There is no earth, that is cut off the jenny, so if you touch the sides of the boat you will get a belt. The anode and cathode are ok as long as they don't come close enough to complete the circuit themselves so about 1ft away is as close as they ever want to get. Fish will come up on both the anode and the cathode but as the cathode is often 30ft or more behind you you must just concentrate on the anode unless you think a fish on the cathode has been hit hard and will still be there when you turn round and get to it.
They don't work as brilliantly as people seem to think, they are not a magic wands and so many factors affect the way in which they will stun a fish although you do find some operators are better than others when it comes to boat handling, flexibility etc. I have had 84 out of 90 carp from a 4 acre lake in a day but that was exceptional. I would say 12ft is a reasonable distance although before a fish is stunned it will try to get away so you then find it is how good you are at seeing signs of fish movement before you can see the fish and pinning it against an obstacle but again this is adversely affected by things such as wind and rain on the surface. People seem to think you just "plug the lake in" and everything floats but it is far from that simple especially if you are moving valuable fish like big carp they must survive and so you electrocute them as little as possible, often only knocking them out for 2-3 secs before you have them out of the water and into the boat. You also need to find a good man to go on the anode as you must work as a team and know what the front man is going to do when either of you spots a fish. I had one bloke and you'd almost guarantee if we hit 5-6 big carp in a group we'd get the lot but then again i've had others who would panic and you'd lose 1 in 2 fish as a result or they'll fall in when you turn hard or drop the anode into the water etc, you can guess which one works the anode for me now...
Ben,I understand that some fish types react differently to others when electro-fished,lets pick a random species like trout for example,how do they react?
Badly! They are a nightmare as if you put too much current across them they de-scale and get black rings on them, if you keep the unit on too long the same and if you get too close to them with the unit on, the same again. They are also quick so you have to be as well and they are often in groups where so many come up at once you won't know which one to go for 1st, by the time you've got 1 or 2 the rest will be gone.
Most fish react in different ways due to their body shape as the electricity puts the muscles either side of the spine into tetanus, so preventing ,movement of the fish and allowing you to pick it up, if you overdo it, the spine will break and the fish will either die or swim with a kinked tail. The fish is affected by the voltage passing across it so if you picture the anode as the middle of a droplet falling into a puddle, the voltage lines are the ripples coming out from this central point. The fish will be affected more the more ripples it covers so now you can see why pike and other long fish are affected badly, this does not make them easier to catch though as they are so quick to be out of your way, whereas small fish like 4" roach are covered by fewer (or sometimes even none in the case of fry) "ripples" and so are harder to catch as they are affected less. These "ripples" are divided into 3 main zones of interest for the purposes of someone who is electrofishing:
Zone of indifference (can feel current and swims away)
Zone of inhibited swimming (tries to swim away but is slower or abnormal-may be in circles or forced to swim towards anode)
Zone of tetanus (Knocked out)
Tetanus is the one you are after but not to the extent that it damages the fish by either breaking the back or cooking the internal organs so fishing the fish as light as possible (often cathing them in inhibited swimming stage) but still being able to catch them is the key.
On a health and safety note, they can kill you if you have a heart condition etc, don't use one if there are people or dogs in the water and their use is restricted by the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act which basically says that only named people can use them with consent from the Environment Agency, the consent is date and location specific.
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I would say 12ft is a reasonable distance although before a fish is stunned it will try to get away so you then find it is how good you are at seeing signs of fish movement before you can see the fish and pinning it against an obstacle but again this is adversely affected by things such as wind and rain on the surface. People seem to think you just "plug the lake in" and everything floats but it is far from that simple especially if you are moving valuable fish like big carp they must survive and so you electrocute them as little as possible, often only knocking them out for 2-3 secs before you have them out of the water and into the boat. You also need to find a good man to go on the anode as you must work as a team and know what the front man is going to do when either of you spots a fish. I had one bloke and you'd almost guarantee if we hit 5-6 big carp in a group we'd get the lot but then again i've had others who would panic and you'd lose 1 in 2 fish as a result or they'll fall in when you turn hard or drop the anode into the water etc, you can guess which one works the anode for me now...
for example,how do they react? 
