To answer the original question...yes you can use a field phone (or as the original outlaws did, use an old fashioned hand crank phone - like mine
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It only works on catfish, and best on little channel cats and larger flatheads, for some reason. Haven't done this in years (not since I was young and dumb) but it was illegal as he**, sometimes risky and a whole buncha fun. Didn't keep many because we were too slow with the net and mostly just wanted to see what was in the river. BTW, it never did seem to work in a pond, and I got various (meaningless) suggestions as to why this was...
Please don't flame me, but we were kids and bored and we weren't doing drugs ('cept beer) nor tearing up others' property. I'm 40 now, and lo' to be able to spend hours up to my neck in water and able to swim forever and do this kind of stuff...
PSS...according to our local DNR guys who do this for a living too, the units they use are way more potent and bring up everything in their range. Could possibly kill a man in the water (drown???) so they have dead man's switches on the platform so if they fall in, the unit disconnects/dies immediately.
