Wintle?s World of Angling

Mark has made his thoughts known, now it's your turn. Is he talking through his hat, or has he got a valid point?

The question is: Eels - who really wants them?

From a purely personal point of view Eel fishing is about as much fun as poking myself in the eye with red hot needles.

I think in the last 5 years I have only caught 2 small eels from the middle and lower Hampshire Avon, and am very happy not to have caught more. Those that I have caught in the past have always meant a full re-rig or at least a new hook length as they have tangled me terribly from strike to net.

I am far more concerned however with the underlaying causes of the demise of the eel in our rivers especially noting that there appears to be no one solid reason.

That I have not noticed any significant rise, or decline, since say 1998 in the Roach, Chub or Dace populations in the Avon might or might not be a connecting factor, but does not point to any significant improvement in the general fishing related to the demise of the eel.

Strangely enough, my office here in Holland is on the banks of the Merwede River, which is in fact the Rhine if you go upstream a way. Since early May of this year I have noticed a large number of dead eels in the river around the shipyard. Now, this site has very strict emmission controls and the dead eels appear to be (otherwise) perfectly healthy with no visible signs of either disease or injury. When I say a large number it is about 3 or 4 per day, but every day. Typically these fish are in the 2 to 3 pound range, although yesterday one turned up which had to be nearer to 5 pounds.
I spoke to some local match anglers a couple of weeks ago and they said that to catch an eel in a match on the adjacent canal is quite a rarity these days.

It is indeed something of a mystery as Mark chronicles so well, but from a very personal point of view, I would be happy never to catch another eel as long as I have the breath and will to fish.

Just my own point of view, others of course may disagree.

i want em, i've never caught a big one and if i did i probably wouldn't know what to do with it but:
i've sat on the trent and cursed em when i've had a netfull of bootlaces, i've fell about laughing at the curses of people round me in matches all getting bootlaces while i got bream.

They are the otters prefered food bringing em back will alleviate problems caused by otters.

should we deny our children the delights of a scrap with a bootlace while trying to unhook it, just by our own indiference and complacency.

Without the eel britain would be a worse place to live.

The biggest eel I ever caught was about 5lbs, but I can't claim it as a PB. It was literally thrown at me having been picked up in a netting exercise. )

However, I can't say I like them much, I hate having to dig that cross in the ground the lay the eel in so it will keep still (silly superstitions). I don't mind spending my fishing time trying to avoid them even, but I would hate to see them disappear completely.

Back in the early 70s my wifie had just knitted me an Arran sweater and whilst on holiday I wore it for the first time eel fishing from the North Wales beaches. I caught a pair of beauties abotu 3lbs each and one wrapped itself completely around my arm leaving sand, slime, mud, blood and all sort of sh*t on me new pully. Wifie was a bit upset, but it washed out.

"I hate having to dig that cross in the ground the lay the eel in so it will keep still (silly superstitions)"

Try it sometime Jeff, it does actually work provided you lay them on their back.

I don't like the things but they do make good otter food and the cormorants like them too.

I'm still undecided but I suppose on balance it's never a good thing to lose a species for whatever reason.

I think I had about six off the Avon last season between 1 & 2 lb, plus a few really good pulls on h/r pepperami which failed to hook themselves but were probably eels.

Frank Gutfield had one a few years ago, but whilst he was playing it a drunk came out of the hotel and was pissing about on the bank. He fell in and Frank had to hand the handle of his landing net to try and get him back in whilst playing the fish. Eventually the drunk came back in, but Frank was really cursing as he'd lost the eel, which he reckons was well over 5lbs.

Oh btw, we did try it John on the Bridgewater canal and, yes it does work!

Keep them. As already been said there the prefered food of Otters. They make a great Pike and Tope bait. The elvers most be eaten by Chub and Barbel when they enter our rivers thereby replacing the food eaten by there bigger brothers and sisters.
Also should we let this happen just because most anglers dont like catching bootlaces. We should fight for the protection and keep a balance for all river life. For if the river as a diverse population it is healthy.

Can't stand catching the miserable slimy buggers myself but it would be churlish to wish a native species extinct. If I have to put up with a few eels in order to get a decent fish then so be it.

I really don't see that our preference for catching, or not, has any bearing on whether eels are worth preserving.

I read lots of threads on here, and agree with most of them, about preserving our rivers and wild life (cormorants excepted) and if mother nature decided that eels were part of the plan then surely theres no argument.

Once you take something out of the food chain you can rest assured there will be consequences and seeing as they are river creatures, it will affect rivers and ultimately anglers.

Any fish is a nuisance fish if it’s not the one you are targeting, it’s just that eels, small eels that is, are better at being an nuisance than any other fish. However, that said we must be concerned by the decline of any species but not to the extent that we try to force nature out of what may be a natural cycle.
What is important is the lower food chain which supports all species, look after this and we can let nature look after the rest even if from time to time she decides that one species has had it’s day.
However, this doesn’t answer the original question, would I miss the eel, well, the answer is yes because a) I’ve caught eels up to 2.5lbs and they gave as good an account of themselves as any other fish of a similar weight and b) because for me it’s just as much an iconic/totem fish of my youth as the little boys perch.

Well said John.

Anecdotally,I havn't had an eel from the Avon for about 3 years when previously they were a regular feature.

I would not miss catching them certainly, but we cannot be complacent when what was such a prolific inhabitant of our watercourses suffers such a terminal decline. Although the causes of the decline appear uncertain, it suggests that something is deeply amiss with the freshwater/marine ecology that we as anglers ignore at our peril.

I've just spent a couple of hours legering large chunks of L/M in an Avon weirpol and small eels have been taking chunks out of it the whole time.

There is a good article on the commercial fishing of eels in lough Neagh in today's 26/6 Daily Telegraph magazine. Elver numbers declined from 35 million to 0.5 million. To keep it going they buy elvers from the Severn as do many continental fisheries. ?200 to ?300 per kilo for elvers.

I was talking to a guy in the pub yesterday lunchtime who has a licence every year for the Severn and Wye elver fishing and he said he had his best year for a long time. ?250 per kilo he was getting and laughingly said that most of them were bought and put back into other rivers, didn't make sense to him.

What surprised me was that they issued any licences at all considering the problem. I would have thought they would retrict the issue of licences, but no.

Theres a theory that because the gulf stream is moving further west and missing our coast the elvers are following it, result less elvers in our rivers.

It seems plausible but is it true?