Two Poachers Were Busted Using This Old-School Outlaw Technique to Shock Catfish

Georgia game wardens caught two poachers last week in what must have felt like a scene from the past, when Southern outlaws still prowled the banks with telephones. The two poachers were caught red-handed trying to ditch the conspicuous wooden box, but the wardens recognized it for what it was: an antique telephone being used as a deadly (and illegal) fishing device.

The Georgia DNR explained in a Facebook post that Sgt. Matt Garthright and Warden Chason Brogdon were on patrol in Wilkes County when they came upon the man and woman fishing in a creek. As they approached, the man walked away, tossing the wooden box he was carrying into the water.    

“Sgt. Garthright was able to retrieve the box from the creek and identified it as an outlawed fishing device — an old crank telephone used to shock fish,” the DNR said in the post.

GPB News reports that the man caught red-handed was a 29-year-old Mississippi resident who claimed to be working in Georgia. Neither he nor the woman had a valid fishing license, but the game wardens allowed them to purchase licenses on the spot. The DNR said they charged the man with Shocking Fish and confiscated the antique phone.

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An old-school tactic that goes back generations, “phoning” fish is a crude version of electro-fishing, and it was used to deadly effect in the early 1950s, especially in the South. Poachers back then found that they could use the old crank-style telephones to electrify a fishing hole. And although the electrical current wasn’t strong enough to stun fish with scales, it worked wonders on smooth-skinned catfish.

“Phoning” was finally outlawed in Alabama by the mid-50s, when fisheries managers there saw the impact it was having on local catfish populations. Other states followed suit, and by the mid-80s, crank-phone technology had gone the way of the telegraph machine. But there are still some old phones (and plenty of outlaws) floating around in the Deep South.