The other day we posted to the Facebook page a YouTube video from RYOT News of David Darg, who claims to be the first person to catch the “first ever fish caught with a drone” (video dated Aug. 22, 2013).
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In principle, this is the kind of innovation that we at Inventive Fishing eat up like grunts gobbling down chum.
His claim may be true, and we don’t want to take anything away from Darg’s accomplishment. Bravo. However, we wondered just how original a feat this is. Darg’s drone certainly isn’t military/predator class and instead resembles the drones being developed by Amazon.com. These drones function as helicopters more than planes, which makes a difference in lure presentation and approach.
Since Darg’s drone is in helicopter form, fishing in this way is not much different than previous attempts to fish by helicopter, which after some research by our team, reveals a longer history than one might originally assume.
A simple YouTube search reveals numerous attempts at fishing-by-helicopter, including this catch made by AR.Drone 51, ice-fishing with a drone in Canada (Feb. 5, 2013).
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This R/C helicopter catch was uploaded over five years ago by NightFlyyer (June 6, 2008).
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There are many more examples on YouTube, and we encourage you to search for them yourselves.
However, neither of these examples goes after saltwater fish. From the most well-known example of going after larger saltwater game, we have to turn to Ultimate Fishing’s brilliant use of helicopter fishing (July 20, 2008).
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And although a hoax, this well-known photograph, once falsely touted as the “National Geographic Photo of the Year,” demonstrates one method that helicopter fishing can be accomplished:
However, it appears that another two men accomplished this feat nearly 50 years ago, but going for larger saltwater fish instead. In the movie Batman (1966), Robin dangles Batman as bait from a helicopter, bringing in a nice size shark of uncertain species (no Robin, that’s not a sardine).
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Batman also shows us how one might unhook the fish when using this new method, especially when the copter can’t be brought back to shore or a boat (Shark Repellant Bat Spray, of course, but note that other species they may have been fishing for include barracuda, whale, and manta-ray).
While the dynamic duo might not have been purposefully fishing for shark, they did demonstrate proof of concept long before Darg made his drone attempt.
The way that these anglers use helicopter seems much like kite fishing: attempting to place a bait in the water from a vertical position. We would like to see someone attempt “jigging” or working an artificial lure with a copter. We would also want to see how Darg’s drone handles a saltwater gamefish. Like a super-nova to the Millennium Falcon traveling through hyperspace, we bet it’ll end the trip real quick.
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