I took some terrible photos in northwestern Ontario. I thought I had a perfect plan, which was to photo the fish on tape on the bottom of my boat. You see, I'm perspective impaired, so when a fisher poses with arms extended, I can't really tell how big the bass is. However, my two cameras just didn't want to take focused photos 100% of the time. I quit trying after three days and tried again the final three days with no more success, but here are some representative fish, both clear and blurry. 

More bass.

More bass.

Another bass. I have lots more photos, but they take half of forever to downsize and load. I might load some more later. I do like the shape of the last one. It looks a little like a bluegill. 

Nice lookin' hawgs you got up there. 

Thanks, Gundog. They were challenging. I was solo fishing and the wind blew and blew, so there were times I wish I had eight hands: two for the rod and reel, two to paddle away from logs and rocks, two to net the fish, and two to photograph. As it was, I'd pick up the paddle with one hand while controlling the fish with the other, drop the paddle to turn the camera on, and then drop the camera to net with one hand. Here's another from two angles.. 

And more. I like the color and shape of the first one. I have more photos, but they're the blurry ones. One of the blurry photos is one of the thickest bass of my life. I took three photos of it, but the lens of my SLR camera had shifted from autofocus to manual focus and I clicked away thinking my camera was focusing. Sigh.

Anyone want to see the fuzzy fish? As trips go, it was quality over quantity. The lakes I fished were producing half of what they normally produce. 100-fish days became 50-fish days on one lake. 60-fish days on another lake became 30-fish days. On yet another lake, I only caught five fish one morning, but they were one 20-incher and four 19-inchers. I caught lots of 19-plus inch fish I didn't photograph because the quality was so discouraging. 

Here's a photo that was ruined by some blob between the bass and me. I have lots more that are blurred. I retook this one and it's above, but I hate to shoot two photos, for that's more time for the fish out of the water. I did keep them in the net in the water until the camera was on.   

Here are some I didn't reshoot because I assumed I was getting clear pics. Oops, the two on the bottom are repeats. Don't know how to delete them.

 

 

And another.

Not a chance I could get a smallmouth to sit still long enough to take a picture. Of course, it's been almost 100 degrees every day for the last month so laying them on my measuring board would probably brand them.

looks like you were struggling with a mix of two issues, too slow of a shutter speed which causes image blur when either you or the fish moves, and focusing distance..  Don't know what you were shooting with for a camera/lens but in many cases the camera/lens must be a certain minimum distance away from the subject in order to achieve proper autofocus. 

 

Nice fish though, looks like you caught a bunch and must have had fun anyways! 

Nice! good to watch this. Thanks for sharing.

On 7/26/2017 at 3:28 PM, Janderson45 said:

looks like you were struggling with a mix of two issues, too slow of a shutter speed which causes image blur when either you or the fish moves, and focusing distance..  Don't know what you were shooting with for a camera/lens but in many cases the camera/lens must be a certain minimum distance away from the subject in order to achieve proper autofocus. 

 

Nice fish though, looks like you caught a bunch and must have had fun anyways! 

My third issue is wanting to get them back into the water ASAP. So, I shoot a quickie and hope that it's a good shot. I think I'm going to buy a Go-Pro instead of using my two old cameras. 

On 7/26/2017 at 1:51 AM, Bluebasser86 said:

Not a chance I could get a smallmouth to sit still long enough to take a picture. Of course, it's been almost 100 degrees every day for the last month so laying them on my measuring board would probably brand them.

Yikes, that's hot! If our temp here is 80, I think we're hot. Luckily, we don't have more than a handful of days that reach 80.