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Eels eeuck!


Guest danzante

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Guest eelangler

Hi danzante,

 

first of all you are not the only one who does not see the "draw" in fishing for eels.

I'll be honest I can't see where the interest in catching small eels is, unless you are trying to win a match. But to fish for big eels and by this I mean eels over 3lb is a totally different matter.

 

Part of the draw is the fact that you are fishing for the unkown. Eel specialists will target a water not knowing if the water actually holds any eels or not. To get a run off the waters is part of the challenge and to catch an eel is another part of the challenge and the third part of the challenge is to land a big eel. To a large extent the "fishing" becomes the buzz not the catching, which is a good job because the capture of big eels is not exactly a regular occurence!

 

On to the species itself( Anguilla anguilla). It has one of the most interesting of life cycles. Many anglers wax lyrical about the life cycle of the salmon i.e. how it is born in freshwater migrates to sea and then returns to freshwater to breed and then die. The eels life cycle follows a similar pattern except that is is born in the sea (Sargasso, which is in the Atlantic Ocean off the American coast) drifts on Ocean currents to freshwater where it matures and then returns to it's birth place to breed and it is presumed die. Of course like slamon these migratory runs in both directions are exploited by commercial netsmen and elver netters, and if there are no restrictions placed upon these commercial enterprises how long will it be until the UK no longer has any eel stocks? You may think this unlikely but in Holland the eel population has been virtually wiped out. As a result commercial netsmen from Holland travel to this country on a weekly basis to get the eels they need. Unfortunately unlike the salmon and most other coarse fish it has proved impossible to breed in eels artificially, so eels MUST be afforded some protection if our eel stocks are not to continue the decline in numbers that is becoming more and more evident. Many other species rely on the eel for food especially otters and many birds incuding herons and the rare Bittern. I remember not so long ago uproar over the fact that otters where killing carp for food. But as the eel is the preferred food for otters I would ask the question that if eels stocks in this country had been protected would the otters have had any need to go visiting carp lakes in seach of food? Somehow I think not. Thankfully the EA have just formulated an eel management strategy for this country and hopefully this will go some way to halting the decline in stocks. You probably didn't realise but it cost less to get a licence to net eels than it does to buy an EA rod licence. Seems a bit stange that it is cheaper to commercially exploit the fish in this country than it is to fish for sport.

 

So why fish for big eels. We(eel angling specialists) target large eels which are believed to be barren female fish and the sight of such a beast on the bank is awesome. I defy any angler not to be impressed by such a sight. Pound for pound they are the most powerful fish and in my opinion are a thing of great beauty. But most of all they are in my opinion the last bastion of true specialist angling. To fish for unknown, unseen fish where very little is actually known about your quarry is the ultimate challenge. As one carp angler said to me a few seasons ago we are like the carping pioneers of the fifties and sixties

 

The other advantage is the baits cheap!!

 

TTFN

Spac-e-man

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Guest Kevin Babij

snake.jpg

 

Heres a 2.5lb from Thursday night that stayed around my pva bag full of chops intended for carp for too long.

The water was bloody cold with a slight ground frost,not perfect eel conditions i would have thought.

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Guest David C

I am quite happy to catch eels (especially in matches), I also find them a fascinating species, however I know next to nothing about them. So heres a few questions maybe some of you Eelfishing types can answer.

 

Is it true or is it a myth that eels travel over land on damp nights, and if its a myth (as I suspect) how did they get into a couple of "landlocked" ponds that I know of.

 

Also, am I right in thinking there are 2 sub-species of eel in this country : a thin nosed , and a wide nosed variety (forgive my ignorance)

 

And finally, I've caught a couple of eels with a red sheen on their underside, how does this come about ?

 

Can anyone shed any light on these ?

 

Cheers. David

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Guest eelangler

Hi David,

 

just responding to the questions you asked.

 

It is presumed that eels can travel overland in the right conditions although there is no real evidence to support this. There are numerous tales surrounding this theory and to be honest it is the only explanation as to how eels manage to get into some of our landlocked waters. One tale I have been told is of a netsman who laid a fyke net across a track he found in a field between two ponds and managed to net a number of eels during the night. Eels attempting to escape from waters that have become polluted or are suffering from low oxygen levels also serve to show that eels are capable of travelling overland should the need arise, but as I have already said there is no concrete evidence to prove it.

 

You are right to assume that there are two types of eels that inhabit our waters, but they are not sub-species so to speak. They are both Anguilla anguilla but for some reason have developed/adapted into either wide headed or narrow headed varieties. Opinion is that they develop this way due to the type of food items they prefer to feed on. Wide headed eels are presumed to be fish eating eels and narrow headed eels are presumed to be worm eating eels. By this we mean that wide headed eels eat fish, both live and dead but are still capable of eating other food items, whereas narrow headed eels, eat small invertebrates and other small water born insects, worms snails etc. This does not mean that they are incapable of eating fish baits but eel anglers think that they are incapable of eating fish baits above 4ozs, whereas fish eating eels can eat fish baits much larger than 4ozs. Waters tend to predominantly contain one type of eel or the other, which suggests that they develop to exploit the most easily available food source in that particular lake. I would suggest that most eels fall in between the two types.

 

Eels come in many colours from green, brown, grey or even black. The red sheen that you have seen on the eels that you caught may have been the natural colouration but it might have been caused by stress. We have noticed that occasionally eels will stress out when caught. A sign of this is sometimes a discolouration of the skin.

 

I'll have to go I'm off eel fishing for the night.

 

Hope this helps

 

ttfn Spac-e-man

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Guest danzante

Kevin, that looks like the belt me dad used to batter me with for coming home from school two seconds late. smile.gif

Danny.

 

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Guest ALAN FAWCETT

Well the other questions i was gonna ask have been answered so i'll ask this one instead::What is the best bait to go eel fishing (eeling?) with?? confused.gif

 

I've only ever had 1 that i know off and i didn't get that on the bank it got off before i could land it (but it didn't half make my rod tip bounce) biggrin.gif

 

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TROGG (Alan)

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Guest Kevin Babij

Kevin, that looks like the belt me dad used to batter me with for coming home from school two seconds late.

Danny.

 

Danny,

Your old man was a softy,mine used a belt the size of a conger biggrin.gif

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Guest Paul Williams

I think the can eel travel across land bit has been done before....but why not again, it's interesting, we have new members and who checks the archives???

I have personally witnessed on two occasions elvers travelling up the concrete section of Severn wiers...i only spotted them because they were on the concrete, i would have stood no chance in long grass!

I have no doubt whatsoever that eels are at some stage capable of travelling overland, i do not think this is their prefered method of travel (streams dykes may be) but it is something they can do.....i have seen it!!!!

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Guest tony jolley

Kevin!.

Well done on the eel you caught, thats the only the second i`ve seen this year!!!!.

I beleive that eels will travel over land, and more often then we think, If you read the book "fishermans valley" by John Bailey.

he makes referance to a pond he is fishing, and also feeding an eel in it with worms, he goes on to say that there is a sudden intake of large eels into the pond (which is on an country estate), He believes these eels to have come out of the ditches that are on the surrounding land as they are drying up in the summer heat,I would think that this drying up would have happened on more than one occassion, so if the eels grow so slowly how could they survive in ditches year on year that dry up without moving into land holding water and then back into the ditches again.

I have been told of eels being picked up on the car park of a local lake to me many times and returned to the lake , eels of around 3lb not small eels,

I have been told of eels coming out of the water on a local golf course to eat the worms of the greens as the green keeper is prepareing the greens for the golfing very early in the morning, he wittnessed them eating worms and then returning to the lake, some of the eels were large, he has told me he has found eels trying to get in to the holes,on the greens,

make your own mind up!as to the validiety of these storys,

all apart of the charm that is eel fishing.

 

 

I would say that there is NO best bait for eels (universal) but there will be a "most productive bait " on a certain water at a certain time, one time worm, then dead roach. then dead perch, or live baits or maggots, gudgeon. the list is endless, thats another peice of the puzzel a eeler must find and put in place to be successful.

Sounds hard dose`nt it?.

But after maybe a lot of blanks and hard work the sense of achievment can be immence, as the eel always holds the cards in this game,

 

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Tony B.T Jolley

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