Eels eeuck!

[Guest tony jolley]

Hi Bridgey!

I know what your talking about as I have been told the same by eelanglers from the east side of manchester for a number of years.

I personaly dont beleive the Mersey to be the main problem but possibly the salford docks area which I think then links up the Rochdale canal, and the river Irwell system,

Possably there may be an obsruction in that area,

Eelers from Bolton (Irwell sysyem) have told me of very few eels in that area, stockport the same no eels middleton no eels.

Is this the type of area you are meaning?

I do not beleive that no eels are getting through but there numbers may be restricted,

I am thinking of contacting the N/W region of the E,A to see if they hold data on those areas, such as numbers of eel in sample nettings of the Irwell.

could be intreasting!

 

------------------

Tony B.T Jolley

[Guest Spac-e-man aka eelangler]

Bridgy,

 

One of the major problems with eel fishing is that you can't be sure that they are in a water or not, until you have fished for them. Even then it can take some time until any conclusions can be drawn. I would say that there are definately waters that hold eels in the Manchester area. The Bridgewater canal is one water that has got them, and big ones too. I fish waters in my area that had never produced an eel until I went on them. It's a case of fishing for them with specialist tactics and the right baits. How many people do you know that have used live or deadbaits, at night on the Manchester waters? Maybe in winter when most eels don't feed but I bet very few during the summer months. Most anglers are too busy fishing for other species with baits that are not ideal for eels. Unless people fish for them you will never now the true potential of these waters.

 

You could be right about pollution in the Mersey and many other of the North West's rivers. Non of the rivers in the North west are renowned for an elver run, but the Mersey has a run of migrating eels every year. This may not have been so in the past but the Mersey basin and it's waterways are thankfully a lot cleaner now. Hopefully the eels will be able to use these systems to re-colonate the waters of the area. Only time will tell.

 

On to hook lenegth materials.

 

For me it has got to be wire. I use 28lb Drennan soft strand and used to use 20lb Fox easy twist wire.

Now I know that there will be many eel anglers that will disagree with my choice, and there will probably be just as many who will agree with me. I use it for a number of reasons.

1) I have suffered the loss of a big eel by being bitten off even though I was using wire.

2) On the occasions where I have used braid (45lb Quicksiver) The amopunt of damage a 3lber does to the braid has to be seen to be believed and I doubt if a really large eel was hooked if it would stand up to the abravion and pressure.

3) We occasionally pick up Pike especially on live and deadbaits, so wire is essential.

4) I can't see where the great advantage is in using braid.

5) John Sidley said so, and if it was good enough for him it's certainly good enough for me.

 

Hope this helps

 

TTFN

 

Spac-e-man

 

PS Danny, Taskers is y local tackle shop as well. I only live a couple of minutes walk away from it. So now you know I'm not laughing!!

[Guest 'eelfisher']

Dear all

I cannot post here at the mo due to having posted on two other, I thought important, issues so I shall do so later today..ie tonight again....

Yours With Respect.....

Steve.

[Guest Bridgey]

Hi Tony

 

I live in one of the areas you mentioned; Stockport. To access this area Eels only need to swim straight up the Mersey (the Goyt and Tame join to form the Mersey in Stockport).

 

Now I know there is a big run of Eels up the Mersey as matches held in the estuary are regularly won with them.

 

My theory is that the majority of Eels swim up the Weaver which is relatively less polluted. I say relatively less polluted, some of the lower reaches are actually heavily polluted and the only species that shows is.....Eels!

 

There is a healthy population in the Weaver and tributaries (try using worm for Barbel on the Dane at night...urghh!).

 

Could it be that the Eels are not yet aware that the Mersey is now habitable? do they maybe return to the same river as their ancestors?

 

What I do know Tony, I have fished waters around Stockport for 25 years and have never seen, or even heard of an Eel being caught. I do accept that they rarely show unless specifically fished for, but the law of averages suggests that one or two should have been fluked, probably by a Carp angler?

 

Interesting thread this one eh?

[Guest big tinca]

Hi all.

 

Personally i have yet to catch an eel because i don't fish really any places were thery are ,surely they are'nt as bad as everyone says.

[Guest Spac-e-man aka eelangler]

Hi big tinca,

 

I'm suprised you haven't caught an eel while you were fishing for tench, especiallly if you are partial to using lobworms as bait. I however, do catch the occasional tench when fishing for eels. The greedy buggers can't resist 5 or 6 lobs on a size 2 hook attached to 28lb wire.

 

Eels aren't bad at all, so they are definately not as bad as some people make out. It is a case, as with most fish, of learning to handle them properly.

 

It is this prejudice that we as eel anglers need to overcome, if the decline in this country's eel stocks is to be halted. There would be an absolute uproar from anglers in this country if any of our other species were treated in the same was as the eel. We must remember that eels are fish and should be afforded the same respect as any ot the other species of fish that inhabit our waters.

I would ask that all anglers return any eel that they catch to the water alive. This would at least be a good stating point in the eel anglers battle to protect the eel stocks that we currently have.

 

We at least seem to be making some progress with the EA. They have recently published a Eel Management Stategy. It is a start but at the moment the policy of the EA seems to be to monitor the siutation as to eel recruitment and migration into and out of the river sytems. By the time any conclusions can be made and any appropiate action taken, my only fear is that it might all be a little to late.

 

Please protect my fishing, as I protect yours.

 

TTFN

 

Spac-e-man

[Guest Spac-e-man aka eelangler]

Hi Bridgey,

 

you are right about the Weaver and the number of eels that it holds. The Weaver does not link directly to the Mersey, but runs into the Manchester Ship Canal at Frodsham. One thing I will say is that the further inland and away from the rivers in the country you get the fewer eels there seems to be around. I am lucky in that living near to the coast, my local waters seem to have reasonable eel stocks.

 

For a long time now sea anglers who fish the Mersey catch numerous eels during the summer months, which proves that at least eels manage to get back to the sea and therefore have a chance of returing to the Sargasso sea to breed.

 

The question you ask about elvers returning to the rivers that their ancestors came from.

The answer I'm afraid is no.

 

New born eels bare little resemblence to the eels or even the elvers we see in our rivers and stillwaters.

They resemble a leaf (I can't remember the scientific name for them)and they cannot actually swim. They drift on ocean currents and do not develop in glass eels or elvers until they actually enter the estuaries of our rivers. This "journey" from the Sargasso sea takes approx 3 years.

 

Witn regard to the fact that you haven't seen eels even fluked from the waters you fish around Stockport. It is suprising how eels can evade capture for many years. For the last 4 years I have regularly fished a lake for eels that had never produced an eel before. This is despite the lake being subjected to very heavy carp fishing pressure, including the prebaiting and thousands of hours that carp anglers like to do. It is also extensively pleasure fished. As I said it had never produced an eel, but in the last four years I have been lucky enough to catch four eels. Even with the right baits, methods and tactics it hasn't proved to be prolific, but believe me when the eels do come along they are well worth the wait.

[Guest danzante]

Buzz, you could tell us all when you fish for them, ie mainly at night , in the summer,

or is autumn best. I've never seen anyone targetting eels.

 

I was talking to my youngest today about this eel thread and he reminded me(amnesia)

the eel was the first fish he caught, and in the Mersey, Mariners Wharf.

Danny.

 

------------------

[Guest 'eelfisher']

Dear all

Well done on two informative postings Spac-e-man...the word you are looking for is Leptocyphalus in the singular, OK.

The post from 'Big Tinca' has had me wanting to respond since this morning at 06.00am...when I viewed for a sneaky "whats occurred look".

My response was going to be quite short.....here it is ....

99% of all waters probably hold eels.....if they are not targeted then it would appear that none exist in some of them.

There are a couple of options open to anyone wishing to fish for eels.....these are....

Option one..On one water the odd eels might get caught by accident to other anglers, thus giving the eel angler some confidence that the chosen water does in fact hold eels. The confidence to then sit it out and try to catch one by design is a lot easier than option two.

Option two is a shade harder to keep up. It involves selecting a water with no eel history and fishing it for eels with methods which should 'trip up' any eel coming over the bait. The important word being 'should'.

I can only say that you should try to sit all season, every weekend, trying to catch from these types of waters......no sightings, no rolling at night or dawn, no crashing out, no takes, no bleeps, no nothing.....or tench after tench after perch after perch....or on deadbaits, carp after carp pike after pike.....but no eels.

The general thought process is this....fish all weekend, blank!!!, go home, the phone rings...."Hi, just had a 3.05, 2.14 and a 4.03...how did you get on?"......answer "Hey thats great, well done my man....I blanked, not a bleep all weekend!!!"

If this conversation was made in April/May and is repeated up to August/September then the season does start to seem quite long. Compound this with several/many differing anglers phoning you up saying "I've had this and I've had that" and you will realise just how committed the true eel specialist is......

Spend £250.00 for the year and go through this and then have to decide whether to select another water or continue for another season in the hope that if there is one eel in there that it may just make your dreams come true.....or should you just opt for the local canal instead.?????....then select another water that does have a history of the odd eel from it and then get 'up for it' again the following season.

Even worse is when you select a water with known history, fish half the season on night sessions and come August find out via a nice chat with another angler that the water was fyke netted the previous summer....blow out or what!!!!!

Every water runs the potential to be netted...given the fact that it could be the water owner, the club committee or even the odd, quiet night visit from some non paying netters with names like 'Van der nicken' or 'Hans offa ooour-eels'.....and you will see just how focussed the eel specialist has to be......

This will explain why we eel anglers have such a bond...quite probably no other freshwater anglers who target one species or another can match this bond.

I know of very very few eel anglers who would target another eel anglers water without an invite.....count them on one hand in fact....that is some statement, but its true.

I know of many many eel anglers who once they have gone and cracked a water, caught the fish of their dreams, have then openly invited other eel anglers to come on sessions with them in the genuine hope that they're visitor has a similar result.....quite a nice circle of anglers to move in.

Genuinely pleased when you have a mega result and genuinely feeling for you when the blanks are mounting up.....whilst those around you are doing the bizz.

Every water has the potential to turn up a monster eel.....there are doubles out there, believe that.....anglers who have done 7's and 8's and have been slaughtered by huge eels know what they are talking about...when they say it was big...you can bet it was.

No eel angler I know ever tried to make out they had lost a big fish without that certain aura that shows itself in the emotion of knowing it was big when they divulge the account.

I fished a new water a few years ago, a water with some history...the season before I had fished it useing worms and deads and had recorded no eels. I decided to give it one more season and five sessions into the campaign I caught a 1.08, a 3.07 and a 3.10....over the moon in the morning I was....the down side was that I had been asked to use some new hooklength material by a friend who had landed eels to over 6lb on the stuff on his water and who thought that it might be the answer to getting away from the feel of wire and dropped runs. Ever the happy experimenter, I used the hooklength on one rod and wire on the other one. (My wire traces have 6" of soft rubber tubing on the trace, connected at the hook shank. This is for my own confidence of the 'soft feel' being better for a taking eel than 'cold' steel.)....Just before dark I had a screamer on the new stuff....had a huge battle for about 5-10 minutes with a huge eel (I could see it clearly once it was on the top) and was bitten through at the net cord. I thought that the hook had pulled and was devastated when I saw that I had been bitten off....It took me an hour to stop shaking and put a wire trace on the end tackle....this rod produced the other three eels....the first eels from that water for me.

I was on a high with those fish but was also destroyed that on the night I decided to play Mr. experimenter, the dream fish came a calling.

The water turned out to be a devastaing livebait water..such were the eels predatory calibre in that water. (The remains of that hooklink is still pinned to my fishing notice board...a constant reminder of the ability of the quarry I seek, also a reminder not to become too 'off the ball'.)

I have also been bitten off on wire at another venue...which at the time had only done about ten eels in three years and the smallest was 5.10....four had been over 7lb's and one eel angler who knows a big snake when he sees one lost what he describes as the 'lost eel record' on this water.....the information here is this, fish braid, dacron or whatever....and risk it everytime....play 99% safe and use wire, accept the odd dropped run and maybe, just maybe!!!!

I have sort of deviated but I knew the idea I wanted to give by posting was one of 'this is what it is like'......not everyone likes eels...hell fire, when you see a 4lb plus eel you'll want to either catch one or catch more......unless your a 'wuss'.

Seeing one in the sack in daylight is awesome....being connected to one in the middle of the night and then seeing it in the landing net under torchlight is another 'high' again.

Can I just second Spac-e-man's request of all of you out there please....could you please release alive any eels that you might catch by design or accident...they may just make it back to the seas of Mexico and give life to the next generation of Anguilla anguilla.

Yours With Respect.....

PS....sorry for the tangled posting....I am off eel fishing with Spike and Spac-e-man tomorrow night and whilst writing the beginning of this thread I just became too excited............that's what its all about, folks!!!!!!

[Guest Spac-e-man aka eelangler]

Eelfisher,

 

You are a genius!!

That just about sums it up. What a posting!!

 

See you soon

 

Spac-e-man