Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
In the fall of 2010, I purchased one of those “GoPro” video cameras that comes with the underwater housing and all the different attachments that allows the user to mount the little thing on everything from helmets to surfboards to their own head if they want to.
Shortly after my purchase, I had the opportunity to take the camera on some diving adventures in Guam and Palau and later on some hunting trips where I strapped it to the riser of my bow. Right from the start I was pretty impressed with the simplicity and ruggedness of the little camera, not to mention the quality of photos and videos it took under often times extreme conditions.
Now, with over a year and half use out of it, I’ve got to say that I’m no less impressed. That darn camera is just a fun thing to have because its construction and size allows it to be used in ways that would destroy a conventional camera. For instance; last summer I did something I’ve been wanting to do for about 20 years but never had the equipment to accomplish. While fishing offshore, I mounted a camera to the line of a fishing-kite and sent it up to video the boat from above. I could never do that before because video cameras were always too heavy, and if they happened to take a dip in the process, it would be the end of the camera. But the GoPro is so small and light that with about 10-knot breeze the kite stayed suspended with no problem.
I did the kite videos two ways and they both turned out great. First we sent the kite out really high and really far from the boat which resulted in a video that showed the boat as a little white dot on a VERY large ocean! Other times, we waited until we had a nice size fish hooked and sent the kite out about 15-yards from the boat to capture what was happening on deck. In both cases what was so impressive was just seeing the boat and crew from that very different perspective. We did our kite videos while either anchored or drifting, but I know it would work for anglers who are trolling or even fishing from the shore or a pier.
Another thing we did was mount the camera on a 5-foot pole so that it could be plunged into the water to film fish that are either swimming around the boat or that we hooked and brought in close on the line.
Since getting in the water to film is not usually a good option, the pole mounted camera has allowed us to film a lot of great underwater action from the safety, and dryness, of the boat. Obviously for this type of filming, the cameraman can only point the camera in the general direction of the subject and hope it’s in the frame, but the GoPro has such a super-wide angle lens that keeping on target is simply not an issue. In fact, the lens works so well at grabbing everything in front of it that the camera doesn’t even have (or need) a viewing lens.
While fishing, I always keep the pole ready because a lot of boat-side opportunities don’t last long and there’s seldom time to rig it up before the fish is gone. From the pole, we’ve taken some great videos of fish before they were released, and also of free-swimmers that came in close to investigate the boat. Using it as a boom, the pole allows us to film above the water at some unique angles, such as over the head of an angler as they’re fighting a fish or from just above the surface of the water looking back at the boat and fishermen. Overall, I guess we use the camera on a pole-mount more than any other way.
The GoPro is great for anyone who has a bit of an imagination and is good at creating things. Last year we wanted to film sharks at close range biting baits, so we mounted the camera on a float that would slide down a line and stop a couple feet from an unhooked bait. When the shark was close to the bait, all we had to do was turn the camera on, drop it in the water, and let it float back to the bait. We used the rig in Florida and got some great videos of bulls, lemons and blacktip sharks munching baits just inches away from the lens.
While the standard GoPro underwater housing produces some great videos both above and below the water, for the best quality underwater photos and videos folks should consider buying the special flat-lens dive housing that will produce an even higher quality image.
Originally, GoPros could only be purchased online but now they can also be found on the shelves of many retail stores. Starting at about a couple hundred dollars they’re definitely a great investment for sportsmen who are tired of the standard dead-fish-at-the-dock photos of their catch and want to have some real fun with a camera. By the way, some of our videos can be seen on our “modernsharking” YouTube channel.
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
