Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations ELECTROFISHING

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