Has anybody used the Marcum Underwater Viewing Systems?
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Has anybody used the Marcum Underwater Viewing Systems?
nope, i would start out using a ff, then maybe
I have the VS-250. If I do use it, I'll use it to see what condition the weeds are but generally don't even turn it on. It's a cool toy, but not a real tool as far as I'm concerned.Quote:
Originally Posted by tberry
Underwater cameras can be very useful tools if used properly, mainly on bodies of water that freeze over in the winter. The rain, snow and wind don't muddy these waters up in the winter like they do down south here. Instead most of them go crystal clear and visibility is very good for underwater viewing.
Now for the useful tool part. If the fish aren't biting you can drill 3 holes in the ice, in one hole you drop your jig down, the other one will be for the camera. I f you get a bite in a couple of hours and aren't frozen to death, dump the tackle box down the third hole and watch on the camera screen to see which lure the fish go after on the fall!:p
Seriously though, there are some great ice fishing vids on youtube made with underwater cameras... check them out!
Im thinking about getting one this year. I checked out several that other guys were using on the lakes I fish, last winter. Seeing fish was cool, but seeing the structure was just as important to me.
I didn't have a Marcum Or AquaView but did have an underwater camera and must agree with Flounder, Cool but no Tool.
I have an old Aqua Vu and now a Marcum. I find that if I take out the camera, I might as well put away the fishing rods. The camera is a very useful too, but I don't use one while I'm fishing.
The few guys that I fish with that have them, use them in conjunction with a flasher. More often than not, they use the camera after the flasher has located fish and will not bite.
A "friend" broke his out last winter on some of the cover we helped to place, neither of us BOTHERED (at first) to put springs on our poles, watched small bluegill and crappies get into line, and in an orderly fashion and politely in turn peck at our offering, 1 chance per customer; wait it`s turn, swim up, inhale and lightning fast hurl it back out, eyeball it, then swim away, never to bite again. And the ice poles with 2 and 4 lb test didn`t bob, weave, dive, nudge, "lighten up" twtich, there wasn`t even any line tightening or sudden slack, must have WATCHED 6 or 7 in a row tap the bait and "PTEW!" with as far as could tell NADA sign it was ever touched. Once the springs rapidly went on, could at least see most of the hits, still so fast it was hard to get a solid set...thought cold water fish S L O W W E D down!
The cold slows down the anglers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lowellhturner
I don't use or own a camera and what little experience I have had watching them while fishing I find them more of an aggravation than a help. If I had the money it took to buy a camera, I'd invest it in springs and more useful tackle. The flasher does everything the camera does except allow you to actually see the miss. In my estimation even a very cheap spring gets you more for your money than a camera.
I don't know what you guys get out east or further south than us in Minnesota for snow on the ice, but when you are dragging a portable a half mile thru 10" of new, wet snow just to fish, weight gets trimmed real quick and the weight of a camera would be likely the first to be excluded by a smart angler.
CTom, if nothing else, we were able to see they A WERE biting and B we obviously weren`t light `nough yet. C that there weren`t any of any size, we went deeper and got `bout 20 keepers in 3-4 hours on the deeper edge of the cover. Have no personal preference `tween the Aqua view or a flasher, they both work; will say haven`t ever had a fish tangle the flasher!
Lowell,
I didn't mean to suggest that the cameras have no value. In using one you were able to extract a bunch of info that concerned the fish and that is what they are supposed to do....act as an aid. My point, and the same holds true for flashers to some degree, is that you are forced to either watch the tv screen or pay attention to your line or spring and in some cases your rod tip if it is sensitive enough. These panfish can suck in a bait and have it spit back out in a heartbeat. If you are watching that screen, the hand eye coordination is slower than that act. If you are watching the line, spring, or rod tip, you react to the intitial movement of the line....that when the jig is taken. Panfish are notorious for slipping right up to a bait and literally put their nose on it for a second prior to the hit...this is especially so if there is a bait of some sort on the jig. They are allowing the bait to be scented or tasted when they do this. Often times they will move the jig just enough to be seen at the rod, but not on the screen of the tv.
When I am fishing ice, I will set the stop on the Marcum cable in such a way that the arm can be fully extended keeping the unit about 8" away from the hole. It is far enough away from the hole that I can focus my attention on what is in the hole, be it line, or spring, or rod tip, yet still see a fish mark. I can adjust my depth in a flash and fish at that depth or there abouts until that fish marks real close to my jig, red-lining I call it. At that point my focus is 100% on the hole.
The one huge drawback that cameras cannot be cured of is that they will only show you what is in front of the camera. There is a whole lot of water to either side, behind, under and over that cameras range of focus that it won't allow you to see. A flasher now, with the ducer pulled just up inside the hole will tell you that there is something if it falls inside the cone angle between the bottom of the ice and the bottom of the water you are fishing.
I won't tell anyone who wants a camera not to get one or that they have no value on the ice. I won't hestitate to point out some of the faults either. Like every aspect of fishing, there are two schools of thought and neither one or the other is entirely right or wrong. And I'll be the first to admit that I am hard to tow away from my flasher, but how I use is generally a world apart from how the bulk of flasher users do.
Your observations are dead on, CTom. Kinda wondered why no one ever came out with a "fish eye" (pardon, no pun) lense for a unit. And will say this, the camera WAS useful as far as SEEING the speed they inhaled the ice jig and spit it out, as you mentioned; we even tried 1 watching, 1 actually fishing with the springs and STILL didn`t even hook 1 out of 5 that way; would have thought cold water, slowwer reflexes; NOT! Even tried just a bare #12 hook with mousie, as soon as they THOUGHT they felt any resistance PTOOWIE! And will agree, trying to fish watching the screen of either is simply like trying to bat in the major league with a bucket over your head unless the fish hooks itself, great IDEA, just don`t work in the reel world.
Some things to try when the fish are spitting. One is to be certain that the hook is as sharp as a darned pin. Another is to use the forceps to bend the hook's point upward or off to the side just a wee bit. When the fish spit a bait it tumbles in their mouth. If that hooks point is off center or out of line just a hair it can create an interference angle and they'll hook themselves more frequently. Just a thought.
water here in nw illinois is pretty dirty. so the visibility on most cameras isn't great. we have a fish tv that is ok and on a sunny day on early ice, you can see a few feet away but i use it only to check structure and stuff. in a day it might be used for 5 minutes tops. its small and portable so it works for what we use it for.
I just bought a marcum 380 and man is it heavy. The water here is murky and i had to get right up against anything to see it. It has a very good picture tho. Hopefully the lakes in my area will clear up some under the ice or the camera will spend the winter in the storage shed. Now my HB 45.... thats a different story.