About me and this site

As a lad fishing was a passion but through my working life it became an occasional thing. Retirement gave me the opportunity to return.

In my younger days I was a member of an angling club and we fished mainly in rivers, predominantly the Thames. There were no well-stocked 'commercial' lakes. Coming back to fishing I was seduced by the local 'commercial'. Carp were mythical fish when I was a lad and it was amazing to be able to catch them relatively easily in the 'commercial'.

My best was 19lb and I was hooked. But after a while things became a bit monotonous. It was to a large extent all so predictable.

I've now returned to the rivers, when in season, and in particular am seeking out smaller rivers and streams. I also have a bit of a thing about chub. Fishing in these natural environments brings with it the mystery of not knowing what the next cast will bring. And for me that's what fishing is all about.

In September 2020 I started videoing my outings. On the first trip I simply used my iPhone, either hand-held or on a tripod. As I filmed more trips I started to consider how to improve the footage. I carried on using the iPhone but dispensed with the tripod and started using a bankstick as a monopod. This was easier to plant on uneven banks.

On the earlier videos I added the commentary when I was processing the video for publication. This was because my iPhone was invariably too far away to reliably pick up my voice, while picking up a lot of extraneous noise. In October 2020 I bought a body cam and from that point recorded live commentary, which was far more chatty and less formalised. I think this was a great improvement.

The body cam, however, had limitations, the main one being that the view was often obstructed by my arms when I was playing a fish. In February 2021, therefore, I bought the ORDRO EP7 miniature head cam that was worn above the right ear, providing an eye-level view. The camera was very light and the results were impressive. The video could be started and stopped using a button worn on a wrist strap making it ideal for capturing action.

Unfortunately it stopped working in 2024

When my trusty ORDRO EP7 headcam expired I was reluctant to buy a like for like replacement in view of the fact that it failed after just over three years use. I tried an alternative body-mounted arrangement using my iPhone on a neck mount but this was unwieldy and cumbersome. Also, the sophistication of the iPhone resulted in the camera focus not always being where I wanted it, and it didn't capture the action very well when actually playing a fish.

I also considered using a more conventional static camera approach but felt that the body-mounted views had become a feature of my videos and didn't want to change that. In the end I kept the neck mount but bought a GoPro Hero 12 Black camera that is considerably lighter than the iPhone, and far less unwieldy. It uses a fixed focus lens thus avoiding the inappropriate focusing problems while providing a wide range of lens angle settings that allow it to be set up optimally for my fishing.

The GoPro has proved to be a good solution offering quality video. Wearing it on the neck mount has the slight disadvantage that the view can be obscured while I'm playing a fish but on the plus side of things it stabilises the horizon, meaning that the view remains 'horizontal' even if I tilt my body. This certainly wasn't the case with the headcam, where on many occasions the horizon assumed quite an angle! Another great advantage is voice control allowing me to start the video without having to press a button.

But there were still some issues with audio. The internal microphone works well but the audio could fade as I turned my head. I tried various alternative approaches, such as recording the audio separately on my iPhone using a lapel mic, but that wasn't without its problems and made the video editing far more difficult. In the end I bought the GoPro 3.5mm Mic Adapter. GoPro accessories aren't cheap but with this adapter I can use an external mic fixed to the neck mount that provides a more consistent audio level.

The mic adapter, which is housed on a third party case, also has a through connection from the GoPro's USB C socket, allowing the connection of an external power pack that will eliminate the need to change the GoPro battery during a fishing session.

The GoPro has proved so successful that my latest move has been to buy a second GoPro to take a supplementary remote view of me fishing. I had previously used either the iPhone or a camcorder to do this, but the advantage of using the GoPro is the ability to initiate recording or stop recording from my iPhone. It is also much lighter than the camcorder and gives a slightly wider angle view.

I'm hoping that I now have a definitive setup!

I still use my iPhone to record the introduction and sign off videos with a short selfie stick and an external microphone to limit wind noise.