Be selfish with Dr Snapper

Drsnapper will be participating in the ultimate citizen science festival at the Belgian coast: zeekerweten.be

A festival to celebrate biodiversity observation and conservation and to cheerish your very own enthusiasm for discovery.

Everyone is welcome on May 8 here in Oostende to try out and experience first hand the new thrill of camera angling. #catchinpeace #aquatictrophyshot

Al eens met een hengel een foto genomen van een vis? Met Dr Snapper’s onderwatercamera aan de haak maak je verrassende onderwaterbeelden. En dit zonder de vissen te storen of pijn te doen. (Voel je als een vis in het water zonder nat te worden!)

• Inschrijven is niet nodig

• Doorlopend

• Vooraf: installeer de apps Spydro (Android // iOS) en GoFish Cam (Android // iOS)

• Wie wil kan een stevige hengel (worpgewicht van 80-100 g) meenemen

Bammm!!!.....with a bait bonbon

These underwater trophy shots were taken from yellowtail scad and a leatherjacket in Port Philip Bay using the wee ol bait bomb approach. Stuff a mesh sock with chicken and other meaty bits and let the odour plume do the rest - no need for mimicry to mimic shape and behaviour of bait fish. Been experimenting with other odoured lures lately. Have you got any recommendations for some smelly artificial baits that work a treat? Don’t be shy…

Irish delights - mackerel eyeing up the wolf

Kicking off a series of epic “drschnappiesodes” by some fanatic angling camera ambassadors. In this clip off the Irish coast on a beautiful calm sunset, a mackerel went for the lure, but got put off. Maybe the waterwolf spooked it? What do you reckon?

This summer.....

Celebrating the first awesome real spring day, and the ringing in of the wild swimming season, the cool refreshing water reminded me of my Swiss baptistery in the Aare river of Bern city at summer solstice last year. No scaled fish to be spotted - but loads of human wannabe’s there.

(ringing in tune with Loudon Wainwright III’s Swimming Song)

Von fern die Winde wehen

If you have not seen the sun for a while, are listening to David Gray a fair bit and daydream about your next summer holidays, the very least you can do to quench that thirst is to dust off your treasure box of polaroids and snorkel through some glistening memories. I reviewed some footage from a sizzling holiday in Corfu and found some snaps of flathead grey mullet (Mugil cephalus) shot with a waterwolf (and run a spirulina filter over it).

The way to get to know you.....is to dive.....

Reminiscing now over a cuppa about a very special summer holiday when we dipped into the Australasian winter down under last July/August. Mind you, the day out on the Great Barrier Reef must have been freezin for a Cairnite, but with 23degC it was a balmy affair for us. We descended on a pretty windy day and boarded a Reef Magic tour. It was a memorable day out at sea. Here are some impressions. The fish you see are Moorish Idol (Zanclus cornutus) and a trevally (Caranx spp.) which I “drsnappered” with my spydro (for some of the other shots by courtesy of Reef Magic tours - it was not that sunny after all ;)).

Sharing an enthusiasm for discovery

This is what drsnapper is about: developing and sharing an enthusiasm for discovery. Coupling two elements for a new purpose: a fishing rod and a baited underwater camera - for hook-less trophy shots. Casting a camera to wherever you expect some underwater life, taps into a desire to "catch" the unknown. And just what it does to an angler to reel in a fish, capturing an underwater trophy shot gives you a bit of a thrill, especially when you can review your “catch” instantly on a mobile device. 

Here are some of my trophy shots from the last couple of years:

Busted in the Bay

In my last week in down under, I booked myself on a tour with Bay Fish N Trips for a day of (vegan) fishing out in Port Phillip Bay. I watered the waterwolf with a handline, and even though I was not able to instantly review images (despite some curious requests from fellow anglers), I was surprised by the activity around the bait ball (stuffed with pilchard and chicken chops). Check out the video (first trial edit with Adobe), a compilation of a couple of trophy-shots of yellowtail scad (Atule mate). Thanks a lot to Bay Fish N Trips for a fun day on the water and all keen fishers.

Music by The Shambles - Corn on the floor

Buried bull ray slammer

The Mornington/Schnapper point pier is home to a resident bull ray (Aetomylaeus bovinus) which I was hoping to catch on a waterwolf camera. The nice thing about the Schnapper Point pier, you do not have to travel far when chasing those hook-less trophy shots. The next clip is going to be about a vegan fishing session on-board a fishing charter vessel though. Coming soon.

Pierspotting a potbellied seahorse

At the pier in Mornington, Victoria, I approached a couple of people who were staring down a harbor wall. They had spotted a potbelly or bigbelly seahorse (Hippocampus abdominalis), which clung itself around some seaweed. This is the largest seahorse species in Australia. They can grow up to an impressive 35 cm. By dangling a waterwolf camera in some proximity of it with a handline and placing the camera on some pebbles I managed to get a nice shot of it.

Shake it, fishy....

This is going to be my Easter holiday hack: to integrate an accelerometer chip (e.g. Wake on Shake board from SparkFun Electronics) inside the housing of an action cam, to trigger a video when the camera is being accelerated or in other words, ideally as soon as a fish pulls on the hook-less bait, the camera starts recording for a fixed period. CamDo Solutions published a really cool trigger option for a GoPro.....I reckon the same must be possible for an angling type underwater camera. The camera would need a wireless function to transfer files instantly. The tricky part fill be to fit everything into the casing and configure the wake and shake to the desired acceleration speed.

Tea time

In this post, I used a WaterWolf UW 1.1 camera to record an edible crab (Cancer pagurus) while it was munching on some whole squid tentacles for tea. The WaterWolf was, as far as I know, the first underwater camera on the market designed for angling. I will give it a crack one day, in one of the next posts, providing I find some reasonably clear water and not just that brown-green soup, we all know too well.