Why Do-It-Yourself Artificial Fish Habitat Fails:

Fishiding Artificial Fish Habitat is unique because of its size, complexity, and the protection it provides juvenile fish.

Constructing a conglomeration of rubber tubing, plastic barrels, and old hose, throwing it into the lake and calling it fish habitat because we saw a bass next to it, is like putting a cardboard box on the street corner and calling it “housing” when a homeless person takes refuge in it. Most DIY fish habitat is as much fish habitat as a plastic tarp strung between two shopping carts is “a house” to a homeless person.

Look around at your own home. Why is it comfortable? Why do you like it? Look past the man cave you’ve built in the basement, the expensive wall-to-wall carpeting, and the refrigerator with the built-in ice-cube dispenser. What makes your house useful and practical is its utilitarian functionality.

The insulation keeps you warm in the winter. The roof keeps the rain out. There’s a dark bedroom to sleep in at night. The doors and windows all have locks that provide you with safety and security. Your pantry is stocked with food and you have a kitchen to prepare it. Your home functions in a way that addresses all your family’s needs in a utilitarian way.

By and large, DIY artificial fish habitat doesn’t do anything close to that. To be comparable, artificial fish habitat needs to be large to accommodate many fish. (You wouldn’t want to live in a one-bedroom bungalow with a family of six would you?) It needs to provide a refuge for young fish the same way your children have their bedrooms where they can be away from grown-ups while hanging out with their friends. There needs to be on-site food so you’re not driving to McDonald’s every single time you want a snack. Size, security, protection, privacy, and food are just some of the important aspects of any home that we would never compromise on in our dwellings yet seemingly never consider when constructing habitat for fish. Instead, we create the equivalent of tent cities in the most impoverished part of town and congratulate ourselves when homeless people congregate there to get out of the rain. That’s not a solution to the homeless problem any more than lashing rubber hoses to cinder blocks is to solving the lack of fish habitat.

What’s needed in both scenarios is genuine housing/habitat for both impoverished people and fish.

When looking at the wide variety of homemade so-called fish habitat, one thing seems to be evident. Most well-intentioned builders don’t seem to know exactly what fish need and the poverty of their designs betray this fact. Bad designs continue to be copied, while far superior ones are ignored. This is because so few of us can tell the difference between good designs and poor ones. This failure is epidemic but also understandable. Fish live in a separate world largely invisible to us. We rarely glimpse them in their natural habitat and have little idea of how they live or how they spend their time. Our only interaction is when we hoist them into the boat on the end of our fishing lines. Occasionally we notice that fishing under the neighbor’s dock or next to that old Cyprus tree stump seem to be good spots, but we’re completely in the dark about why. We often leap to the false conclusion that any structure in the water is a fish’s home and any solid piece of material we find in the back of our garage could work just as well. Do it yourselfers are thwarted not only by their lack of understanding of fish but also by what materials might currently be available in their sheds and garages. I think this explains why we see so many awful constructions.

To design and construct authentic fish habitats and not merely dilapidated, makeshift shelters of the kind we might see on urban streets, we need to think backward. We need to think first about function over form. Utility over availability. We need our designs to meet the specific needs of fish. We can look to natural habitats for guidance. Natural habitat has a myriad of desirable characteristics but for this discussion, we can single out the three most often violated elements that any proposed artificially constructed fish habitat must have. The first is size. Is our construction large enough to accommodate a community of fishes? The second is protection. Are there tight spaces, crevices, alleys, pockets, holes, depressions, and retreats that smaller fish can occupy that larger fish absolutely cannot access? The third is complexity. Is the structure large and complex enough to offer shade, to block sight-lines, and to hide or conceal what’s in and around it? If it were in your backyard, could your kids use it when they play hide and seek?  Keeping in mind this trio of primary functions will help you begin to understand what fish need and enable you to reject bad design ideas and eliminate potential construction materials that don’t amplify these important characteristics.

Across our country, there are many bodies of water from large sprawling reservoirs to small backyard ponds. Many of them are lacking fish habitat for a variety of reasons. In many cases, artificial habitat can be a surrogate but only if it addresses in utilitarian ways the features of genuine habitat. 

If you work in the fish management sector, you and your colleagues have an obligation to be very critical of the designs being paraded in front of you. If we’re not more careful about scrutinizing and properly evaluating artificial fish habitats, we run the risk of unknowingly filling our waterways with useless materials instead of creating legitimate habitat. 

Certainly, there’s much to discuss about creating artificial fish habitat, and because true innovation has slowed to a trickle, we find ourselves mired in a kind of estuary between realizing we have a habitat deficiency and creating the kinds of authentic habitat that will make any difference. Artificial fish habitat needs to provide functional value to our fish. The scale of the problem is enormous in many locations, and won’t be solved by adding more sub-standard and inadequate structures any more than human homelessness can be solved by putting out more cardboard boxes and tents. 

The Best Thing About Being An Underwater Photographer

What's it like to be a professional underwater photographer? It’s like every day is Saturday!  

Sometimes in the mornings when I’m driving to a lake I plan to shoot in, I’ll see people on their way to work.  Inside the other cars are guys wearing suits and ties holding cellphones in one hand and spilling coffee from the other.  Often they have scowls on their faces.  The stress and despair is evident in their zombie-like gazes and they haven’t even arrived at the office yet.  Meanwhile, I’m in shorts and sandals and heading to my office: the lake bottom.  I never forget that I was just like them not too long ago, and I feel so grateful and appreciative of the life I have now. I’m really lucky to love what I do, and do what I love.  I wouldn’t trade places with anybody.  

The early days were tough. I began taking pictures professionally in 1993.  I was disillusioned with my previous occupation (radio broadcasting) and was looking for some kind of business where I could set my own hours and be my own boss.  I had no training or education in photography whatsoever and knew nothing about the business aspects of shooting, selling and marketing stock images.  But I had a passion for my subject matter that made up for my lack of experience and knowledge. I loved fish, and I just wanted to show people images of common freshwater fish that perhaps they’d never seen before.  Seeing underwater Images of freshwater fish in their natural habitat were almost as rare then as they continue to be today.  I was motivated by three things:  1) I wanted to create a self-sustaining income that would replace my regular 9-5 hamster wheel job, 2) I knew it had to something that I enjoyed, had fun with, and would never regard as work, and 3) I wanted to generate in others the same kind of awe and appreciation I had for fish, and I thought that through photos I might be able to do that.     

During those humble early years, it was difficult to even find a mentor. There were many underwater photographers, but none who worked in freshwater with the subjects I was interested in.  One guy who did a little of the kind of photography I wanted to do was Doug Stamm.  He became a role model to me because of the way he was able to sell and market so many of his images to the same venues that I would later work for.  I remember going to the magazine stand and counting the number of covers and inside pictures he was selling in any given month and being astounded.  One of my goals then was to generate an income I could live from, so seeing what Doug was doing gave me hope that it was indeed possible. 

I’ve gotten so much help over the years.  I can’t begin to tell you about all the different individuals who have made it all possible.  From fisheries biologists who share information with me about lakes and fish behavior to lake-front property owners who grant me access to their lakes and suggest specific places to check out. There’s been family members who gave me financial support in the early years that made it possible for me to spend time shooting instead of “working”.  There’s literally been hundreds of people who certainly share a part in my success.  

But not every association was useful. Because of the uniqueness of what I was doing, it was difficult to find a group of people to relate to.  I dive underwater to photograph fish, but I’ve found I have little in common with either photographers or divers.  The photography people just wanted to talk about cameras.  The scuba diving people just wanted to talk about dive computers or dive vacations.  Nobody wanted to talk about fish.  I felt very alone until I began meeting professional fisheries biologists. Those were the friendships that were naturally harmonious. I'd finally found a group of people, who like me, could talk about fish all day long.

I'm often asked what advice I have for aspiring underwater photographers. I think today it's very difficult to make a living in this field. The saltwater environments are really saturated with photographers, many of whom have the world’s best locations in their back yards.  It would be extremely difficult to compete with them.  They actually live in the same places that others spend thousands of dollars and travel thousands of miles to get to.  How can you possibly compete with someone who has access to places like that 51 weeks of the year more than you do?  Freshwater however, is a different situation altogether.  Freshwater material is an area nobody is covering, so there is no competition.  On the down side, the demand for freshwater images isn’t as great either.  I’m hoping to draw more awareness to freshwater environments so that more people will become aware of the importance of these ecosystems.

I think there’s always room for more good photographers, and I think interest in underwater subjects will continue.  I encourage beginners to learn about their subjects.  Become an expert on the life and behavior of your animal subjects.  Become a steward of their habitat.  Think of yourself as a PR person for that particular animal.  If you do this, you’ll show them in the best light, you’ll be mindful of disturbing them, and your work will automatically show these creatures at their most magnificent.  Don’t sell pictures.  Instead, fall in love with your subjects and sell that love!  And instead of exploiting them for personal profit, you’ll become partners with them in calling attention to their inherent beauty and value in the ecosystem, and the special problems each one of them face in an increasingly crowded world.   You know, the freshwater world has never had an ambassador in the same way the oceans had Jacques Cousteau.  Perhaps, all of us who spend time in lakes can collectively be some sort of equivalent to that.  At least that's my dream.

Speaking of dreams-  I often refer to the small group of freshwater photographers that my stock photo agency represents as the “dream team”. I look for people who have a genuine interest in freshwater subjects.  They’re not as glamorous and sexy as whales, dolphins and sharks, so very few people are attracted to them.  I look for people who can competently take a picture and get it technically right.  And I look for people who are going to be shooting freshwater with some regularity and frequency.  Anybody can get a picture here or there, but I want someone who’s going to be generating new material often.  That essentially means someone who's spending a whole lot of time in freshwater.  

I see how miserable many people are at their daily jobs, and I still remember what it was like to live that way.  I’m thankful and appreciative for what I have and the niche I’ve carved out.  I guess my only goals are to be able to get up tomorrow morning and do the same thing all over again.  For people lucky enough to have a career that brings them genuine joy, it’s indescribable.  You’d do it for free because you’re so passionate about it.  It’s like being on vacation every day.  When there’s no distinction between work and play, you know you’re there.  What more could anyone want?

Do Fish Have Individual Personalities?

Largemouth Bass (c)Engbretson Underwater Photography

I'm often asked this question and I have some definite thoughts about it.  I’ve been photographing fish underwater in their natural habitat for over 25 years.  In that time, there are long stretches when I’ve worked with the same individual fish for years at a time.  Because of that, I think I’m uniquely qualified to comment on whether they have individual personalities or not.  The answer to this is unequivocally yes.

Just like the personality distinctions one could make between say poodles and collies, distinctions between different types of fish certainly exist. And not only do entire species like northern pike, largemouth bass or bluegills have their own group personalities, but individual fish in the group have theirs too.  The individual fish and their unique personalities have as much depth and richness as the personalities of our pets. Sometimes I want to assign all the fish of one species with a label.  At first, I’ll think something like, “You know, Black Crappies seem to be a little aloof”.  But then I’ll remember one or two that I’ve met that weren’t and it makes me reluctant to paint the whole species with a broad brush.    

If you're skeptical of the idea that fish have personalities, I would say that you have to get to know them to understand that.  Very few humans have forged anything resembling a relationship with a fish.  Certainly, few people have connections with wild fish.  When you spend the enormous amounts of time I have with fish, secrets like this reveal themselves to you.

So what are some of the different personality characteristics of fish? Here are a few common species and the traits I think they demonstrate, based on decades of underwater interaction with them:
 
Largemouth Bass: Clever; Focused; Innovative   
Smallmouth Bass: Curious; Enthusiastic; Assertive;   
Walleye: Stoic; Contemplative; Organized;   
Musky: Uninhibited; Clumsy; Suspicious;
Northern Pike: Timid; Patient; Obsessive;  
Bluegill: Friendly; Daring; Active;
Carp: Alert; Decisive; Anxious 

Why Underwater Fish Photos Are Important

In the December '09 issue of Fisheries Magazine, Jeremy B. Monroe wrote a brilliant article that poignantly discusses why images of freshwater fish underwater are so important in generating public awarenss and conservation of many species and their habitats.  It was the best summation I've ever read, and I'd like to share some of his comments here, (albeit in a heavily edited way) because I wish I had written this article myself.

    "As threats to freshwater ecosystems continue to grow, the vast majority of their inhabitants remain “out of sight, and largely out of mind”. This lack of public awareness of freshwater life may ultimately limit freshwater conservation as a popular cause, or movement. By its nature, aquatic life is inherently less visible to human eyes, and so images, such as photographs, play a critical role in visually connecting freshwater ecosystems to their would-be stewards. And while images by no means replicate human experiences in the natural world, they are a remarkably effective surrogate to enlighten audiences about natural ecosystems and their values. A passing glance at a magazine rack, television programming, and popular internet websites reveals a narrow view of freshwater life. In these popular sources of public information and entertainment, the vast majority of freshwater species are simply unseen, and therefore unknown to most people.  A closer examination of the common images of freshwater life reveals an issue that is perhaps more problematic than mere obscurity. Almost invariably, popular images portray sportfishes and most other freshwater species after they have been “landed” or otherwise extracted from their aquatic habitat. In these images, aquatic organisms are far removed from their natural environment and behavior, which precludes an aquatic, and perhaps empathetic, perspective of their lives and their world. Moreover, these struggling or dead organisms are commonly seen “at the hands” of both anglers, and biologists, portraying a conquering image. Though rarely seen in popular media, underwater images of fish and other freshwater life in their aquatic habitat can more naturally convey the intrinsic and ecological value of these organisms, as well as their evolutionary, and even spiritual aesthetics. These images celebrate the aquatic world by depicting the natural beauty and behavior of freshwater life, the splendor and uniqueness of freshwater environments, and the intricate relationships among species and their habitats. In their natural medium, free of human hands or devices, organisms appear independent of humankind, and their intrinsic value is therefore made more obvious. Indeed, the vision of an organism behaving naturally and relating to its natural environment is precisely what can allow us to sympathize or even empathize with other species and appreciate their significance in our own world or worldview. It is these ecological, evolutionary, and spiritual aesthetics that will presumably resonate more deeply with the broader public, and are most likely to drive conservation movements." 

Nice work Jeremy.  Thank you for putting into words what keeps me doing this.

New Underwater Paddlefish Images

Paddlefish (c)Jennifer Idol/Engbretson Underwater Photo

Today, we're excited to add more than a dozen new Paddlefish pictures to our online galleries.  Our Jennifer Idol has beautifully photographed these prehistoric fish on a recent diving trip to Tennessee.  Paddlefish populations are in trouble and are rapidly declining due to pollution, overfishing, and habitat loss (often associated with the construction of dams). These fish are becoming rarer every year, so encountering them and photographing them in the wild is becoming more difficult than ever.  To see all of Jennifer's new Paddlefish images, visit our Paddlefish Gallery here.