Freshwater Eels

[TnRiver46]

This thread is horrifying!!!!

[scaleface]

For those of you  who never caught an eel , heres how to unhook them . Grab hold of it with both hands . It will slip through your hands but thats okay ,  keep at it . Eventually it will tire out and you will be able to secure it  . Then remove the hook and release back in the water . Then take about fifteen minutes to remove  a 1/8th inch thick coating of slime from your hands .

[Cdn Angler]

By all accounts here in north east Canada they used to be fairly common, but the creation of dams made it impossible to reach their desired spawning grounds and they are nearly extinct in many places where they used to be abundant. 

[MIbassyaker]

Leo Sheng of the Extreme Philly Fishing channel, had a vid where he and his dad caught one and showed how to cook it:

 

 

[Dogface]

5 hours ago, scaleface said:

For those of you  who never caught an eel , heres how to unhook them . Grab hold of it with both hands . It will slip through your hands but thats okay ,  keep at it . Eventually it will tire out and you will be able to secure it  . Then remove the hook and release back in the water . Then take about fifteen minutes to remove  a 1/8th inch thick coating of slime from your hands .

Or just use a rag to grab it. The rag method is a lot easier.? 

 

Here in SE PA they were very common and I caught many. Not so much in the past 15 or 20 years.

 

I do use eels for salt water stripers and they are the go to bait for the Jersey shore. Now I'm wondering how they would work for bass. 

 

 

[Dwight Hottle]

I have had a few encounters with lamprey eels attached to bass but dropping off when they are netted. Talk about an ugly creature. Round suction mouth lined with mutiple rows of teeth. I tried to kill the first one by stepping on it to crush it against the floor of the boat. It kept wiggling no matter how many times I stepped on it. Finally had to kill it with a knife & pliers. Nasty parasites. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bird]

5 hours ago, scaleface said:

For those of you  who never caught an eel , heres how to unhook them . Grab hold of it with both hands . It will slip through your hands but thats okay ,  keep at it . Eventually it will tire out and you will be able to secure it  . Then remove the hook and release back in the water . Then take about fifteen minutes to remove  a 1/8th inch thick coating of slime from your hands .

It is without doubt the most slimy creature I've ever caught.

 

Use to cat fish with a guy who was insanely terrified of snakes.

I caught a rather large eel and brought him to the boat, the guy panics.

 

That was probably 20+ years ago and he's yet to cat fish since. 

[CrankFate]

At the price the baby eels are getting right now, they’ll be extinct before you know it.

[Munkin]

Use to catch them while catfishing all the time.  The first one I ever caught scared the crap out of me because I thought it was a snake.

 

Allen 

[Johnbt]

Yum, smoked eel.

[TnRiver46]

15 hours ago, CrankFate said:

At the price the baby eels are getting right now, they’ll be extinct before you know it.

I don’t know, seems as though they’ve endured worse over the last couple million years 

59 minutes ago, Johnbt said:

Yum, smoked eel.

I’ve eaten some nasty mess but I don’t think that will be on the menu. Had some friends tell me it’s awful 

[Jleebesaw]

I catch them in the spring while bullhead fishing quite often. Ive always hated dealing with them. And just 2 years ago i had a guy show me how to get them off the hook easily. Just pull it up on land and whack it in the tail with a stick close to the tip.  I swear, it works. After you hit it, it will straghten right out and completely stop moving. Then you get the hook out and kick it back in the water. It will just sort of float there for 10-30 seconds and then swim off.

       The thought of eating one never crossed my mind until i saw a guy on tv who had a weir and sold them at his store. He smoked them and sold them for $30 per pound. When he would open them up to see if they were done, i swear, that meat looked good! He would freeze them and then thaw them out in a sink to get the slime off from them too. Before smoking them. I think the show was called "filthy riches"!  There other dudes who collected and sold blood worms.

[Log Catcher]

Caught eels once in a while fishing for cat fish. Usually gave them a hollow point headache then cut the line and tie on a new hook. I don't want anything that nasty and slimy in my boat.

[geo g]

Depends where your fishing.  In Florida I have never caught a freshwater eel, and don’t know anyone that has.  In New Zealand they are common and get to really big size with a healthy set of teeth.  Top notch f the food chain in NZ lakes.

[N Florida Mike]

On 6/11/2020 at 2:21 PM, geo g said:

In Florida I have never caught a freshwater eel, and don’t know anyone that has.

Ive caught quite a few of them while catfishing in my home lake, and other spots. Ive never tried bass fishing with one , although I heard of a 19 pound bass being caught with one, I think in lake Tarpon. It was a very interesting story in a Florida Sportsman magazine from the 80s .

Ive even caught a few sirens. They are eel looking things with little arms up towards the head, and they have a larger flexible fin on top.

Wish I still had the pic of the last one I caught that was around 3 feet long but that was in the cell phone that got wet when I was out in the kayak. This video shows the arms well around 3:45. 

 

[CrankFate]

On 6/10/2020 at 12:28 PM, TnRiver46 said:

I don’t know, seems as though they’ve endured worse over the last couple million years 

Same problem for horse shoe crabs and they survived everything since the beginning of time.

[MGF]

On 6/11/2020 at 2:21 PM, geo g said:

Depends where your fishing.  In Florida I have never caught a freshwater eel, and don’t know anyone that has.  In New Zealand they are common and get to really big size with a healthy set of teeth.  Top notch f the food chain in NZ lakes.

I used to do a lot of cave diving in Florida. There are a lot of eels in some of the cave systems (and associated springs).

 

They would come out into the spring basin at night and the recreational divers would hand feed them hot dogs and stuff. 

[WRB]

Old 2014 thread! 

I believe the original poster was thinking about leaches instead of eels.

Leaches are very common bass prey and other predator fish.

Uncle Josh made 6" and 9" black widow eel pork rinds for stripe bass anglers that works great for jig trailers for bass. Bill Dance pushed Strike Kings Pork O with good success.

Tom

[TnRiver46]

I caught an eel in the ocean two days ago. Very terrifying. Maybe fiance will send me the video since I smashed my phone on a jetty

[Bluebasser86]

Someone caught a large freshwater eel out of the Kansas river in downtown KC today, probably near state record sized. First one in several years that I've heard of being caught here.