Overhead power lines

[GlennB]

Remember Glenn, electricity can 'jump' a fair distance, you don't have to touch the cables.

 

Indeed Gozzer, I was probably a bit too frivolous there. Strictly the 6' lure rod, just passing by, for me.

[tony jolley]

Indeed Gozzer, I was probably a bit too frivolous there. Strictly the 6' lure rod, just passing by, for me.

 

 

We always put a bait under the powerlines over the canal when eel fishing.

had some good fish as well when the other rods have failed to produce.

[hermes]

There's a swim on the Thames at Tadpole bridge that I remember bieng very good, better than the swims either side of it

I remember how my rod used o shimmer and sort of vibrate when pointed in any other direction than horizontal!

I also know of a great swim on the Grand Union canal at Croxley green that used to be a good hotspot during matches.

Not sure if these are a coincidence or something else.

[Dick Dastardly]

We always put a bait under the powerlines over the canal when eel fishing.

had some good fish as well when the other rods have failed to produce.

 

 

Were they electric eels Tony?

[tony jolley]

Were they electric eels Tony?

 

Nice one Budgie.

I also have a theory about were water passes under the canal. I am always more confident in those areas as well. I think the eels can sense its presents. Strange things them eels.you know.

[Dick Dastardly]

Nice one Budgie.

I think the eels can sense its presents.

 

Wot! a bit like Darth Vader knowing what Luke Sky Walker was getting for Christmas?.............he felt his presents

 

 

Seriousley though Tony that sounds interesting,wouldnt be to far of topic for you to give us a few more details here.

[rooney888]

My club rents a stretch of canal in newport, shropshire. the other day a member brought his son to fish as a guest and drew the peg beside the power lines. had only fished twice before this he still managed to beat everyone else put together. everytime we hold a contest this is always featured in the top 3. its mainly because the fish feel saffer here as knowone fishes the 2 pegs either side the powerlines so they hang out there especially the tench.

[tony jolley]

Wot! a bit like Darth Vader knowing what Luke Sky Walker was getting for Christmas?.............he felt his presents

Seriousley though Tony that sounds interesting,wouldnt be to far of topic for you to give us a few more details here.

 

 

I always thought it was amazing how eels can get into waters that are nowere near a close by water course. No one can realy answer the riddle. one line of thought I had was that the eels can "smell" the water over a distance. i remember my friend and I trying an experiment with a couple of eels we had caught.

We took them of the bank from were we were fishing on the canal to a near by field.

about 50meters from the canal.

When we placed the eels in the short grass the eels always turned to face the canal to start to slither back.

Now I can't say for deffo that they "Knew " were the canal was but it was mighty strange to see. Now bearing in mind the eels had to travel up hill when it would have been much easyier to go downhill.

 

We did try it in-between the canal and a river at one time but the results were in conclusive. one went to the river, one towards the canal.

We were trying to see if they would return to the water they had come from.

I have heard stories of anglers throwing the eels up the bank to get them out of the water for them to just sneak back in with a slight plop to show their retun through the bankside undergrowth.

 

On the earlier subject of water under the canal. I don't know if its coincidance or not or whether I will just tend to pay that rod more attention I am not sure. I will have to try to come to a proper conclusion on that one.

 

Experiments carried out on eels in tanks have proved that eels will align themselves to which-ever way the electric current is flowing as will some other fish.

I have thought that this could be the main way eels are able to migrate. But on a differant variant, with the moons magnetic pull,(Not a new theory I must add) hence the reason eels will migrate at a high tide when the moons pull is at its highest. eels in still waters don't know when an high tide is approaching as they are not in the sea. but the waters they are in may be affected by the moon phases. (That is a subject all of its own) and then be enticed in to migrating.

 

Who knows?.

I might be talking complete rubbish again!

[tony jolley]

http://www.ortho.lsuhsc.edu/Faculty/Marino...Positional.html

 

Taken from the above website. Most experiments have been made on the american eel but I feel the same results would occur in the european eel Anguilla anguilla.

 

 

The American eel is one such migratory species, hatching out of eggs laid in the fresh water streams of the eastern seaboard and migrating as small larval "elvers" about one inch long out to the open ocean. Ultimately they travel to the Sargasso Sea, navigating with precision over a thousand miles of open ocean. In the Sargasso Sea the elvers grow to adults and when sexually mature they reverse the pathway, traveling back to the same streams they were hatched in to mate. In 1972 Rommell and McCleave studied the sensitivity of these animals to electrostatic fields using a conditioned reflex experimental format (28). The animals displayed a sensitivity to DC fields of 0.67 µV/cm and 0.167 x 10-2 ,µamp/cm2, values well within those generated by water currents flowing through the earth's magnetic field. The eels were found to be sensitive to these electrical parameters only when the field was oriented parallel to the long axis of the animal; fields perpendicular to the long axis were not sensed. As Rommell and McCleave point out, if one assumes the ability to distinguish polarity, the animals had only to orient themselves to optimize the signal of the appropriate polarity and they could migrate in both directions (to and from the Sargasso Sea) with ease.

[Steve Burke]

Glenn, it may simply be that the canal is slightly different there as perhaps dredging and weed-cutting machines can't/don't operate around the power lines. Anything different of course on a relatively featureless water like a canal could be a hotspot.