Telephone Magnetos, Worm-shocking and Electrofishing

When I was about 7, a family friend gave my father a fantastic hand-cranked device which powered a set of bells. We were told it was a service ringer for a general store, and enjoyed it greatly. The ringer soon broke and was removed, allowing for great (and shocking) experiments with electricity. I remember taking it to school in 4th grade and having a whole ring of people hold hands, with the people on either end holding the wires and another cranking the gadget. It was great watching everyone jump reflexively at the same moment! [] Years passed, the device stopped working and passed from conscious thought.

A few weeks ago I randomly made the connection that crank telephones needed a source of power and that the device I once played with might have been such a source, which my search for "telephone magneto" quickly corroborated. I spent a while reading about the magnetos, then learned that they were very popular in the South for "telephoning fish" or fishing via electrocution, a process which always interested me.

Being the curious sort, I decided to wait for a decent deal on ebay so I could resume my experiments long delayed by a faulty apparatus. I know that it is generally illegal to fish with electricity in the US, but since I don't like eating fish I figure i could try the process out and conduct my tests under the guise of "population surveys" rather than fishing. That or just scare the Asian carp out of the water, which could be quite interesting in its own right.

I found the decent deal, with the original box to help keep it from getting gunked-up and to allow for more stable electrical connections which was what I wanted (The first one was stand-alone and more susceptible to both the elements and to operator error). I replaced the handle with the one from the old unit, as the one I bought was bent.



General-purpose light bulb activator and sibling-goad. [8D]


Aside from torturing fish, I wanted one of these to both recapture a wisp of nostalgia and to tinker with simple electric principles using a portable and robust source of power. They really are magnificent little gems of antiquated electrical technology; elegant in their simplicity, robust and pragmatic in engineering. I highly recommend getting one of these fascinating little machines to any and all inquisitive minds, or those who wish to show that Magneto is not just a Marvel comic character. []


So, any suggestions regarding electrofishing, worm shocking, or other worthy applications of such a tool? Any cool fishing experiences with magnetos? Let's hear em!

Brubaker and the line "Ya got a phone call" comes to mind.

Had to look that one up osia. That movie is apparently a bit before my time, hence my ignorance of the quote. Looks like a good movie.

I remember years ago hearing about shocking the ground in order to bring night crawlers to the surface , but never heard of using it for fishing . Learn something new every day .

Yea LC if ya live near a "nuke plant" this is how they check the fish surrounding the plant. Well it's how they get enough to the top to check.

You can also use it when fishing w/ dynamite, gotta have something to set the blasting cap off.

Hmm, know where I can get any dynamite Osia? Strictly for educational purposes, of course. []

I figure I could make some KClO3 and Aluminum flash powder charges instead of using regulated blasting caps, and they certainly could be electrically detonated with a little nichrome wire + electrons. The dynamite is the tough part though. Guess I could settle for an ANFO mixture and experiment with that. Got plenty of ammonium nitrate and diesel is everywhere. A while back I watched a video where people living in the tropical Pacific threw weighted pint plastic water bottles full of ANFO into coastal reef areas to blast fish out of the water, and they used a fuse. The purpose of the video was to demonize the evil reef-destroyers, but it only served to demonstrate how easy it is to make and use high-explosives.

Thanks for the info Pat , never knew that either . We used to drop M80s into the creek when I was a young lad , that had a tendency to bring a few fish up now and then too .