bigb8bigfish,

I am not a biologist but have volunteered alot on the electro fishing surveys.
As long as the amperage is adjusted properly there is little risk to the fish. They are stunned,netted,then put in a sizable livewell. at the end of the collection process they are anestisized it five gallon bucket full of water using for the most part CO2 ran through an aquarium bubbler. Once anesnitized they are weighed measured and There stomachs get pumped with water to force out what they have been eating. The contents are put in plastic containers and labeled for identifacation later. The fish are the put back in the livewell and released once the have recuperated.

The amperage can be tricky to set properly because the ph and content of the water can effect conductivity. also , sunfish species seem more resistant than trout to electric shock. sometimes the amperage will be to high and kill the trout but this is normally easy to identify and easy to correct. Few fish are lost, and those are usually because of handling, one of the more common mistakes is punching holes in the fishes stomach and making a water balloon while trying to flush the stomach with water. Some fish have items that are hard to retrieve like crawdads. In that case they use tongs and reach into the fishes stomach to pull out the contents, some fish were lost in that process too.

they do not close the lake for this they just warn nearby boaters especially aluminum ones ha ha


As far as fishing goes repeated visit from the electro boat definetly affects fishing success in a negative way.