Float Tube Fishing in Ireland
Having a really great time fishing from the world's best floating fishing
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Tricking Out Your Tube : A Camera Mount Boom
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So as a inspiration material to get you all out and snapping photos here are the first video and stills from my new tube cam. The video and photos are from a fishing session on Lough Owel, Ireland on a very calm evening, and also the following session on Lough Ennell. The boom is 4mm carbon fibre rod, for model making, or kites, reset from straight into a bolt of lightning shape. The propane flame, tie bend with soft carbon roving twine, and harden joint with thin viscosity cyano superglue to reset to full hardness ( ask me about making a composite rod rest if it's interesting ) did the job. A piece of ply is epoxied to the end, some fibreglass cloth added for strength, and one of those camera adjustable knurled screws inserted. The low camera location makes for striking shots, but it wouldn't be such a bright choice on a rough way where the pitch and roll of my tube might dunk my non-waterproof canon. So I'll roll up another boom along the same lines, but with an adjustable angle mount, so all conditions can be catered for. Note the dual use of rod tray as lunch tray! So here are some photos to give an idea how it works.
Video Link Below: Click, click .....  A video clip test session and the first movie from my tube-cam, camera currently in side position looking at occupant of tube. Notice in the video clip how the rod rest - camera boom assembly doubles as a handy lunch tray!  The set up with two fly rods and a spinning or jigging rod, ready for the camera boom to be slotted in. |
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I came to the decision that for my type of angling, the tube rod rest add-ons are non-essential but nice. They add packing volume, and complexity to the essential angling package that also comes along. Once set up they add a certain deluxe aspect to the day, rather like a fancy sonar, downrigger, or ice cooler or whatever. But I learned a long time ago that too many gadgets add to the time getting up and out fishing, and distract and reduce the concentration on the main job. Fishing really hard needs you to be well equipped, but if you allow yourself to become "over equipped" your efficiencies start to slip away. So I am inclined to file the tube rod rest tube-cam-boom under the category of "nice but nonessential items to have" if you are tooling up. In other words - good things for where the car gets me to the waterside, but not where the lake is over 600 metres from the road. So after making it, and trying it, and carrying it, and liking what it does - the next version (I just can't stop!) will be a minimalist version, the answer to the question "how small and light and compact can the combined rod-rest-camera-boom be and still do the key functions of what the first big one did?" The premise of a float tube is all the deadly qualities of a boat with less cost, bulk, hassle, weight, and better portability. So this add-on will now have to be trimmed right down to it's core features to fit in my permanent fishing system, I'm thinking "fold-up, telescopic, and ultra light". Not this one was heavy, the carbon fibre rod rest weighed 2 oz, before rod holders! |
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| Credit where it is deserved - ATFISHING's Tube Cam Mount: The original inspiration for this came from "ATFISHING". He made the first one I came across from PVC tubing, and fitted his ODC420 out as shown below: | |||||||||||||
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| ATFISHING posted these photos in the bigfishtackle forum and in so doing, he took the art of pimping our float tubes up another notch. Float tube anglers everywhere benefit from such networking between float tubers across the world. | |||||||||||||
How
do you take good photos if your pals are 1/2 mile away?
Or maybe you
are out fishing with nobody else within miles.
There are various ways of
packing a camera onboard your float tube so you can get those
memories of good fishing days.
