Opinions On Underwater Cameras (Aqua-Vu)

[dolomieu]

I’ve never used an underwater camera, but I've always thought they would be awesome at times. I’ve been thinking about picking up an Aqua-Vu Micro 5. Anyone here have any experience with this or any other models?

[Scott F]

I had one several years ago. I used to see clouds of "fish" on my depth finder, stopped, and would spend time trying to catch them with no luck. I bought an Aqua Vu to see what exactly I was seeing. Most of the time, what I found was that what looked like schools of bait was just suspended debris. I wound up spending a lot of time watching TV and not fishing. I also found that unless the camera was within a couple feet of the bottom, there was nothing on the screen. I lost patience wasting time monkeying around with the camera and loosing fishing time. My boat partners were not happy when I was looking at the monitor and not controlling the boat. It never did help me put fish in the boat so I sold it.

[dolomieu]

Thanks, Scott. At least it helped you to stop fishing for debris . I'm nearly always fishing solo in my kayak, so no partners to slow down.

 

I was thinking it could help gather some info during practice for a tournament, but I can also see your point about wasting time.

 

They must not be very useful for bass fishing, because I don't know a single person that has one.

[WIGuide]

They're an awesome idea, but the practicality of them is where most of the hangup is. You have to have really good visibility to see much of anything. My dad bought one second hand since someone was getting rid of it cheap, and he tried to use it in the tanic colored water. Even off the dock he was having a hard time seeing the wheels of the roll in and the camera was only a few inches at the time. He did manage to see one perch swim past it once but that was it. We never got the chance to take it to a clear lake to try it before he sold it. Even with the limited use we got out of it I thought it was somewhat sad that we could see further into the water than the camera could under water. I know there's some guys that use them up here for ice fishing though. There you don't need to see as far, but for what they cost, i'm still not sure they're worth it. 

[jcoholich]

With the aqua view you can get the camera with the video output on the side and if you run lowrance touches you can view in the camera and view it on your lowrance screen with the av power cable