A blurb in a recent fisherman seemed to implied (to me) that we may be fishing with them... that the steps being taken for this year were focused on counting how many eels were used by everyone not what steps would be taken to shut it down. Anyone hear anything to the contrary?

I haven't read or seen that implies an eel moratarium, but given the current state of the stock, I am heading towards using plastics... think about it, we can go crazy this year with eels, and have a 5 year moratarium because of even further reduced stock, or we can limit the use of them and have a 3 year moratarium.

Rubbah is the answer.:D

Or everyone could completely stop using eels and give the feds the impression that there is no market for bait and they can turn over the whole quota to the food industry for export to Japan.Quite simply the answer to the Eel problem would be to wipe out the illegal poaching of elvers before they can grow to mature, spawning adults. The Japanese will give you the equipment, show you how to use it and pay $750/lb for glass eels, there`s the cause of the decline. As long as there`s a pound of eels left someone will be trying to net them out! So lets not get angry, lets just give up and all learn to rig Sluggos.
Slinger

I think I have an article updating the eel situation in next week's fisherman, so all I'll say at this point is that I think we will have eels for the 06 season.

I received an email from Chuck Casella former M.S.B.A. pres. who is also on several Mass. fisheries council committees that said it was an effort in counting the eel population this year, not a moritorium. Size is a minimum of 6" and no more than fifty can be held by one person. I wrote this at work so I dont have my computor email bank to check Chucks email exactly, but I beleive my quote is correct.