Look up the definition of “fisherman” and John Yates’ wrinkled, weather-beaten, Winston-puffing mug might appear. But these days, he’s limited to restoring antique furniture and dealing in scrap metal.

Now look up the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and you’ll find the federal government’s Enron-inspired crackdown on financial fraud and document shredding.

But three years ago, the act reeled in Yates for tossing 72 undersized red grouper into the Gulf of Mexico.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will examine the curious case of Yates v. United States, which asks the question: Was it the government that went overboard?

“It’s obvious that a fish is not a document,” says Yates, 62, over a lunch of grouper bites and Budweisers on the Gulf coast, which has been his home for the past 15 years. “You don’t have to be that smart to figure that out.” . . .

The facts of the case: Yates was captaining the 47-foot “Miss Katie” in 2007 when a state conservation officer with federal enforcement power boarded, measured some 3,000 pounds of fish and found 72 grouper under the 20-inch minimum. He ordered them returned to shore.

Not throwing back in the undersized fish is a civil violation, punishable by a fine or fishing license suspension. But this fish tale got more complicated when Yates allegedly ordered a crew member to throw the offending fish overboard and replace them with longer ones. When the fish were remeasured on dry land, the government smelled a rat. So to speak.

It’s a charge Yates still denies to this day; He says they were the same fish, measuring differently based on their mouths, tails and temperature. His wife, Sandy, a former paralegal, keeps a voluminous file that includes the original handwritten measurements of each fish.

Yates was convicted in 2011 of violating Sarbanes-Oxley, which carries a possible 20-year sentence for tampering with or destroying “any record, document or tangible object.” He served a 30-day sentence over the Christmas holidays and still lives under a three-year supervised release program. When Sandy’s sister died earlier this year, he quips, “It took an act of Congress for me to bury her in Ohio.”

As the court date has approached, several legal commentators have commended the government for stating a strong case. Despite the existence of more than 4,500 criminal statutes, it lacked a go-to law prohibiting destruction of evidence, particularly before legal action was threatened.

Sarbanes-Oxley filled that need. It’s been used to go after the destruction of cars, cash, cocaine, child pornography — even murder weapons and bodies. Recently, it was used to convict a man who helped the Boston Marathon bombers conceal a backpack containing fireworks and other evidence . . .