When it comes to ice fishing gear perhaps nothing is more evident as to how it will improve your success on the ice as the ice fishing camera. Born out of a long held want of people to see what is happening under the water while they are attempting to catch the fish that reside there. And it is great for that exact purpose. Besides fishing in very clear water at relatively shallow depths there is no way to see the world that fish live in and understand how they relate to fishing presentations, nearby structure and other fish. With panfish you can literally watch them come up to and hit your bait right on the screen.
Ice fishing electronics have come a long way over the years. From the old school Clearwater Classic ice fishing flasher to the latest and greatest Vexilar fish finder like the FL-20, people have been using flashers for years to put more fish on the ice. The ice fishing underwater camera is a relatively new tool for ice anglers and has only really been prominent for the past decade or so.
The pioneer company in this field is the Aqua Vu. Aqua Vu has several models available. The Aqua Vu Scout is the baseline model from the company and is the most common model owned in the ice fishing world today. It has a skin around the camera that looks like a sunfish. The high end model from Aqua Vu is the Aqua Vu Quad 4x4. The 4x4 has 4 cameras and splits the screen in four equal parts. The great part about this is that you can see in all directions to see if fish are coming and can also see more than 1 hole's fishing view at the same time.
Marcum has come along with a strong line to challenge Aqua Vu's dominance. It's baseline model is the Marcum VS380. It is a standard one camera model with a black and white screen. Unlike the Aqua Vu Scout, the VS380 does not have a fish skin to cover the camera and blend in. The Marcum VS825 is the top of the line Marcum model that has a flat screen and an amazing color spectrum. If you haven't seen the underwater world in full color you are really missing out.
On the bargain basement end of the spectrum is the Fish TV underwater fishing camera which runs less than $100 and actually works reasonably well. The problem of course is that there is a requirement to use C batteries which get very expensive very quickly. If you are looking for a quick fix on a limited budget it does work as advertised.
The world of underwater ice fishing cameras is ever expanding. If you ever wanted to see the world that a fish lives in up close and personal you owe it to yourself to pick up a model and head out to the lake.
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