A different view with underwater cameras...

By: Chuck Anderson

Several years ago I was sucked into a heated debate at a local watering hole by my home. As my buddies and I were enjoying a few late afternoon pops at are favorite bar we were approached by a patron who over heard our conversation. “Using cameras for fishing is cheating”. I bet some of you Aqua-Vu lovers have heard this before! My immediate response was No! I briefly confronted the gentleman with this scenario. “Well if using cameras for fishing is cheating then so is sight fishing for bass on beds from the bow of your boat as you dangle a worm in their face”. Then the conversation soon resulted in a long pause and a distraught look on the man’s face. “Your right he said, I see your point, I think”! That was exactly the response that I get when ever approached with this topic.

Lets dig a little bit deeper into this topic, I guarantee that after you read this article you may have learned more about your underwater camera than you thought you knew.

Underwater cameras have been a great technological advance in the past few years for fisherman. They have been brought down reasonably in price to the point where almost everyone can afford one. There may be some models more expensive than others but they all have something in common, a view finder and a camera.

Last summer I was trolling around a small lake by my house which I have fished for years. I swear with all my maps and my electronics I had every spot marked. Boy was I wrong! After coming upon one of my favorite spots I was ready to catch some walleye off this rock pile that always produced and also always ate my jigs. After dropping my camera down one morning to check things out I was surprised to see that theses weren’t rocks it was a huge sunken crib with snags all along it.

If I had known this sooner, there would be a lot more lead in my tackle box. Being astounded by my find I packed up and headed to my next spot and again, I was shocked by what I had found. What I thought was a deep weed edge extending out from three feet of water to twelve feet or so it was actually a riprap finger extending out at least 50 yards. Even thought it had small weeds covering it most of the way it was mainly jagged rock.

I now found out that this camera was more than a camera it was a fishing tool as important as my depth finder.

Now that I have a new tool in my arsenal I was ready to put it to work. The first thing that I did was search and search. If the fish aren’t there then neither am I. After finding a nice pod of perch on a mud flat I dropped a line in front of my camera just like under the ice and proceeded to jig. I used the same techniques that I had used in the winter to get strikes and BAM! Fish on!

I have been able to refine several techniques along with my camera to fully educate myself on what makes these fish strike. Without this I would be casting for hours. Now I’m jigging for a few minutes. Remember just because you can see the fish you still have to catch them. The camera doesn’t have a rod attached. You still are in control of that.

One of my favorite techniques is trolling with my camera. Yes Trolling! I attached my camera to my downrigger by the tail so it points away from the boat and proceed to adjust the angle until I can see my lure behind free spinning in the water. After I started doing this I was able to see missed strikes and follows by fish which is almost impossible to see on any depth finder. I was quickly able to learn from the fish’s reactions what I needed to do to adjust my presentation to get more strikes. There is nothing like seeing a big northern appear out of nowhere and strike a spoon. I promise you it will make your heart skip a beat.

Please follow your local game laws when trolling to make sure you abide by local regulations.

For those of you that decide to still fish I use another simple technique that is just as exciting. I simply take a salmon trolling line release and attach it to the top of my camera. From that point I attach a floating jig attached to a rod dangling in front with a lively minnow. Hang on! Because when that fish bites, your going to see it and have to react immediately to set the hook.

Well I hope I have inspired you to use your camera for more than “viewing”. Get out there and try some of these tips and I bet your “view” on using them will change.