Drones for Fishing
Purpose of drones in fishing
Fishing has been around for more than 50,000 years. There have been numerous methods and techniques developed for drone fishing throughout history. They mostly varied based on the types of fish we were looking for and region where the technique was developed.
Whatever technique one might follow, spotting the fish in water is the very first step before we start dropping our nets or casting our baits. Drone fishing brings a modern twist to this. Even though we have been using satellite imagery and sonar technology to spot large schools of fish in the ocean for a long time now, the equipment required is expensive and needs some training to use them.
Now with drones being available on the consumer market, more and more fishing enthusiasts and even professional fishermen are turning to drones for spotting fish because by fishing in a place where there are less fish in the sea, they will be simply wasting their time and resources. Drones not only help with spotting the fish they can also drop baits. We can cast a bait way into the deep waters from the shoreline even without a boat now dji phantom.
How to turn an ordinary drone into a fishing drone
Most of the drones out there can be used for fishing by simply attaching a fishing line to the drone but if the fish is of any modest size, it can drag the drone into the water. So, hooking up an automatic release mechanism to the drone is better for practical fishing scenarios. A downrigger is used for this purpose, to release the fishing line at the exact location and when we need, to avoid risking any damage to the drone.
Some top drone fishing brands like Phantom provide air-drop release accessories which can be mounted on the drone. There are also drones that come with this mechanism out of the box without any need to add extra payload to the drone which reduces any extra complications that may arise if the payload is not positioned properly, making it harder to control the drone.
Tips and tricks to give you a smooth drone fishing experience
Downrigger is the simplest and cheapest option, however while hooking it up to the drone, make sure that it sits exactly below the center of gravity of the drone to make it easier to maneuver and not to affect its stability. You can do this by tying strings to the landing gear on the drone in X shape and hooking up the downrigger at the center of the strings.
Keep the wheel on the bass fishing rod unlocked to make sure the drone can pull the line without any resistance. If not, the resistance from the wheel keeps tugging on the drone making it harder to control. Lock the wheel once you drop the bait, just in case if the winds on the water are too strong for the drone to keep itself stable, it will pull the fishing line or the line loses tension signalling us that the drone has been moving a lot.
There are many factors to consider while buying a drone for fishing, like;
- Range, obviously the area over which we could fish increases with how far the drone could reach from the controller.
- Battery, longer the drone can stay in the air better are the chances of catching a fish or you can simply dropping more baits.
- Stability, wind can reach pretty high speeds at the ocean, so, the ability of the drone to hold its position is important to drop the baits at the required location.
- Camera, a wide field of view allows us to look for fish in a larger area without actually flying the drone around too much, helping us spot fish faster.
- Waterproofing, when the drone is over the water dropping the bait, there is definitely some water splashing, it doesn’t hurt to have good water resistance and it is better if it is waterproof because even though most of the modern drones have a return to home functionality, that returns the drone to its base station if the battery gets low sometimes they don’t make all the way through because of the winds or they might be just too far away to make it all the way back, so if the drone is waterproof we don’t have to risk losing the drone completely.