Marcum VS 825SD camera review

I’ve only been able to use the camera for about 2 hours and while there is a learning curve I LOVE IT. I can see the potential and I know I’ll find so many uses for this camera.

I was intending on buying the VS 625SD but at the store Nicole insisted on getting the 8″ screen version. “What’s another $130 bucks? Didn’t you always tell me you never regret getting the big unit?” Got to love a wife like that.

It’s a super easy plug and play system out of the box. The on screen temp and depth will be extremely valuable. I can’t wait for tomorrow to play with it some more.

I got the 625sd. Love it!!!!!!! Great product.

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I was intending on buying the VS 625SD but at the store Nicole insisted on getting the 8″ screen version. “What’s another $130 bucks?

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Last year when I bought mine I had the same thought, why not spend the extra money so we can have the best of the best. I like the way Nicole thinks.

Wade, are you using it on the river? It’s clearing up very nicely for this time of year!

I like the depth and temp but the directional arrow is what is the most important to me. Sure makes finding your lure faster while on a lake and knowing the direction of the camera helps me find fish on the river.

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Wade, are you using it on the river? It’s clearing up very nicely for this time of year!

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Not yet.

Ok, here is my second take on it.

I spent 4 hours with the camera today. I am extremely happy with it regardless of what I spent on it. Water clarity allowed us about 5′ of visibility so that’s a 10′ radius of visibility. That actually came in handy and directly resulted in a caught fish. I’m not saying the pike wouldn’t have been caught anyhow but we saw the pike looking around about 6′ away from a bait, gave it a jiggle and it was fish on. I found this to be extremely helpful and even more so than the flasher in certain situations. A flasher and camera compliment each other nicely. In the water we were fishing the flasher gave me a 3′ radius view of what was below that certain hole where the camera covered at least 10′ radius of the same bottom structure.

The auto panner is worth twice its weight in gold. You can get by without it, but it really is a must have to take advantage of the 360* viewing capability of the camera without the frustration of panning the camera by hand (by hand is rather clumsy).

Here are a few notes I’ve taken. James and BK, perhaps Marcum would like to hear this.

#1. The auto panner’s remote should be wireless. This would make this item 100X better. Running around the house with cleats on you are constantly worried about stepping on and cutting/breaking the cord.

#2. There is no place in the camera bag to store the auto panner. It would be nice to keep these two related items stored together.

#3. There is no memory storage port/device on the camera. It would be nice not to have to buy more hardware just to record video vs. just sticking an SD card in a SD card port.

#4. It would be valuable if there were numerical markings around the screen to correlate with the directional indicator. That way you could associate #22 with a certain rod instead of trying to remember where on the screen that indicator needs to be for a certain rod.

#5. The handle is on the side of the unit and while carrying it, you are prone to setting it down in the slush/dirt without plastic “feet” to keep up slightly raised. The plastic “feet” are on the bottom and you need to rotate the unit 90* just to set it down vs. just setting it down from the handle.

These are all minor things that Marcum could do to improve the finer points of these units. Not one of them should dissuade a person from buying one of these. They are great as they are.

I can see the value of this unit and with 6 hours of use, I’ve already learned a lot. I can’t wait to use this item in all aspects of fishing and see what else I can learn.

Thanks Wade,

The folks at MarCum more then likely have seen your post already.

It’s a hoot watching a fish come in isn’t it!

I’ve only had mine for one weekend and have only been on the water for a couple of hours and I can honestly say I will not fish without it being along. But the only problem is now I want to record some of what I have seen. So it will cost me more in the end, but I think it is a hoot. And thanks BK for the video on what I will need. And I was able to determine which ice holes to use based on panning the camera around and seeing or not seeing fish. I also used the downward scanning to watch how the fish were reacting to my jigging and I learned a bunch while watching. And if you want you can pick which fish you want or don’t wnat to catch if they are aggressive.