01-27-2017, 08:11 PM
I was talking to AFDan the other day about how to control and stabilize an underwater camera when ice fishing. Many times, I have dropped my underwater camera down an ice hole to hang there suspended 30 feet below. I would get it all set up to see my jig a foot off the bottom and would get great pleasure out of watching a fish toy with my lure and finally take it when I set the hook. That great camera view position was inevitably to be disrupted by a tail flip of a fish or other natural underwater currents. I would have to go back outside of my nice warm tent and reposition the cable and camera, yelling back and forth with my fishing buddy inside the tent telling me if I was getting close or not ... what a pain.
Then, one day, I was fishing with N.E.T.O. when he pulled out his camera with a coat hanger wrapped around it fashioned in such a way to be a "stand" for the camera to sit on the bottom in the mud. He dropped the camera down, positioned it on the bottom once, and we were set for the rest of the entire day. Wow, what a great idea.
So, when I got home, I got busy fabricating a "bird's foot" stand for my own camera. Here is what I came up with:
[inline 40-444.jpg]
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I made it out of some aluminum strap from Lowe's. I drilled lots of holes to allow for lots of different positions. You have to "balance" it just right ... not too far forward ... not too far back.
You don't want it to be too tall as it might want to fall over. And you don't want it tool low as you want it to see above the mud.
As it turns out, this one (my first one) turned out absolutely PERFECT!
Being able to set the camera on a stand, rather hanging from a cable, keeps the weight off the cable and it's electrical and data connection. That seems to me that that would extend the life of the camera. That's just an added benefit.
Of course, the BIG benefit is that the camera sits very stable ALL DAY LONG. (I'm one of those guys that just makes camp in one place on the ice and stay there all day. I don't move camp hardly every.)
One thing that I discovered was that, even though I designed the foot to be 1/2 inch smaller that what my auger drills, it was still a tight fit to get it through the hole.
Also, one other problem that I ran into was that never having to make any more cable adjustments throughout the day allowed the outside ice hole (that the camera cable was in) to freeze solid. I had to use a hammer to bust up the ice around the cable and it was still difficult to get the camera, with it's foot, back up through the hole that was just barely big enough to put it through in the first place.
But then I found a solution for that too. At Cabela's I found this black plastic ice-hole cover made specifically for camera cables. Because it is black, it absorbs the sun's heat and keeps the hole from freezing (if it is located on the south side of the tent).
[url "http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi4v5O8j-PRAhVowYMKHR_PCM4QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gosalmonfishing.com%2Fice-fishing-underwater-cameras-product.php&psig=AFQjCNETvqrKWVsvqKRiwx8_EFK6fFCrfQ&ust=1485633839083638"]![[Image: l233839.png]](http://i1.avlws.com/1501/l233839.png)
[/url]
Anyway, I just thought I'd share this with you guys who are wishing your cameras would hold still while ice fishing.
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Then, one day, I was fishing with N.E.T.O. when he pulled out his camera with a coat hanger wrapped around it fashioned in such a way to be a "stand" for the camera to sit on the bottom in the mud. He dropped the camera down, positioned it on the bottom once, and we were set for the rest of the entire day. Wow, what a great idea.
So, when I got home, I got busy fabricating a "bird's foot" stand for my own camera. Here is what I came up with:
[inline 40-444.jpg]
[inline 41-444.jpg]
[inline 42-444.jpg]
[inline 43-444.jpg]
[inline 44-444.jpg]
[inline 45-444.jpg]
I made it out of some aluminum strap from Lowe's. I drilled lots of holes to allow for lots of different positions. You have to "balance" it just right ... not too far forward ... not too far back.
You don't want it to be too tall as it might want to fall over. And you don't want it tool low as you want it to see above the mud.
As it turns out, this one (my first one) turned out absolutely PERFECT!
Being able to set the camera on a stand, rather hanging from a cable, keeps the weight off the cable and it's electrical and data connection. That seems to me that that would extend the life of the camera. That's just an added benefit.
Of course, the BIG benefit is that the camera sits very stable ALL DAY LONG. (I'm one of those guys that just makes camp in one place on the ice and stay there all day. I don't move camp hardly every.)
One thing that I discovered was that, even though I designed the foot to be 1/2 inch smaller that what my auger drills, it was still a tight fit to get it through the hole.
Also, one other problem that I ran into was that never having to make any more cable adjustments throughout the day allowed the outside ice hole (that the camera cable was in) to freeze solid. I had to use a hammer to bust up the ice around the cable and it was still difficult to get the camera, with it's foot, back up through the hole that was just barely big enough to put it through in the first place.
But then I found a solution for that too. At Cabela's I found this black plastic ice-hole cover made specifically for camera cables. Because it is black, it absorbs the sun's heat and keeps the hole from freezing (if it is located on the south side of the tent).
[url "http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi4v5O8j-PRAhVowYMKHR_PCM4QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gosalmonfishing.com%2Fice-fishing-underwater-cameras-product.php&psig=AFQjCNETvqrKWVsvqKRiwx8_EFK6fFCrfQ&ust=1485633839083638"]
[/url] Anyway, I just thought I'd share this with you guys who are wishing your cameras would hold still while ice fishing.
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