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Fish Shocker to harvest 500 lbs

Cajunyankee

Cajunyankee

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2017
Messages
768
I have a farm pond that is stocked with catfish and I want to try shocking them to harvest about 500lbs. My understanding is that it is perfectly legal since they are considered livestock. Anyone have any experience or can give insight on how to do it? I have done some internet searching and most of the time it will say doesn’t work in ponds and that you must have flowing water. Hoping that someone on her can help.
 
Never done it before so this may not be correct but I’ve always been under the impression that the shocked area doesn’t extend out very far from the probe or whatever it’s called.

A low tech option I have used (takes several people) is to use a large net extended across an area of a pond. The person on each end slowly walk around the bank toward a third person who sits on the ground at the waters edge with chest waders on. The ground person pulls up the bottom of the net sort of like a purse seine and starts collecting up fish by hand and throwing back the bycatch.

No idea how much a net like that would cost or where you’d buy one. The one we were using had to have been 100’ long and 6’ wide, maybe 8’ I can’t remember, it was 25 yrs ago :D

edit…look up seining fish in a pond on YT and a bunch of videos come up showing different ways to do it
 
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There are people that do it for a living. It may be cheaper than a net. If you are pulling out cats, make a hog wire trap, put a can of dog food in it with holes punched in the side. It shouldn’t take you to long to pull 500 lbs out. I promise you it would be cheaper then a swine net.


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I think I remember seeing something about draining fish ponds to harvest them. Probably more hassle than it's worth though. Some NatGeo specials probably show these in action, I think a car battery and large capacitor are the main components. Personally I'd probably try to make some sort of fish trap, lots of info in the historical record about fish traps, get them penned in and get after them with a dip net or landing net.
 
Cajunyankee said:
I have a farm pond that is stocked with catfish and I want to try shocking them to harvest about 500lbs. My understanding is that it is perfectly legal since they are considered livestock. Anyone have any experience or can give insight on how to do it? I have done some internet searching and most of the time it will say doesn’t work in ponds and that you must have flowing water. Hoping that someone on her can help.
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Catch 1 500lb catfish and call it a day, lol.

97D2BA98-5651-4F70-93C5-88B8BE4333ED.jpeg
 
How big is this pond and what is the bottom like? Wondering if a cast net could be a better solution
 
gcr0003 said:
I’m surprised no one has asked why 500 lbs and why in general? You planning a church cook out or what?
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Yearly freezer restock. I have 5 freezers. 1- fish and shrimp. 2 for beef because I butcher a cow every other year. 1- pork and 1 freezer for deer.

I never even noticed there was a meat shortage when COVID happened until I saw it on Facebook
 
gcr0003 said:
I’m surprised no one has asked why 500 lbs and why in general? You planning a church cook out or what?
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I figured he had to many, and wanted to remove them. It’s pretty common practice in the South.


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shmelton said:
I figured he had to many, and wanted to remove them. It’s pretty common practice in the South.


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As a yankee I wouldn’t know anything about that. I see he is a Cajun yankee though so that probably explains it.
 
I used to help folks shock fish for research and it worked just fine in slow moving streams and in pools in said streams. Never saw it in a lake or pond.

These were backpack models (one battery, one gas powered) with a rat tail hanging off the back and a sweeper thing that looked like a big metal detector.

You had to use good waders without holes and not touch the water or you got a little shock.

It was super effective and kinda neat.

My grandfather told me about russians in WW2 fishing with grenades. I wonder if an explosive not at the bottom of the pond wouldn't work (wouldn't wanna hurt the pond).

Lastly, I used to use catfish traps (expanding net with metal rings, same concept as a minnow trap) to catch snapping turtles (also research) using sardines as bait. They were super effective for them and might work for your catfish also.
 
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raisins said:
I used to help folks shock fish for research and it worked just fine in slow moving streams and in pools in said streams. Never saw it in a lake or pond.

These were backpack models (one battery, one gas powered) with a rat tail hanging off the back and a sweeper thing that looked like a big metal detector.

You had to use good waders without holes and not touch the water or you got a little shock.

It was super effective and kinda neat.

My grandfather told me about russians in WW2 fishing with grenades. I wonder if an explosive not at the bottom of the pond wouldn't work (wouldn't wanna hurt the pond).

Lastly, I used to use catfish traps (expanding net with metal rings, same concept as a minnow trap) to catch snapping turtles (also research) using sardines as bait. They were super effective for them and might work for your catfish also.
Click to expand...
Yeah a big hoop net and some limberger cheese should be easy to get 500 pounds.
 
BTaylor said:
Yeah a big hoop net and some limberger cheese should be easy to get 500 pounds.
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for turtles, we would crack a can of sardines to make them leak and tie it inside the net....those snapping turtles went nuts....we didn't catch any catfish but maybe we did and the several snappers (fighting each other) in the net might've ate them...or the fish were too smart to want any of that smoke

tangent...but those snappers were really tough and territorial....we'd find them biting each other in the face and i'd assume they'd been doing that for a while underwater....and not a scratch on the ugly stinky things
 
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