I was thinking along the lines of a 12VDC batery charged by a hand cranked generator, running some kind of invertor from the battery stepping the voltage up to 300VDC, do you think 300VAC would work better? I'm wondering if I used a transformer to step A/C voltage up from a 120VAC output inverter to 360VAC or 480VAC and then use a diode to rectify it to VDC would work, that would only give me roughly 1/2 of the VAC, that would put me around 180VDC-240VDC, am I right?

Use the hand cranked generator to charge the 12 volt battery. Use the 12 volt battery to power a cheap (square wave) inverter so that you have a 140 volt square wave. Use a full wave voltage doubler to give you 280 volts DC. Use ten amp 500 volt diodes and 450 volt capacitors in the doubler circuit. Beware, there will be a shock hazard.

 

Jumping in without reading all the posts:

Don't know how much this puts out but it puts out quite a snap. Don't know if it would do anything to fish but it's cheap.
https://www.harborfreight.com/electronic-fly-and-insect-swatter-63681.html

Few years back I had cats invading my neighborhood. Particularly my yard and making home. Ferrel cats. So I put out a metal screen. On top of that I put a ceramic tile. On top of that I put a stainless steel cat food dish. Disassembled the fly swatter and wired it to a 3.3V DC source. Extended the output wires and put alligator clips on the ends. Clipped one to the metal screen and the other to the dish. A cat would have to stand on the metal screen to reach the food dish. As soon as they made contact with the food they got a snap either to the nose or to the tongue. Home security video captured several cats investigating then high tail it out of my yard. Those cats have never returned.

Don't know if this will help you catch fish, but for a few bucks and a field test (not withstanding the plug in power supply) a test with two AA batteries to see how fish respond to when the wires make contact with the water.

The way it works is it charges up a DC capacitor. Upon bridging the leads of the cap the discharge is like snapping the palm of your hand with a rubber band. Doesn't hurt but it doesn't feel good either. Works on keeping cats away. Don't know if it will tickle fish to the surface.

I've told you what I've done. What you do is your sole responsibility. Any violation of laws is solely upon you. I take no responsibility for what you may do with this information.

 

To produce a significant electric field across a volume of water is going to require a fair amount of current. And power. Much more than a bug shocker.

 

To produce a significant electric field across a volume of water is going to require a fair amount of current. And power. Much more than a bug shocker.

I concur, a LOT more. and has to be across a wide area.

 

To produce a significant electric field across a volume of water is going to require a fair amount of current. And power. Much more than a bug shocker.

I concur, a LOT more. and has to be across a wide area.

I suppose so.

 

I asked if I could use a hand crank to charge a battery, then discharge the battery, he told me it did not matter to him as long as i did not go over 300 Volts output,

I think if you ran into a different game warden, he may not agree that a battery power device is hand-cranked, and give you a fine.
To me, that's skirting the intent of the law.

 

The reason it says Hand Cranked is because the original way was to use the Hand Crank out of an old telephone set as the device. Was a very popular way to catch fish back in the days when all the old hand cranked phones were replaced by rotary dial phones and the cranked generators were widely available as scrap. Didn't take too long for it to become an illegal way of taking fish the same as dynamite fishing. It is used by the various Wildlife Agencies as a means of determining the fish populations in areas by shocking and counting what floats up. Also widely used by Wildlife Agencies as a means of thinning out invasive Carp populations. Legal to use in private fish ponds for harvesting fish although most use the drain and scoop method.

 

Those old hand-crank telephone generators can still be bought on E-Bay.