Drones, despite having been around for a while, have really entered mainstream cultural consciousness in the past year or two via a variety of strange stunts (looking at you, drone porn) and think pieces about their potential violations of privacy and property.Compound that with the rapidly increasing pace of technological innovation and implementation, and you're bound to encounter some weird usage of drones within the food world. What would this mean for burrito delivery? (Some great things, potentially.) How about for hunting? (Problems galore.)
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And legislators have wondered and worried: Is it possible to fish using drones?Well, one man says yes. And he speaks from experience, with the video to prove it.Farmer Derek Klingenberg is an avid YouTuber who has previously shared videos of himself playing Lorde songs for his cows on the trombone, singing a farm dog-themed cover of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood," and doing the Whip/Nae Nae in a field of livestock. If his videos are an indication, he's clearly interested in juxtaposing, or combining, his interests as a hands-on farmer with his appreciation for cultural modernity.As a result, he loved fiddling with drones. He uses them to make "art" out of his cattle configurations, and to survey flooding in his area. And now he's used one to catch a fish.He claims it's the first try, but it looks like he might have had a little bit of practice beforehand.The drone hovers high above a pond, drops in a hook, chills for a bit, and then eventually lifts out a wriggling fish of indeterminate species. (Hopefully Farmer Derek either ate it or tossed it back.)
But before you run out and drop big bucks on a bunch of drones to employ as your own space-age big striped bass collectors, heed this reminder that not everyone likes the idea of using airborne borgs to do our dirty work. Oregon, Montana, Alaska, and Illinois have all drafted proposals to ban the use of drones in hunting and fishing in fears that the "unfair advantage" they introduce over animals—who, for the most part, cannot see from cameras in the sky—could endanger populations of wild fish and game.How much weight can a drone carry, anyway? Is anyone going to be landing a swordfish with these sky 'bots? Nope—even the most powerful drones available on the commercial market can only carry 12 to 20 pounds at the most. Still, that's more than enough to wrangle a decent-sized trout.But that might not offer the same air of relaxation as a day on the lake with a six-pack.