Automated image detection

There are ample initiatives worldwide to train up computer models to identify species, measure size, detect beahviours, or injury from underwater images. With applications both in recreational as well as commercial fisheries. Recently, at the CatchID symposium in Norway some interesting works were featured. A global pioneer on this front is also a research team from Griffith University in Australia. Prof Connolly recently gave a presentation of his work to a global group of researcher interested in AI-based fisheries applications.

The 7th sense of pike - why they like cameras sometimes more than your bait?

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There are ample videos out there that show how predatory fish, especially pike, love the odd chomping on an underwater camera. How come? Why bother then about intricate designs and mimicry of natural swimming behaviours and shapes of the artificial lures, if they fall for the no frills outlines of the underwater camera casings? See below for some close up and inside views of their gill frames, some discussions about the power of vision and smell for a pike (some videos are in German). Bottom line is that pike are strong visual hunters - and one of the first things that comes into their field of view when spinning or trolling is the camera (when the fish sit in between). The blinking light of some cameras may actually not have a deterrent but attractant effect (obviously this is pure specualtion, because no one has tested this rigourously). Ideally, your bait choice, depending on the situation, can play in on visual cues, taste buds, and tactile senses. In this video a bait from icapio was used which combines stimuli for all of them. The cam was dressed with a fish-skin look alike snack attack sticker. It did work a treat and you can see the repeated interest of the pike in the camera on consecutive casts. Enjoy.

Cool youtube clips

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Last year I was very fortunate to collaborate with Underwater Ireland who very successfully tested the snack attack bait camera stickers. There are many other amazing videos on this channel, and learning first hand about some props and tricks of the trade was like a backstage visit to your favourite artist’s afterparty.

(c) Underwater Ireland

(c) Undewater Ireland

Sharing is caring: which are your top apps for underwater trophy shots?

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If you also enjoy a growing selection of underwater trophy shots, you can become a true blue heart and upload your touchstone pictures to your favourite biodiversity-logging app. I have listed a few that I am familiar with, such as iNaturalist, ObsIdentify, and Redmap. ReefLifeSurvey I still need to check out. What is your fav app? I know sometimes the real trophy hunters are scared to burn the location when they caught something special. But, the geo-tag is a critical piece of information to link a species’ occurrence to its habitat. Luckily, some apps do not ask for the exact spot and allow for defining a radius around it. That way the secret spot is still secret, but you can make your special observation count and contribute to a knowledge base needed to halt the dwindling number of species extinctions. No need to chain yourself to airport gates and still make your pic count.

  • With 7.2 users and 171 Mio (research-grade) observations it is a real game changer when it comes to turning opportunistic wildlife and flora snaps into valuable observation helping to protect what we love and defines our cosmos.

  • This app helps checking up on the health of coral reef ecosystems around the world. It is a programme that trains citizen scuba divers to survey coral reef biodiversity in the same way around the world so that data can be pooled and observations compared.

  • The Australian Range Extension Database & Mapping project (Redmap) invites divers, fishers and boaters to spot, log and map marine species that are on the move due to warming waters.

  • ObsIdentify is popular in Europe. Of course almost every country in Europe has their network of national naturalist organisations. observation.org is a bit of an umbrella. It was founded in 2004 in Netherlands. It has evolved from a local website into a global biodiversity data hub. Unlike the crowdsourcing species validation system by inaturalist, obsidentify counts on the knowledge and skills of 1,000 species experts to ensure data quality and accuracy of observations.

Drone fishing when casting the angling cam.....

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A school of garfish is waiting for a colourful bait bomb to drop…..This picture was taken at a shallow coastal reef in Northern Denmark. This particular beach features some submerged boulders that provide refuge for plenty of prey - attractive also for other trophy-sized predators such as seatrout. For garfish it is best to be there in the spring (in May, when the rapeseed is flowering). Late summer also works, then the fish are actually fatter. Important are calm conditions. If there is something that garfish do not like, then it is choppy water with poor visibility. They are visual hunters and need their eyes to seek out prey and forage upon it. Once they lay their eyes on the playful dance of a fast moving blinker, they are literally hooked and are not too bothered by the splash of an underwater angling camera hitting the surface or when a lens is pointing at them during retrieval. They go for anything that moves and provide for a great spectacle, regardless of whether they fished with or without hooks. Enjoy.

Catch in peace vs catch and release

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Caring for fish was the central theme of the catch welfare platform’s kick-off meeting in Bergen, Noway last week. While the majority of presentations were about how to improve treatments of fish in wild-capture commercial fisheries, the pros and cons and welfare challenges of recreational, catch and release were neatly summarized as well.

Not-so crystal voyager

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The season has not offered too much time on the water, but with the inauguration of a smokercraft jon boat I am itching closer to some trolling times for pike and other predators, if I manage to locate any clear-water spots in the lowlands of The Netherlands. If you know any good crystal-clear waters, drop me a comment or two. Cheers

Wrap your wolf in a fish skin

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Are you keen to increase your capture rate - both on video as well as on your bait? Then drnapper’s Snack Attack Fish Skin sticker could do the trick for you and help you capture some amazing underwater trophy shots. Watch it for your self: the stickers were tested by one of the leading underwater angling cam operators and enticed some big pike in Ireland, Germany and Belgium so far. Who is next? Be quick - promo sale is on now.

International working group met in Ancona, Italy

Earlier in June, (recreational) fisheries scientists from around the globe met in Ancona, Italy for an international working group to discuss the latest research findings when it comes to estimating catch and effort, catch and release impacts, and socio-economic benefits and impacts of recreational fisheries. There were interesting sub-groups that discussed how to best collate evidence about catch-and-release impacts, especially in data-poor situations to give the best fisheries management advice. Research results were presented from the Baltic Sea about post-release survival of hook-and-line caught flatfishes and Atlantic salmon; from planned trials in Portugal, and from a fledging big game swordfish fishery off the coast of Tasmania and South Australia.

Picture: Sean Tracey, University of Tasmania, Australia

Picture: Sean Tracey, University of Tasmania, Australia

Technological innovations in recreational fisheries

A very interesting review was published by one of the world’s most published fisheries research scientists, Dr Steve Cooke et al. 2021, about technological innovations in the recreational fishing sector. There is an entire section dedicated towards underwater angling cameras: ‘Underwater cameras are likely to appeal to the desire of anglers to both catch more fish and better understand their target species. Fish videos can be enjoyable for anglers and, when used effectively, may help to increase angler-fish interactions leading to issues for fisheries managers and the policies that they need to uphold (Cooke et al. 2021).’

Copyright: Cooke et al. 2021

Webshop opens

Dr Snapper has been busy behind the scenes setting up a fledging webshop. The first product to pimp your underwater angling cam experience is the Fish Skin sticker ‘Snack Attack‘. It comes in a few different yummy colours to tickly the fancies of your favourite predatory fish. Dr Snapper’s Fish Skin sticker ‘Snack Attack’ has been trialed with success on Northern pike - a ruthless mamba known to underwater angling cam enthusiasts to devour the camera on occasion rather than the (artifical) lure - so why not take advantage of that appetite. A few videos will be released soon to document such snack attacks. The webshop opens July 1st - tell your mates. Happy snapping.

Happy Snappy Year 2023

With this compilation of clips drsnapper is ready to kickstart an exciting New Year 2023 with a ton of ideas and developments in the pipeline. It shows the full spectrum of underwater trophy shots captured while angling with underwater cameras (e.g., spydro, waterwolf, or gofishcam) for pike, garfish, perch, pollack (all in Europe), and some stripeys in Australia. It also shows the challenges associated with the footage: murky water, wobbly images, turbulences, among other things. But still, heaps of fun to capture fish on video.