Catching Fish Without Hook, Line or Sinker

I'm ready for my close-up now...

Dropping your camera into the River Thames isn't usually recommended, but I actually did it on purpose. It was attached to our garden rake so it wouldn't float away. I'm not daft.

This was back in July, during the heatwave; the backwater at the bottom of our garden was crystal-clear, and from the footbridge across to the island I'd seen fish languishing in the shallow water, so I decided to immerse my waterproof sports camera in video mode to see if I could catch anything - at least digitally.

I clamped it to the rake both for safety and ease of manipulation and lowered it into the river at our mooring, making sure it was pointing towards a gap in the weeds, which had been growing visibly in the warm waters of summer. I then went back into the basement to continue breaking up the concrete floor, but that's another story. The point is I forgot about the camera for an hour or so, but later retrieved it and recovered the micro SD card for transfer to the PC. 

By way of explanation, I'm not a wildlife documentary-maker, not even much of a nature rambler, but we'd bought a run-down riverside property at Sunbury-on-Thames primarily because it was a) on the river and b) it had its own mooring. Oh, and c) we could afford it - just - with the help of a mortgage broker. In fact we told all our friends the house was called Mortgage-on-Thames.

The wildlife was an added and unexpected bonus. We quickly discovered there's no shortage on our backwater - ducks, swans, geese, grebes, coots and kingfishers are regulars, but what lay beneath? The fish I'd seen from the bridge looked big and were dark grey, but what were they, and what else was there? I hoped the unblinking eye of the underwater camera would reveal all. I was not disappointed.

Watching the footage back on the PC in real time proved not only rewarding, but strangely calming. Tired from my toil in the basement breaking up the concrete floor, I sat in front of the screen and watched the bright green underwater weeds dance gracefully back and forth as the sluggish water flowed by. Every now and then a mysterious dark shape went past on the surface, but always in the distance. 

Closer to the camera I saw interesting floating things - amoeba-like objects, bright green blobs of vegetation, and bubbles rising from the bed of the river, like jewels backlit by the bright summer sun. And then a large grey fish poked its head in from right of screen, its orange eye seeming to look directly at me. It swam past the lens followed by another similar fish. They turned, and with a swish of their tails dashed out of shot.

During the next hour I saw small shoals of darting silvery fish with orange-tipped fins, a ghost-fish of almost transparent grey, and other smaller fish. I was mesmerised.

Over the next couple of weeks the Rake-Cam was put to work often, and each time I looked forward to seeing what I'd caught in camera. It wasn't just fish; I laughed out loud as a grebe passed directly across the field of view doing a sort of underwater breaststroke (except without arms), and twice got up close and personal with a swan as it not only fed from the weeds in front of the camera but actually pecked at the camera housing to see if it was edible. This was the week of Swan Upping. I guessed the creature was displaying swan-upmanship.

I edited some of the footage and put it on You Tube, partly to share the pictures but also in the hope some knowledgeable fishing folk might be able to identify the species; so far no luck. I think the fish with the orange-tipped fins are perch, and the large grey ones are perhaps catfish judging by the barbels. In the end, it doesn't matter to me what they are, I was just delighted to find so much going on underwater, and right on our doorstep - or moorstep, if you will.

Perhaps best of all was going fishing without a licence, or a rod, and not having to sit on a stool for hours on end. No worms were harmed.

With the glorious summer now already a memory the Thames has turned murky again as the autumnal rains wash stuff into the river and the water is more disturbed. The Rake-Cam has been disassembled, and the rake is back to doing its job of clearing the lawn of leaves. Its film industry career is on hold. The camera is tucked away in a drawer. The fish, I suspect, are all still there - as I will be again next summer.