Some 20 years ago, before the advent of LEDs and LCD screens, I bought a black-and-white underwater video system from Harbor Freight for $99. The monitor was a small television with a cathode-ray tube and the power source was a sealed lead-acid battery. My kids and I enjoyed using it to peek at whatever might be lurking beneath the boat. For a long time, we had never used it for anything practical, but I wished I’d had it before I lost an anchor on the foul bottom of a shallow slough. With the camera, I might have been able to see that the bottom was littered with submerged logs that would certainly hold and keep my anchor. We did find a practical purpose a few years later, when we attached the camera to a grappling hook, and my son and I located and retrieved an outboard that had peeled itself off its transom and had sunk in 35′ of water.As much as I liked that video system, it was packed in a zippered fabric case the size of a toaster oven—too big to be included as standard gear on any of our boats. Over the years I’ve been hoping to find a new version that was more compact and equally affordable, and recently decided to take a chance on the $140 Eyoyo Underwater Fishing Camera that I spotted on Amazon.

Photographs by the author

The 8-1⁄4″ long, 6″ wide, and 4-1⁄2″ deep case holds the sunshade, detachable monitor, charger, camera, battery, and cable. The buttons on the monitor control aspect ratio, screen rotation, brightness, contrast, and color. There is also a selection of 15 languages for the menu options. The 16:9 aspect ratio selection fills the screen, but it is only a horizontally stretched version of the 4:3 ratio, which appears with vertical black bands on either side of the image. I wasn’t aware of the horizontal stretch until I aimed the camera at the instruction booklet and noticed a circle showing as an ellipse on the monitor.

Read this article now for Free!

Ready for a second free article? Create a free account by entering your email address and a password below.

— OR —

Subscribe now for $29.99 a year and have immediate access to all of our content, including hundreds of small-boat profiles, gear reviews and techniques, adventure stories, and more! You can also browse our entire archive of back issues starting from September 2014, as well as post unlimited classified ads. This is an extraordinary value!

Subscribe Now or SIGN IN