eel fishing on GUC

[joso]

 

 

[ 18. September 2005, 11:19 PM: Message edited by: joso ]

[joso]

thats the best i could do....hope its not too big for the forum, sorry if it is :S

 

thanks for the info tony, would gladly like to get in touch with your buddy if thats ok. its promising to know that the MK record came out in the day!

[Andy Macfarlane]

Well done troops. That's the diagrams I was looking for.

[joso]

is it correct to use a wire trace?

 

I was under the impression that the wire damages the mouth as with cats but just came across an article that says you should always use a trace. There are pike and cats along the stretch im fishing. What would you guys recommend using as a hooklink?

 

Also, in that article it says never, under any circumstances, give a fighting eel any line. Is that right?

[tony jolley]

Thanks Joso for adding the diagrames I sent you.

I just want to thank Damian Wood for doing his piece at such short notice. The piece is a ANTI DEEP HOOKING article ( Word Anti was missing of the original article)

This kind of stuff is in the National Anguilla Club magazine on a regular basis

 

 

Use wire by all means joso.

 

One tip shown to me by Steve EELFISHER Richardson is to place a bit of soft silicon sleveing over the end of the hook and about 3 inches up the trace. Steve told me he thought the eels might not like the feeling of the wire on their teeth. One thing is for sure the silicon will not do any harm to a taking eel.

Good idea for the cat lads as well.

 

Big eels will test you tackle to the maximum. EEls have the best snag finding ability then any fish. their tail is constantly searching the water for a snag to get around. Canals are trhe worst place for snags that I have fished.I never give eel line unless I fear the hook will pull with the pressure of a close fish. get her to the surface asap and try to keep her there. only let the rod drop if shes over the net.

 

[ 19. September 2005, 06:17 PM: Message edited by: tony jolley ]

['eelfisher']

Dear ALL

 

The soft silicone tubing I place on my wire traces is for two reasons......the first is covered by Anthony and the second was to allow me to gauge where the hook position would be on landing the eel.

 

The hook would be either visible or if the tubing was still visible the hook was somewhere inside the mouth area......depending on the amount outside the mouth.

 

No tubing being visible meant I didn't even have to bother with the 'looking' for the hook before knowing if it was a 'cut the trace job'.

 

I always retain any eels caught in a sack over my eel sessions. So on landing an eel, if the hook was visible I would unhook it there and then. If the hook wasn't visible, I would simply unclip the trace and pop the eel in the sack.

 

At the end of the session I would then sort the situation out. Quite often, on opening up the sack, there would be a trace coughed up in the sack, thus saving me the decision of cutting the trace.

 

I believe that a few deeply 'hooked' eels are not that at all......due to finding the traces in the sack after a few hours rest, I believe that some baits are just clamped in the throat area and the eel keeping its mouth closed tight prevents the bait being ejected.

 

My opinion and nothing proven......either way, the decision to cut the trace is always made at the last minute within my eel fishing sessions just in case an ejection takes place.

 

Given my thoughts above......when a trace is cut in these odd times of not being actually 'hooked', maybe the eel then swallows the bait once it is relaxed....or coughs it up out of our sight after it is released alive. ???????????

 

Thanks to Anthony for mentioning what I do. It might get others to consider wire when they are put of it by concern for them thinking that the eel will reject a bait presented on a wire trace. (Jeff, I missed that out in my reply to you via private mail.....sorry.)

 

Thanks to Damian Wood for his brilliant drawings.....the man is awesome at both drawing and catching big canal eels.

 

Jeff......hope all this helps you out.

 

Yours With Resepct.....

Steve.

Chairman of the National Anguilla Club.

[chappers]

Have never had any hesitation in using short wire traces when deadbaiting for eels, would also agree with the not giving line to eels especially in the first few seconds, hence the need for decently powered rods and line to hook and haul, never found them to be too fussy.

Eels are as tough as hell and have also adopted the tactic of, if you can't see and extract the hook then sack them as they may regurgitate them if they have been truely swallowed then cut off the hook as far down as you can and let the fishes stomach acids dissolve the hook.

[Ken L]

As a solution to deep hooking, a bar that prevents the fish taking the bait deeply seems a bit extreme - although I'll conceed that it may be necessary.

Out of interest, has anyone experimented with circle hooks to try to get jaw hookups ?

[the burglar]

hi tony Hi Steve

 

Joso you have done a great job with the posting of the rigs

[tony jolley]

Oh S**t were did he come from???.

 

Alright Spud?.