WorldWide Drilling Resource

54 NOVEMBER 2014 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® The Trout Cam by Ray Roerick Sales Manager, Well-Vu, Inc. A few years ago, I was approached with a challenge near and dear to my heart. A fishing guide in western Montana had a lodge with a great restaurant and cabins for his guests. Instead of news or sports on the restaurant’s wide-screen TV, he was wondering how to get a camera mounted under his dock where he launches many of his guided tours, to show his guests the trout in the river in real time. Sounded like a great idea to me, besides, who goes on vacation to watch some depressing news story or reruns of an old TV show, when they can watch wild trout in their natural habi- tat? Fortunately, he had a conduit run- ning the 600 feet from the back of his lodge to the dock to supply power for his dock lighting. So after pulling the cable through the conduit and reattach- ing the camera, we needed to figure a good location to put the camera to catch the most action, but most of all, to miss the debris floating down the river in the high current. We simply attached the cable under the dock with wire staples and brought the camera to the end of the dock, and then down the last post. At the post, we used zip ties to fasten the camera, facing it out into the river. The nice part about down hole video cameras is they use a standard NTSC camera, so no special equipment or in- ternet/computer hookups were neces- sary. (NTSC is the standard in North America for television signal). Inside the lodge was about as simple, as we came from the video out on the camera with a TV/VCR cable to the input on the TV. It took a little work to run the cable through the attic and down to the back of the TV, but it was finally time to see what was in the river. All I can say is, it is nice and relax- ing, to sit and enjoy a nice meal, a glass of good wine, good company, and to look up to see the occasional rainbow or German brown trout go swimming by. Most of all, you don’t have to keep watch- ing, because as soon as there is a fish visible, someone is always saying, “There is another one.” And with that said, “There is yet another use for the down hole video camera.“ Ray Ray Roerick may be contacted via e-mail at michele@wwdr-usa.com ! " # ! “The only prosperity the people can afford to be satisfied with is the kind that lasts.” h Henry Ford