The new Kid on the Block – The Shark X from Rippton Review

In the drone fishing industry, every once in a while we get a product put in front of us that we are really truly impressed with, this is one of those moments….read on

We have known the Rippton brand for some time and have even fished with the existing fishing drone model.  This is a brand you might have heard of before as they are the manufacturer of the Mobula and have been around for a number of years.  They have been putting out some great product & importantly everything they put on the market globally is already well tried and tested in the harsh conditions in New Zealand prior to release.

The CEO of the company is an avid saltwater fisho and has spent lots of time growing up in Australia, and so a number of years ago he decided that there had to be a better way to Cast your line out from the Shore so he came up with the idea of a fishing drone.

The early days with the Mobula Fishing Drone

So in about 2015/2016 Rippton began working with a Dutch design house for the design of their first fishing drone, they came up with a very unique design that loosely resembled the famous Mobula Ray. In 2018 the Mobula was finally released.  Rippton had come up with a fishing drone that was remarkable and ahead of it’s time with a number of design firsts:  

– The FIRST Fishing Drone with folding Carbon Fibre Arms,
– The FIRST Fishing Drone with an easy slide-in battery,
– The FIRST Fishing Drone to introduce an AUTO Cast Feature in the APP

The Mobula Drone arrived in New Zealand in late 2018, It was Rippton’s first fishing drone and by all accounts the company had done a pretty good job – as shown by the many happy Mobula users around New Zealand, and some good articles written about the Mobula also.

So all the while in the background the team at Rippton having been working quietly on a followup drone to the Mobula.  The company has also been developing all sorts of other technology for recreational fisherman all over the world, so over the last couple of years Rippton released a fully autonomous bait boat for the fresh water course fishing market, and has enjoyed lots of success in the UK and Europe with it.  Called the Catch X, it gives the fisherman the ability to bait different spots of the lake or river automatically using the innovative hand controller and APP, something that had not been done before.

Shark X Arrives in New Zealand in 2022

So finally after years or development and lots of testing in New Zealand, over the coming months the successor to the Mobula is here, the brand new Shark X.  The Shark X sports a new sleek and low profile design – making it perfect for windy conditions.  Like it’s predecessor, the Shark is loaded with new technology, but unlike the Mobula the Shark X is considerably lighter.  The Shark X has some very good additional safety features.  The “Remaining Range” information on the APP is a feature that will be coming in the near future (which gives the fisherman lots of confidence when flying) and also a unique payload overload feature, more on this below.

AUTO Cast, the new & easy way to go Drone fishing 

The Shark X has built on it’s success of the “Auto Cast” feature that was available in the Mobula, and one of the big reasons that model was liked so much by the owners.  If you don’t know how this works then read on.. first you set a position on the APP Map to where you want to drop your bait, hit “GO” and the drone then does the rest…… only stopping to allow you to manually drop the bait above your fishing spot (for safety reasons).  Once the bait is dropped, the drone automatically flys itself home and lands – it couldn’t be easier!

New Gamma Ray Flight Controller makes the Shark X very smart

One very exciting aspect to the Shark X is something that is going on “under the hood” so not so obvious to most people, is that the Shark X now has a new advanced brain (or Flight Controller) – referred to by Rippton as the “Gamma Ray” flight controller.  With more processing power of many other fishing drones on the market, this translates to a drone that is able to think faster & make better decisions while in the air. The Gamma Ray has been a secret project that Rippton’s own engineers have been working on it for quite some time, and they are very proud of what they have been able to achieve. The NET result for the fisherman is a drone that is more stable, easier to use and performs much better under bigger bait payloads.

The Shark X has a Payload Overload Alert

A very cool and innovative feature that really sets the Shark X aside from every other fishing drone is the automatic bait payload overload feature. When the drone gets in the air, it will actually continually tell you the weight of your baits! This is really helpful if you think you might be loading the drone up with too much weight, OR the wind and weather conditions are not so great so you need to watch what weights you are putting on the drone. If the Weight actually goes above 3 KG (which is the maximum for this drone) then a big red circle appears on the APP screen with the actual weight measurement inside. If the drone deems it to be too heavy then it will simply release it, before even starting the fishing mission. As a safety feature we really like this – and it also shows that Rippton are thinking well ahead of the curve….

Heavy Lift – for bigger baits

Like it’s predecessor, the New Shark X is designed to be heavy lift with upto 3 KG in weight and given it’s lightweight design this is pretty impressive! In a world where “Bigger is better” – fishing drones are no different, and more people now are opting for fishing drones that will carry 2kg or greater. With the 3KG Lift Capacity this is especially useful if you are wanting to carry multiple bait payloads, heavy sinkers, or IF you are targeting big species like Sharks where you have a large single bait.

Here at Drone Fishing NZ, we were lucky enough to be given early access to a quick test flight of prototype Shark X recently (well before they go on sale), and under a substantial payload that was swinging at times the Shark X was amazingly stable in the air. So for us it was a no-brainer to get involved with Shark X ourselves so we have decided to range the Shark X in our shop, and we are very excited to be part of the NZ Rippton dealership! There is great service and backup here in New Zealand which is great to see.

Reach out to us if you have any questions about the new Shark X.