We could learn something from fishes.

[gooch]

Jerry/Darryl my day at work was not near as fun.

Neat post guys. Keep up the good work.

[grubby]

Jerry/Darryl my day at work was not near as fun.

Neat post guys. Keep up the good work.

Gooch why do these two guys get to have all the fun. I think they are cheatin with that little gizzmo. but if you look like Darryl you need every advantage you can get to sneak up on them lol! no offense cuz.

[bama647]

thats great i was wondering how often do you see one crappie hanging out by himself?