Underwater cameras

[senkonate]

I'm curious if anyone has had any experience with inexpensive underwater cameras like these:

http://youseeitnow.com/5_inch_fishcams.htm

If anyone knows anything about more expensive ones that would be great too!

Thanks,

Senkonate
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[Kent]

I own an AquaVu and it can be fun -- especially for ice fishing. But, I only take it out fishing maybe 5% of the time that I go.
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[senkonate]

Thanks for responding.

Do you think they would be impractical for open water fishing? Too much hassle?

Senkonate
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[walleyebob]

You won't ever see anything. Out in the open.
It's like this, you know there are birds in the sky right?

What are the chances that you can hold the camera up in the air, and a bird is going to fly by within three or four feet of the camera while you are looking in the monitor?

You can drop it into a school af fish and see them. I've done that with big schools of Perch. But fish are way hard to spot if they aren't relating to structure.

walleyebob
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[icefool]

We also have an Aquaview. we use it only for ice fishing and it is alot of fun. Sometimes I get so interested in watching the fish I forget to set the hook.We position it so you can see both lures and then we just watch the screen.If we don't see anything at first we move and drop it down the hole until we find fish.There is one draw back it doesn't work after dark.
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[Kent]

There are a few previous threads on this subject. Here is one of them.

[url "http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=80590;search_string=AquaVu;#80590"]http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=80590;search_string=AquaVu;#80590[/url]
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[senkonate]

Thanks guys for the help and links. They were very helpful.

Senkonate
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[addicted2fishin]

My dad has some other brand (don't know what one). I had it on the boat and was fishing at night (vertical jigging) and could see the fish. Worked about like you use it ice fishing. Kind of fun, but, as said before, would be hard to use much on open water from a boat unless you are still fishing from the boat.
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[Kent]

I purhased the rigging that allows me to attach my AquaVu to my downrigger. I tried it once at Deer Creek, but found it was a major task to lower the downrigger and attach the clips every few feet to the cable (and do this in reverse while raising the downrigger). Also, it takes a little effort to get everything lined up just right so the lure is in the camera view. I found that day at Deer Creek that the fish wouldn't hit a lure attached that close to the downrigger (the lure must be close because you can only see a few feet through the water from the camera). Now that I have discovered, at least at Strawberry, that I can catch fish off of a 20" leader tied to my fishing line, which is attached to my downrigger, I think that I will give it another try. It has got to be fun to watch a fish take a lure or minnow that is being trolled.
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