Before posting my question, i researched the pond boss archives to see all the electrofishing questions of the past.

I learned that it costs thousands of dollars, and it should be left to professionals.

What im wondering is How do you become a professional electroshocker? What are the rules and regulations about electroshocking? Where can you buy an electroshocking boat (with all the bells and whistles)?

Depends on what you mean by professional electroshocker. Do you mean for your own use or as a person that manages ponds for a living and uses electroshocking as a tool?

Here's a website that sells the equipment:

http://www.smith-root.com/products/

Notice how expensive it is? That's probably because they sell to government entities and when the taxpayer is footing the bill the price really gets jacked up. The manufacturer also offers classes.

I bought a used unit from Todd Overton for a fraction of the cost of a new one. I'm just now finally getting around to building the boom.

Here's a link to some good inforamation on electroshocking:

http://www.sfos.uaf.edu/shockingnews/index.html

The number one rule is to always stay in the boat. Other than that, there are no rules and regulations that I know of. Re-read rule number one. It's fairly important.

Don't know what you have in mind. It is not as easy as crank it up and go. There is an entire section in Fisheries Tech 2nd on the subject.

Rule 1A the same as rule 1 but it applies to hands , feet, nets or other items in the water. Yours , others on the boat or even those following along in boats around you. It can be a shocking encounter. Rule 1 and 1A are corollaries of the concept that electricity and water don't mix well.

Rule 2 be sure it has a kill switch and that you know about it and use it every time.

Rule number 2 reads something like this:

"Always stay in the boat"

Rule number 3 clearly states:

"Keep your hands, feet, nets and other items in the boat"

Rule number 4 states:

"Carefully read all of the previous rules"

Rule number 5 states:

Either be extremely willing the learn about the dangers of electrofishing, or don't do it at all"

Take a wild guess what rule number 6 is?

Here is my commentary on electrofishing and a couple additional things for you to consider and research.

Firstly, get some HANDS ON (not just watching) experience using a fish electroshocker with someone else. I have participated in electroshocking for sampling fish in college and as a helper on numerous fish sampling projects.

Considering the cost & maintenence of all equipment and then amount of effort required each time, and the overall results of the fish produced, and limitations of the technique (only good in shallow water up to 4-6ft & that it is most successful at night, mismatches in power transfer, & better in higher conductivity waters), I am not impressed with the techinque and it is over rated as a tool for the private pond owner. Other disadvantages of fish shockers are: the shock zone is not all that large, often numerous fish sense the encroachment of the boat &/or the electrical current field and avoid the shock zone by moving away or deeper, numerous fish (maybe the larger percentage) are only partially or inadequately stunned and cavort out of the reach of the netters. Some species of fish are more vulnerable to electrofishing than others. Some types of fish due to morphology, physiology, and behavior or habitat preference are poorly sampled by electrofishing. Electrofishing tends to be biased toward sampling the larger fish. Water temperature, water transparency (cloudiness), substrate composition, and habitat/cover all affect the electrofishing efficiency directly and indirectly. Electrofishing units in untrained or unknowledgable hands often results in over stressed and injured fish which later die. Improper electrofishing can cause fish injury such as acidosis & reduced respiratory efficiency which can eventually kill fish. Injuries usually take two forms brusing or hemorrhages and fractures in hard tissues. More study needs to be done on the effects of electroshocking on fish eggs (laid and unlaid). So you could actually be inadvertently killing or permenately damaging some of your better and more prized fish by improperly electrofishing.

As commonly mentioned the technique is extremly dangerous to even trained users. Make sure insurance policies are paid up for all users; accidents very easily happen on rocking boats and with excitable, nonfocused, inexperienced, "helpers".

Secondly, Electrofishing is a good tool for a private or government business where time is money and they need a relatively good AND quick idea of what fishes are present to make mananagement decisions. BUT FOR THE EDUCATED AND INOVATIVE PONDOWNER WHO HAS CONSTANT ACCESS TO THIS POND, THERE ARE JUST AS GOOD, IF NOT BETTER WAYS OF SAMPLING FISH TO DETERMINE THE OVERALL COMPOSITION OF A FISHERY COMMUNITY. Note that almost always a written report is created (or should be created) from each electrofishing sampling trip. This is performed to make an educated, data filled, statistical evaluation of the electrofishing results. If one is not capabale of writing one of those reports, then I my opinion, you have no business with a fish electroshocking unit because you do not know how to make best use of the information gleened from the equipment.

In summary, electrofishing is a glamorous and seemingly impressive way to collect fish from your pond. But due to its inherent danger and several other disadvantages it is a sampling method that is best used by those with some training and experience.

A little research into a good fisheries techniques book will reveal other very good, sometimes better, and definately safer methods FOR PRIVATE PONDOWNERS to themselves sample their fish (as ewest mentions, see the book Fisheries Techniques, 2nd edition, 1996, by Brian Murphy & David Willis (Dr Willis is a PB regular forum contributor; book is available from sellers such as Amazon.com)). Hopefully Pond Boss magazine will in the future, feature some of these fish sampling techniques and how to effectively use the results or data they are capable of producing to help pondowners improve or enhance their fish populations.

As a pond owner and someone who has had electroshocking performed once on one of my ponds, I completely agree with Bill's post above. The technique is way over-rated as a tool for the private pond owner who pays attention to their ponds.

I'm not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to electricity but is there really an electrocution danger from fish shocking? Our DNR uses backpack units where they walk in the water with waders. That has to be real dangerous! I'm thinking that since electricity takes the shortest path to ground there would be little danger in sticking your hand out of a boat since the electricity would be traveling from electrode to electrode amidst a rather large volume of water. Perhaps the danger is in the fact that the human body is more conductive than water? What kind of voltage and current are we talking about anyway?

Without getting too technical, I suspect backpack units have a lot less "oomph" on fish or humans than generator driven electroshock units on boats.

Good question whether Humans are more conductive than freshwater. IIRC blood salinity is pretty much the same as seawater, so conductivity from NaCl would be higher in bodies. I don't know what effect the other electrolytes in pondwater would have (calcium, for example), but mostly it's just too darn dangerous to take a chance.

Cody are you trying to put me out of business, just kidding. I agree in many respects to its limitations. For a onetime picture of current popualtion dynamics I think nothing better is avaialbe.

I just wish all pondowners had more realistic expectations. Folks think every fish in the pond is going to be captured. However I feel very confident when I interpret the data in what is going on in the pond and feel 100% confidnet in recommendations according to the goals of pondowner based on this information. So yes you need to understand how it works to make adjustments according to pond parameters to maximizie the capture effectivenes and know how to interprt the results and this will only come with expereince. It has its drawbacks but until something else comes along for analysis we will keep the boat on the road.

This has been an extremely valuable thread, and I learned several important lessons from this outstanding thread. The most valuable of these is that I won't ever electroshock fish myself and, if I were staying in the pond world, I would continue to have it professionally done, as I have in the past.

A related question is that I once had the pond electrofished by a reputable private company and had it sampled by seining by the state fishery folks in the same year. The results were not even similar. The sein showed a pond in balance. The electrofishing showed a pond very much in imabalance, with more bass than bluegill! I decided, based on what I was catching (many small bass, moderate numbers of very large bream and very small ones, and almost no bluegill in the intermediate range, that the electrofishing results were more reliable. Is this generally true?
Thanks,
Lou

Greg, I am not trying to put anyone out of business. A quick scan of my above post might lead one to think this way. However if you carefuly re-read the post it says - "Secondly, Electrofishing is a good tool for a private or government business where time is money and they need a relatively good AND quick idea of what fishes are present to make mananagement decisions."

I think Greg qualifies as a private business. I have confidence that he has academic training in the use of the equipment, he can adequately use electroshocking gear, has lots of experience in using the gear and can make educated evaluations regarding the fish that are collected. If one has these abilities then by all means electrofishing can be a valuable tool for assessing the dynamics of a fish community.

When Greg or another fisheries pro is paid for electroshocking, they are being paid for (at least) three things: 1) use of the e-shock equipment, 2) operating said equipment, and 3) interpretation of the results gathered by that equipment. IMHO #3 is where they really earn their money.

In my profession, anyone can look at 1 1/2 inches of results printed out during and after a 30 hour calibration run. But there are very few who know what parts of that data are important and what they really mean.

In my business taking dental radiographs is a science. Interpretation of the radiographs is an art. The latter is much more difficult to teach.

Bill,

I found you post utterly shocking!

Does this mean you're not coming over for my first try at electroshocking?

I'll be dropping the water level to about 5 feet max which should shock the *&%$##% out of those little devils! :p :p :p

Thanks everybody for the input. GREG, i am especially interested in picking your brain (no offense to everybody else) . Do you enjoy electroshocking? Where did you get your training? Where did you get your boat? Do you stay busy?

I am coming over and I am bringing my camera for your first shocking adventure. I can give you some basic beginners advice. Plus someone has to be there real close by to call 911 just in case. For your wife's sake, make sure you have your last will & testiment finalized just in case.

Dr Willis' book discusses backpack stream e-fishing units. Some important points are:

1. Dry skin, thick rubber gloves, rubber waders, and clothing covered with rubber insulation are necessities. No leaks -
2. A waterproof container to house the shocker.
3. Electrical system can be 12V deep cycle batttery or 110-120V AC generator. Gel batteries are safer than acid batteries.
4. Electrodes must be insulated from the operator with nonconductive handles 1.5-2.0 m long.
5. Saftey system must include automatic & manual circuit breakers. Automatic switch must be tilt activated; reset must me manual. Anodes should not be used as dip nets to capture OR move fish.

Wading in a slippery bottomed rock filled stream carrying a high powered electrocution device sounds like "spitting in the eye of the devil" and a good way to shorten one's life span.

Not sure why you are wanting to electroshock. I have been able to get the area Kansas fish & game fish specialist (not sure of his official title) to put his shock boat on my pond on two separate ocassions about 8 years apart. I did it to check the overall fish population, & size to determine if there was a certain size of fish I needed to thin out a little when pond was extra low due to drought when going into fall 7 winter. Pond has LMB, BG and CC. If you have someone similar near you it might be worth a phone call. I was able to ride in the boat with a net to help gather the fish that came to the top. it will give you a different perspective on the fish in your pond.

So you mean to tell me this whole electroshocking thing isn't just as simple as throwing in the wifes hair dryer???

Bill, make sure it's a video camera this has "internet legend" written all over it.

All kidding aside, great topic. I was not aware of the limitations of electroshocking. Out of curiosity about how much does this type of service cost?

(I guess the wifes hair dryer is safe for now).

(ok most kidding aside, you guys should know by now with me it's never all kidding aside).

The conductivity in certain waters isn't good for electrofishing. My water's salinity (and some other factors that I'm not smart enough to understand) make it a poor choice for shocking.

I have a theory, and it's just a theory, that if a pondowner had an electrofisher unit and IF he used it on a regular basis say monthly or even once every two months in his own pond, at least one or two things would likely happen. 1. The fish that would get shocked on an initial frequent basis would quickly learn to avoid either the oncoming electrical current or a noisy boat that contained a generator. I am sure the gas powered generator produces lots of sound vibrations that transmit into the water. 2. Frequently shocked fish, maybe several times a year, would start to exhibit some sort of physical or mental stress which would lead to health problems.

I am not sure if this has ever been studied. There is some published data about a short term study on the affects of repeated electroshocking on fish at one day intervals (Cross & Stott 1975). It did not seem to affect them very much.

Fish seem to learn to avoid lures and some other negative reinforcements, why not electroshocking?

Either what Bill said, or the fish would start to glow....almost like how Uncle Fester could light a bulb by putting it in his mouth.

n8ly
This is off the toppic, but I see you are from Peoria. Is that Illinois, or Arizona?

Safety, safety, safety!! I can't stress that enough for electrofishing. Bill C. covered this pretty well, but let me make a few points, and answer at least one question.

Boat electrofishing -- ALL boat occupants must wear life jackets, rubber gloves, and rubber boots. We allow no exceptions, even on a warm, sunny day when people want to work on a sun tan. Boats typically have two safety switches. One is usually a switch on the electrofishing control unit which the boat driver can hit quickly. The other is usually a foot pedal or foot pad for the front of the boat. The dipper, who stands behind a waist-high rail, has to step on the pedal to allow electricity to flow to the water. If that person would happen to fall in, the foot would come off the pedal, and the circuit would be cut.

Someone (BZ, I think) asked about the backpack units. The ones with generators are designed to automatically shut off if they move too far from vertical. So, if a person fell, the generator "should" shut off (mechanical failures are a different matter). Also, the "wands" that put the electricty into the water have a switch on them. The switch must be depressed to complete the circuit. If you fell, you are supposed to let go of the switch. All you would need to do is relax your hand, and it would turn off, which I would guess would be a natural response. Despite these safety features, I'm not sure we can even buy a generator backpack unit any longer. You can buy the battery ones, but not the generator ones. When we checked with the two primary companies (one US and one in Canada), neither sold generator types because of "safety" reasons.

Finally, YES, electrofishing is an art. I have no doubt that Greg Grimes is great at it. However, there is indeed a learning curve for rookies.

n8ly "Thanks everybody for the input. GREG, i am especially interested in picking your brain (no offense to everybody else) . Do you enjoy electroshocking? Where did you get your training? Where did you get your boat? Do you stay busy?"

1. Yes probably my favorite part of the business.
2. UGA Masters in Fisheries, Intern with state DNR, MOSTLY trial and error with our equipment and reading alot about how it is "supposed" to work.
3.Shock unit for first baot from Smith-Root 2.5 GPP built boat. 2nd one Univ Wisconsin box with purchaseed locally generator and made boat. Third being built this winter.
4. Luckily very much so.

Lou.. other thing is the state just does a basic test. We also conduct the same seine surveys where elctrofishing is not feasible. We do not simply say blanced or unbalanced but to what degree, we couple it with rod and reel for bass and run Wr. So the results of seine and electro should if interpreted properly come to same conclusions just limited by seine more than electro, make sense?

Price is $500 plus mileage plus extra for larger than 20 acres. This includes shock, weed id, water quality, basic dam inspection, report with rec. on harvest, stocking feeding, fertilization, wed control and fish habitat. I think this is very fair and honestly might have to go a up a little. The time it takes collecting data and generating report plus wear on equipment is not the best money maker. However it usually leads to other sales and that from a businees stand point is the good part.

Cody I agree with you on fish avoiding shock. Folks want us to remove stunted bass for instance. If we do not get them on first pass you might as well just forget it. the succes of shocking the same preferred area second go around nets less than 10% of fish from couple hours earlier. Also Ray Scott said " Boy I tell you tht boat does not look like much but you shocked up more forage fish than any of the other consultants." I think it was b.c the current was little diff than the "norm" for his pond that he shcoks several times per year so fish might have been fooled?

Last Yes Theo I think you are correct paying Pro for interp. of results. there is another company here in ATL. They went out and got the top of the line SMith-Root boat. However I saw the report and Man let me tell you you guys would have seen right thru the BS. They got some good fish but made rec. to release all bass back under 14 inches when Wr was 78% for bass less than 14 inches with quality bass as goal set. So Yes you are paying for what they tell you more than collection process.

The wand safety switch worries me a little. Electrical Engineers are taught for safety is that if you have to touch a live circuit, do it with the back of your hand - any shock can cause your muscles to contract and you don't want this to cause you to grip the power source even tighter. I got the same intructions from my Father-in-Law, who picked it up in construction. So I would worry that being shocked might prevent me from releasing a wand safety switch. Perhaps this is another reason the backpack units are being OSHAd away.

BTW, doesn't "safety switch" sound much nicer than "dead man switch"?

Theo -- maybe that's part of the reason you can no longer buy the generator-operated backpack units? The wands typically have a switch under plastic/rubber, and usually a thumb has to depress it. Maybe I better get rid of our last two backpack units. We do have one of those small, battery-powered units, and it works pretty well in small streams and for small fish.

I try to be very careful with electricity.

When I hooked up the farm to our 400 Amp service box, my wife walked passed and asked her father why he was just standing around holding an 8 foot 2"x4". He told her it was to try and pry me out of the box if I made a mistake. She thought about it a while, turned kind of white, and said 400 amps was a lot.

I should have kept my mouth shut (imagine that), but I told her that if I got shocked on the supply side of the fuses, it'd more likely be a few thousand amps - whatever it took to melt the line coming down the driveway on the power poles. At least my father-in-law got a chuckle out of it. All I got was one of those looks...

Peoria, Illinois.

Sorry for such a long delay, I went on a 10 day fishing trip to the gulf coast, and didn't have any internet access. Thanks for all the information (especially all the safety tips). Everybody is invited to my pond for my first electrofishing experience. It will be a few years though, until i will be able to purchase a boat.

n8ly I am originally from Peoria Illinois, thats why I asked. I moved to Ava, Missouri in 1982. I went to PHS from 71-75. Just alittle info.

Wow, i guess that makes you pretty old, i was born in 83. I hope to have my shocking boat by june 2008. you'll definitely be there then for my huge learning how to shock fish get together, since your familiar with the area.

LOL OLD? Thats relative, I call it experience! LMAO

What part of Peoria are you in?

BTW my son was born in 1983.

I'm on the edge of my seat. Is this gonna be one of those Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker moments?

I live north of town, near dunlap. If you have been to peoria recently, the grand prairie mall is right in my back yard. Back in 82 though it would have been all open fields.

I am kind of new to computers etc, (married now, cant be outside as much) and it takes me awhile to figure out all of these abbreviations. i couldnt figure out what lmao was though.

also theo, i never have seen that movie with darth vader or luke skywalker.

Sorry, n8ly, "The Empire Strikes Back" came out 3-4 years before you were born. You can probably find it in the classics section at the video store, on a dusty old Betamax tape. Darth Vader turned out to be Luke's father.

We have tried to compile a useful list of Commonly Used Acronyms , especially since we have many here that are probably unique. But widespread ones like LMAO should also be listed (albeit PG-13-ized).

Theo
:p I think I would know if he were my son, you are showing your age too. Loved that movie tho.

n8ly I use to ride my horse out your way, I have been there a few times since I moved, still have family there. It's really hard to believe how much it has changed.


LMAO= Laughing my a@@ off. and yeah I guess it should be LMHO= Laughing my head off.

thanks for the list, that will save quite a bit of time not having to try and decipher everything.

On June 24, 2008 I picked up my electrofishing boat! A gal from Iowa called me up out of the blue a few days earlier saying that she had a brand new electrofishing boat sitting in her garage for the last 2 years. The original owner went bankrupt before he even got to use the boat more than a couple times.

I then took the boat down to Shawn for some customization and tweaking! I have the best electrofishing boat in the state of Illinois! The state guys boats look like tinker toys compared to this custom rig. Also got her built practically brand new for a small fraction of the cost of a comparable smith root setup.

Here are some pics of a few recent outings:

Very informative!

I believe I'll just continue my current sampling method - 1 worm at a time. ;-)

Lets see some pictures of the boat!

Here is a couple without the motor:

That is obscenely clean.

Well I'm ashamed to say I haven't built my booms etc. yet for the boat. Got everything I need though. To many other projects have priority and of course there is that pesky thing where I have to work to make a living which takes time away from the fun stuff.

I also need to get my boat to a son of my brother-in-law that works for Starcraft boats and will fix a slow leak in my aluminum boat. I'm thinking 6 inches of water under the deck isn't good if you're electroshocking.

This thread dated back to 2006 and I was wondering what happened to your boat Cecil? Let me know when you get the project completed.

Won't be until next spring. It would come in handy now as I'm draining a pond and need remove the bigger fish to another pond.

Wow! thanks for the pictures, never seen a shock boat that clean before.

Looks plenty wide. Lots of storage space too.

Did you add any pipe to the generator exhaust system? They can really mess up the side of the boat if it doesn't get up and out over the edge of the boat. Plus its no good having all those fumes hanging around in the boat.

What company make this boat? I have never seen a boat look quite like this one. Very nice and in my mind perfect boat for the job.

It looks like it needs some empty "cans" in it to give it that professional look Nice looking boat by the way

I did not add a pipe system to the generator exhaust, but will have to at some point. It is indeed blowing right against the side of the boat and turning that area black. We collected 1000's of bluegill fry from a local pond today to feed our Smallmouth Bass fingerlings.

Then we went out and shocked with the DNR biologist on the Illinois River (with his boat) and we dialed up 1000's of Asian Carp! They would jump right into the tanks of water, and right back out into the river! We had fish flopping in the boat like crazy. Our mission today was to collect freshwater drum to help out some sort of mussel reproduction study?