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Omari from Cambridge | Posted: October 23, 2006
For best results, try small grocery store shrimp (shell on - improves durability during casting)at night along estuarine sea walls and piers. Shrimp do not have to be fresh, in fact, the pungent odor that shrimp emit after extended periods of unrefrigeration are damn near irresistable to eels. In fact, if you do not catch them within 20 minutes of fishing, they are not around. Fish bait off the bottom.
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josh chapin | Posted: July 21, 2006
i have fished for eels now for a few years and i find that if you wanna catch a big eel (doesnt matter what time of day) use a piece of pumpkinseed that you catch or a dace seems to work the best. just cut the crap fish in half. i have caught big eels at 10-11 am in the morning on half a pumpkinseed.
the best example i have is that i have caught a 52" eel @ 10:30 am on half a pumpkinseed. i have not caught another one that size but i have caught some about 40-45" and i catch them in the middle of the day, so time doesnt matter just use a bloody piece of fresh caught fish and that works the best.fish it on the bottom. (all of these eels were caught in the swift river in mass.)
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[email protected] | Posted: August 5, 2003
I find fishing for eels to be especially thrilling just for fun. First they're fairly easy to catch, you really don't have to do anything but sit and wait. The best times to fish for eels I've found to be when the water is muddy and high or at night. Eels will eat just about anything that is on the bottom. So I tend to wait my line fairly heavy as to assure it sits in one spot on the bottom. Hot dogs, dead minnows and night crawlers have been particulary effective. Hope you have fun catching some eels.
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Peter Spencer | Posted: July 29, 2002
Fishing with the American Eel is one of the more disgusting but most productive means of landing large Striped Bass in New England inshore waters. Bait-sized specimens generally range from 6 to 14 inches in length and are distinctivly snake-like in appearance. They are incredibly hardy animals, grow to more than 3 ft, and have lived in captivity for as long as 88 years! An apreciation of these characteristics is one of the first discomforts involved in using the creatures as bait, but the "oh! the poor thing" unpleasantness is nothing compared with the hassle involved in subduing it long enough to get it well hooked, which requires threading the hook through the lower jaw and out through an eye socket. Considerable strength-for-size, agility, and a matchless talent for producing copious amounts of superbly slippery slime, make this process time-consuming, clumsy, often brutal and inevitably frustrating, with a high potential for self-inflicted injury. It is impossible to subdue a room-temperature, wet and lively eel with one's bare hands. Methods which improve the chances of control include using a dry, coarse rag to grab them with; covering the creature with sand to temporarilly reduce slipperiness; and using them well-chilled and thus sluggish. Once hooked they need to be deployed carefully and immediately, i. e. dropped into a current in order to stimulate their swimming response. Any delay increases the risk that the animal will literally tie itself up in knots around the hook, weaving the line into a hopeless and useless tangle that takes the often takes the form of a fatal noose around the creatures "neck." The fact that they are often used at night under low-visibility circumstances increases the likelihood of baiting problems. So also does the use of circle hooks that substantially reduce hooking-related injuries in the many fish that will be released because of size and number limits, but have a point that is much harder to "thread" throught the eel's head in the required manner. Once on the hook they can be cast out (they are rarely damaged by even long casts) or drifted, weighted or not depending on the feeding depth and behavior of the target fish, and usually provoke hard-hitting strikes from big fish. Incredibly, and fortunately from an economic point of view, the eels are damaged very little during the strike, fight, and landing processs and can be used to catch several fish before tending to fall off the hook. This can be delayed by re-hooking the eel through the other eye. A tired, wounded, and nearly dead-looking eel seems to be as attractive to the fish as a healthier one, so one needn't change baits because of a tired or beat-up bait. The main obstacle to effective storage is that they drown in unaerated water. A half dozen or so eels can be kept for weeks in a five-gallon bucket of fresh or salt water aerated by an inexpensive aquarium bubbler. They can be chilled rapidly by mixing them with ice (but will drown if left in the melted water)and kept for several days in a dry bucket with drainage on ice in a cooler or in the fridge. If too crowded into a space without drainage, they will tend to drown in their own slime within hours if it is not poured off. Placing some moist seaweed in the container helps some of the eels keep their gills above the slime level and keep alive. Those that die can be frozen and used with good results when the live specimens have been used up. Finally, if you have animal-loving children, keep the eels away. Like lobsters before the boil, some kids will develop affection for the creatures, and name and play with their favorites. Needless to say, shoving a hook through the head of a pet is not likely to be popular with its human playmates. Otherwise, they are one of the best baits going.
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