I’ve been photographing in small streams that look perfect from the bank...slow, shallow, and crystal clear. But once I’m in the water, visibility (horizontaly) drops to about 6–8 feet, which makes approaching fish difficult. I also find myself getting swept downstream even in water barely over a foot deep (~30 cm) because I can’t hold position or move upstream with the camera.

While there’s not much I can do about visibility, I’m wondering what gear adjustments might help me stay in place in these shallow currents. Trying to manage the camera while fighting the flow is incredibly challenging and takes all of my strength or is often impossible, and walking upstream isn’t an option since that will spook fish. Barely holding onto the bottom in 38F water while waiting 30 minutes for a fish that might never come back is not very effective or enjoyable. It probably doesn’t help that I’m using a Nauticam 5D Mark IV housing with a WACP-1 and two Inon strobes which creates a lot of drag. The two ideas I’ve come up with so far are:

1. Downsize my port size and strobe arm width to reduce drag (though I hate the idea of losing image sharpness).

2. Use something to anchor to the bottom, though that risks disturbing the substrate if I have to “dig in.”

Has anyone found effective ways to hold position or move carefully against the current in shallow water without spooking fish or damaging habitat?

Tom Kline is The Man for this and will, I’m sure, chip-in. Would a reef hook work?

Thanks for the suggestions! I reached out to Tom and something like the reef hook could work. I probably need something like a modified reef hook that has more surface area on the hook similar to what a boat anchor looks like since the bottom is usually sand/gravel or small stones and obviously I'd have to make sure not to disturb redds but something along that idea could definitely work!

For stream work I use a heavy weight belt to keep from getting pushed around by the current. Something like 10-20lbs beyond neutral. In cold water and wearing a thick wetsuit or drysuit that often means 30-40lbs of weight, depending on the strength of the current.

As for visibility, you generally want to get within 1ft or less for good photos anyway, so 6-8ft of vis should be fine (unless you're wanting a big school of large fish or something).

A smaller setup is definitely an advantage in streams. The WACP-1 is bigger than I would personally want to use.

Appreciate the info Isaac, the WACP is a beast in these small streams and just bushwhacking it in takes a ton of energy so I probably need to experiment with different options there. If I had a sony mirrorless I'd probably just use the WWL but for now that's not an option. Weight belt is a good idea, would be a lot with the drysuit as you mentioned but I haven't tried that yet and have all the weights for diving and that could be a great option for sites with easy access.

My biggest challenge with visibility is actually locating and approaching the fish. I usually spot them first from shore at a distance so I know roughly where to go without disturbing them, but once I get in the water and start slowly moving toward that area, it’s hard to remember exactly which redd they were on when they all look the same and with poor visibility I can only see one or two redds at a time. In the cold water knowing that I might be waiting 30 minutes on the wrong redd is a tough sell but maybe I need to be more patient and I'll win some and lose some.

Apprecaite all the advice, you guys rock! Everytime I think I know my potential options there are fantastic new ideas here that surprise me.

Edited Tuesday at 09:16 PM3 days by brightnight

FWIW, I am a public safety diver, which means that we are often crawling along the bottom in zero visibility searching for various objects. I generally have 42 or more pounds of lead weight when wearing a drysuit to ensure that I stay on the bottom. Neutral buoyancy doesn't apply here, and I think that might the case for you as well.

It is no fun to carry all that weight when not in the water, though.

I wear fishing waders while doing most of my salmon photography!!! I try and wade in water that is below my knees in depth. This may require me to cross a stream several times going up and down stream to shooting sites. One has to learn a route for each stream.

I have added weight to make some of my rigs a bit more stationary.

I use polecam techniques while wearing waders. I have posted numerous examples of this here: https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Photography-techniques/n-mnzBPB I may or may not have a hand on the camera pole!

I mostly use fisheye lenses with a full range of dome sizes from superdome to macrodome. Lens focal length available in exif data on my website photos - click on the tiny i inside a tiny dot.

I may have more than one housing with me with each configured differently. See: https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Photography-techniques/n-mnzBPB/i-KS7Jjpz/A The pic title is somewhat tongue-in-cheek!