Celebrate the good times

To celebrate and promote drsnapper’s second anniversary, I had some trucker caps printed. Drop us a message to go into the draw to get one! Some birthday stats…..so far, drsnapper has been visited by almost 915 unique clickers, from 36 countries. The top ten are: Belgium (my local), China, Germany, United States, Canada, The Netherlands, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Denmark. Keep it up - I would appreciate if you would let me know what you think of the concept, or whether you have ever tried it yourself:

Capturing hook-less trophy shots???

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:

Hide and seek

Another beautiful coastal spot along the Mid-North Coast of NSW. Opted to drop a cam off an old pier and am now surprised to see all those surf beam or yellowtail bream (Acanthopagrus australis) appear while reviewing the footage, hiding in a deeper hole in the river’s channel. For a moment, they showed some interest in the small whitefish hook-less lure I used. There are still many more clippies to be reviewed from my trip to Ozzie land. So watch this space. I am looking forward to the shorter days, it means ding dong creative o’clock in the evenings. Well, let’s pretend that uploading a wobbly and blurry video is a creative moment.

Holding hands....feeding....ducking fish....

A former diving legend turned a daily habit of feeding fish in Darwin into a tourist attraction which lured me and a Spydro cam in as well (the fishing line nor hook-less bait I was allowed to deploy, because it would have resembled too much of a fishing operation which is prohibited in that bay). Depending on the size of the tide (which can be huge - up to 8 m), prevailing winds, and season, fish diversity and abundances change. On that day, milkfish (Chanos chanos), squaretail mullet (Ellochelon vaigiensis), Mangrove red snapper (Lutjanus argentimaculatus), yellowfin bream (Acanthopagrus australis), shovelnose, sting and leopard rays were spotted, among other species.

Trophy shots on ice

This is surreal crystal clear and crispy cold water in the Austrian Alps in some glacial lakes. Not much action re: macro animal life wise, but insane colours.

Urban hook-less fishing

I should check the market whether any of the fishing camera manufacturers have actually come up with an anti-gobble condom to prevent pike from swallowing these delicately shaped devices such as the waterwolf or spydro cams. I could have used such a thing in this case. An eager one went for the spydro. Gobble gobble, urban hook-less fishing in the Netherlands - no frills, but still some thrills.

Pier review

As drsnapper’s mission is to promote the concept of hook-less fishing using an underwater camera (and also trialling the custom-made camera trap), I’ll try my best to populate this blog with exactly that. Underwater footage of fishies nibbling away at some hook-less bait contraption. Here you go - an example from the West Pier at Dunlaoghaire harbour, Dublin, Ireland. Species: White pollack (Pollachius pollachius), filmed with a spydro cam.

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.

Lobster tug-of-war

During my visit of the National Marine Science Centre in Coffs Harbour I was shown around the tank farm equipped with a flow-through system. The larger tanks were currently housing some Eastern rock lobster (Sagmariasus verreauxi), yellowfin bream (Acanthopagrus australis), and some well-sized Mangrove jack or red snapper (Lutjanus argentimaculatus, as pictured). I asked for permission to record with a waterwolf camera how the Eastern rock lobster behaved towards the mesh bait bag that I normally use for the drsnapper underwater camera trap. These pretty strong fellas played tug-of-war with it. They were fighting amongst each other over who will have a go at it first. And when one of them did and tried to seize and evade with its food, the rotation actions of the waterwolf camera make you dizzy. Clearly, the medical-grade mesh bait bag will only last for an attack or two until it is ripped to shreds.

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.

Shark bay

At a rocky headland along the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales, I baited and deployed the drsnapper underwater camera trap (which is pretty much a BRUV – Baited Remote Underwater Video station with a mechanical trigger function). A wobbegong shark (Orectolobus spp., a species of carpet shark) seemed to show some interest in the bait odour (chopped mackerel) or at least it stayed about for a little while. I picked a pretty choppy day for it with a southerly blowing, so the drsnapper PVC frame contraption equipped with an underwater action camera (modified as prototype camera III) got moved around a fair bit. Although the bite of a wobbegong shark can be pretty nasty, it felt more like a pudel dog was circling around my legs than a shark.

Inside an ancient fish trap

On the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, I went for a snorkel inside an ancient fish trap and spotted some yellowfin bream (Acanthopagrus australis) and Stripeys (Microcanthus australis), amongst other fish.

Irish soaktime revisited

The camera trial in Ireland (see post “Irish soaktime”, August 2018) finished before it started with prototype II soaking up some brine. It got pickled at depth on the first deployment. Something I had expected though, given the water pressure at the weak spot (where the trigger cables run through the epoxy coat of the housing) that it would leak some water. To compensate for the loss, I got given some footage to feature here. These are underwater images from a GoPro showing the escape of some fish through a 300 mm, squaremesh netting panel inside an otter trawl. A little bit unrelated to promoting drsnapper’s hook-less fishing concept, but at least some decent underwater footage of fish. The fate of at least one escapee was not very lucky being munched upon by a vessel-following harbour seal. Image courtesy: Martin Oliver, Galway, Ireland.

Vegan fishing in Mundaka

Took the spydro for a spin to stunning Mundaka. Was pretty busy during the day, so spontaneously watered the camera at night. Scanning the footage reminds me of these postcards at the cornershop - pitchblack picture with a title “Fishing - at night - Greetings from Blankenberge”. Similar thing here, just belief me the mullet actually ate the bread ball, they just shied away as soon as I turned the lights on. In any case, vegan fishing works - we (and the mullet) had a ball!

Corfu's delights

During a summer holiday, I visited Corfu - a lush Greek island in the Ionian Sea. The idea was to test two commercial underwater fishing camera's in direct comparison. Have not yet processed all the video, so watch this space.

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.

The making off - prototype 1

Check out this video below on how to hack a Rollei S-50 Wifi actioncam. We have soldered two wires to the shutter release and then drilled holes through the casing to connect a waterproof cable. The holes and connectors were sealed up with epoxy resin. The trigger was made of a piece of copper tin with two super magnets glued onto it, and which was framed on either side by two reed contacts embedded in epoxy resin. By pulling the piece of tin towards either reed switch, the camera fires. To the eye on top of the tin, a bait can be attached with fishing line. Hand made in Germany, thanks to my "Chief engineer" Dietmar :)