The American EEL

[Fly Rod]

Those of us that are striped bass fishermen, may be seeing the end of using the most favored striped bass bait, the "American EEl"!!!! The eel has been declining in numbers since the early 80's!!!! The Canadians have seen the eel population of the St. Lawrence River decline from 935,000 in 1985 to 8,000 in 1993 and to almost zero in 2001!!! <br /><br />The United States Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries have been conducting a year long study and the outcome could be that the eel will be put on the endangered speices list which will stop the harvesting of the eel for bait and human consumption!!!!<br /><br />In the United States commercial landings declined from 1.8 million lbs. in 1985 to 649,000,lbs. in 2002 and fishery manages think that commercial landings have declined even further since then!!!! <br /><br />Heavy poaching of elvers(baby eels) in the 80's and 90's may have played an inportant roll in the decline!!! Elvers are a delicacy in the Asian market and poachers here were making big money<br /><br />The bottom line for those of us that like using bait, had better start learning what favorite lures will catch striped bass!!!!!

 

[bubbakat]

Re: The American EEL

I have already gone to useing gizzard shad.<br />You can cut the heart out of one and the stripers will run over each other to get at it.

 

[alden135]

Re: The American EEL

I always wondered how it is that they count fish. Do they send them a census form? Do divers go in and count them? "one fishy, two fishy,..."<br />Is there some super-secret George Bush/NSA spy program to keep track of their communications?<br /><br />How exactly can you count fish to within 1000?<br />

 

[Limited-Time]

Re: The American EEL

Originally posted by alden:<br /> I always wondered how it is that they count fish.<br />

One at a time????

 

[JB]

Re: The American EEL

This is about fishing. Salt or Fresh? Heck, I guess both, but I am gonna put it in salt..

 

[AJ168]

Re: The American EEL

Well I know that the data my school sends in to the state from the catches that we get when trawling on our research vessel is part of how they detirmine the numbers of the fish. We keep track of everything caught, and in some cases, the sizes. <br /><br />I've yet to catch a striper on eels so it doesn't much matter to me, except that if the eels start becoming scarce then we may not see as many stripers, depending on how heavily stripers depend on the eels.

 

[Fly Rod]

Re: The American EEL

AJ<br /><br />They are killers up this way when used at night!!! And do work very well during the day!!!<br /><br />And they are primerily used in salt water JB!!!