Electrofishing in South Carolina with our DNR

[Capt Rick Hiott]

I was asked to go out on the electrofishing boat by the guys at DNR here in Charleston .
Well, we put in at Georgetown and went up the Waccamaw river about 15 miles from the coast. As you can see from the pictures the boat is about 20 feet long and is made out of aluminum.
I'm not a great fan of water and electricity so the first question I asked was about safety. I asked them what I could do and what I shouldn't do. They told me the only thing I shouldn't do was to put my hand in the water when the generator was running.
When we got to our location and got everything set up, the power was turned on and the outboard motor was put in gear. After about a quarter mile of slowly traveling down the bank we had nothing come up. Then as we approached an area that had a small patch of grass that was just off of the bank,,,,sure enough about 40 red drum comes popping up to the surface like they had been hit with a stun gun. This is when you have to be quick with the net and gather all you can before they swim off. The shock just stuns the fish long enough to net them. We had about 40 red drum in the live well in about 60 seconds. The fish are then put into a giant live well for them to calm down and get back to normal.
Then they are carefully measured, tagged and a very small clipping is taken from one of there fins for a DNA sample back at the lab. All information is recorded and entered in a database back at DNR for later studies. All of the fish are released back in the same area where they are taken from.
Mullet is another species that will end up in the live well. These fish are measured and released with no tag.
This system only works in shallow water and the salinity has to be just right. The salinity also determines the voltage settings that is some where around 300 volts. This is the only saltwater marine shocking survey like this in the world.


I hope you enjoy the pictures. They are copyrighted!

[Dixie719]

Pretty Cool!