Lost to the ocean

[RU4REEL]

Hi Fishraiders,

I've been a member for a few years and enjoy reading all the posts on here, love it 🙂

I haven't shared much about my fishing but here's a disaster from last year in Sydney.

I was spending a fair bit of time on the North Shore and started fishing the ledges at Curl Curl with some success and other days I would watch the more experienced guys hauling in these massive Kings. I thought I was somewhat in with a chance using fresh squid but I just couldn't reach the distance these guys were managing. Then I had a lightbulb moment, I'll rig my drone with a simple hook so I'd be able to deploy my bait out further than these guys! So, back the next day with my squid and drone, I managed to get the bait out after a few attempts. Now, I would say that I am experienced and licensed to fly a remote aircraft and this really tested my resolve. Will I get it back? Anyway, I drop the squid and fly the drone back to the ledge safely. I thought 'mission accomplished'. I'll be back to try again.

A few days after that, I decided to fish up at North Curl Curl with the drone. After spending a few minutes getting the rig ready, I flew it out comfortably until there was a jag in the spool. Horror struck me as I looked at my screen, the drone was out a couple hundred meters so it was out of sight but the last vision I got was this spiralling video and then the drone hitting the water. Black screen and signal lost...it was gone and I knew there was no coming back this time.

So now I am left with 250m of braid attached to my drone out there, I knew it was pointless but I just didn't want to say goodbye. I ended up cutting the line after much disappointment in myself.

Hopefully anyone thinking about using a drone to fish with, it is high risk and it only takes a second or a slight pull on the line to send it down. It's not worth it.

Oh well, it's resting in about 40m and maybe someone will hook it up one day 🙂

[kingie chaser]

What sort of drone was it?

Simple hook sounds like it was your undoing, personally if & was putting my expensive drone out over water the release mechanism would want to have been tested thoroughly.

Having looked at different methods myself there are commercial releases available but I have also seen where people use simpler dowrigger clips.

Still its all a risk!

 

[Brendan Monks]

The topic caught my eye, Sorry dont want to change the subject!!!  - Just putting it out there, A brand new Tiagra 30w and fully rollered rod laying somewhere between Broken Bay FAD and Box Head after my mate borrowed it and left it in the rocket launcher for the run in! 🤬😥

What do you do? LOL

[RU4REEL]

It was a DJI Phantom, not top of the range but still a decent one.

Yes it was a simple deploy setup where you just hang the line on the hook and you fly the drone out and once you arrive at location, you just rotate the drone and fly in reverse so the loop just slides off. I saw other setups like that so I thought I'd try it. Like I said, any sudden stop while you are deploying will be enough to pull the drone into a spiral, can't save it after that.

I learnt the hard way but I won't do it again, I'll just stick to normal casting 🙂

[GoingFishing]

32 minutes ago, RU4REEL said:

It was a DJI Phantom, not top of the range but still a decent one.

Yes it was a simple deploy setup where you just hang the line on the hook and you fly the drone out and once you arrive at location, you just rotate the drone and fly in reverse so the loop just slides off. I saw other setups like that so I thought I'd try it. Like I said, any sudden stop while you are deploying will be enough to pull the drone into a spiral, can't save it after that.

I learnt the hard way but I won't do it again, I'll just stick to normal casting 🙂

i have to ask - you mentioned 250 of line out - how far out were you trying to get your bait? When i used to fish off the rocks the kings would come in pretty close

[RU4REEL]

I guess I was just exploring the terrain out there and also just seeing how far I could take it out

[kingie chaser]

I'm wondering why if it was still attached you couldn't have just reeled it in??.

I know the mavic has a line release but it's about $130.

Still cheaper than a lost drone though.

[RU4REEL]

I tried mate, it was snagged and it wasn't going to budge. It would have been cactus if I had reeled it in.

I've got a mini mavic now, I'll just stick to taking photos of the whales 😀

[Green Hornet]

That's a bugger.

No doubt you saw that video going around a few months back of the guys dropping baits on top of longtail tuna from the beach.

Obviously, there's a few decent commercially made line releases out there. 

[Rebel]

Great read. Thank you.

[Hoods]

Thanks for the read and the warning - We ere looking to do the same thing on the mid north coast chasing tuna. After your experience the drone can stay in its box.

[Oscarthebeagle]

Must be a few drones that get lost to the ocean.

Last Friday there was a barnacle encrusted drone on top of the bin at Grays Point ramp when i was taking the boat out.

A couple of weeks ago when i was launching at Bonnet bay a guy flying his drone hit a tree branch and crash onto rocks half a metre from the waters edge, he got it back but not sure if it will fly again after a crash.

Also during winter I was a Como with the kids, where a guy was flying his high up over the water. We watched it flying when all of a sudden it stopped, flipped and dive bombed into the water, looked like a Ganet diving at fish.

The guy just kind of looked at the controller, looked at the water, back at the controller shook his head a slowly walked away. He had to walked past us and i tried to keep the kids quiet but they were far too excited by what they had just seen to not be talking loudly about it, poor bloke.

Expensive toy, but they do get some great photos. 

Ash

[SnappaDAX]

On 9/22/2020 at 12:50 PM, RU4REEL said:

It was a DJI Phantom, not top of the range but still a decent one.

Yes it was a simple deploy setup where you just hang the line on the hook and you fly the drone out and once you arrive at location, you just rotate the drone and fly in reverse so the loop just slides off. I saw other setups like that so I thought I'd try it. Like I said, any sudden stop while you are deploying will be enough to pull the drone into a spiral, can't save it after that.

I learnt the hard way but I won't do it again, I'll just stick to normal casting 🙂

I think a release gate that is spring loaded would work.

Made from plastic and attached at bottom of drone, maybe super glued?

When the tension on the line is greater than the spring, it opens the gate and drops the line/bait.

That way if you get a jag in spool it will just let go. When you want to drop the bait, put drone in sport mode and lower it fast then up fast and gate opens. 

I can see a bit of trial and error in getting the spring rate right but you could do this on an oval. 

Just a thought, and i can picture the device in my head. Could probably make money from it🤔