Commercial Salmon Trolling Forum

Rather interesting article in Pacific Fishing that arrived today. Figured I'd post it here and see what kind of response I'd get. It had an article on how in 2015, the FAA will allow the commercial use of drones, and how fishermen could use those drones to be on fish more often. It also mentioned how inexpensive this technology is becoming.

So, what applications could trollers use drones for, and should it even be an option for trollers? I was thinking that savvy boats would be launching them off the back decks of their trollers, to "spy" on who is fishing where, how busy they looked in the cockpit, and how many boats were around. And, perhaps flying low to the water looking for whale spouts and birds offshore? Who knows, in a few years perhaps they'll have sonar attached to a drone and you can fly around looking for balls of feed and schools of fish with a drone.. all without using a drop of fuel.

They would definitely be pretty useful for tuna fishing. I bet it won't be too long before you see them in Sitka for the herring openers and not too long after that for seiners in general. I wonder how well you could spot schools of chums with them?