last night I had an eel stay alive for about an hour and a half!
I'm usually lucky if they'll stay alive for 45minutes to an hour.
the thing was amazing. the sad part of it though is that it had the opportunity to stay alive because of a lack of fish :wall:

about 2 hours.

Mine has been alive for 47 years and when it starts to die i'll introduce viagra.:pop:

Mine has been alive for 47 years and when it starts to die i'll introduce viagra.:pop:

i gotta king cobra, minus the sting and burn....been around 25 and counting.

no but seriously, I've caught 2 fish on one eel once over the course of an hour. I say an hour is about right. Hook placement is important...

had one about 2-2.5 hrs last night.
depends on water temp too i think, later in the year they tend to stay alive longer for me.
I officially drowned the one last night though, did have about 10 pick-ups so the eel was nice and scratched up.
hopefully they were just small fish

As a kid I would catch eels along with catfish in a river on my cousin's farm in SE Mass. We would eat them. One day we were cleaning our catch next to the river. We would put a nail through the eels head into a board to keep it in place. Then we would cut the skin around the eel's neck and with pliers pull it off towards the tail, much as if you were to use it on an eelskin plug. This one eel was a little frisky and we had trouble keeping him still for the procedure. But we succeeded.

However, after we got the skin off the thing kept on wriggelling around until it got loose from the board (and the nail through his head), slithered through the grass to the water, and swam away!!!

Tough little critters...

Can someone share the proper way of hooking an eel? Mine usually die a little quicker than what you guys are saying.

Can someone share the proper way of hooking an eel? Mine usually die a little quicker than what you guys are saying.

I go in the lower jaw and out the eye; which eye depends on the current I'm fishing; gami 7/0 octopus circle

had one about 2-2.5 hrs last night.
depends on water temp too i think, later in the year they tend to stay alive longer for me.
I officially drowned the one last night though, did have about 10 pick-ups so the eel was nice and scratched up.
hopefully they were just small fish

good point on the water temp thing, that could be it! I think this eel had a strong will to live though.
for hooking an eel, you only need to look to the #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& himselfhttp://www.striped-bass.com/Stripertalk/showthread.php?t=25061&highlight=hook

I usually have my eels alive for about 2 hours even after catching fish unless its a blue.

i gotta king cobra, minus the sting and burn....been around 25 and counting.

That's too funny,cause I gotta Tuna Stick it's thermaly activated :smokin:

If Im not catching anything after an 1hr.I'll ditch that eel,I feel that when the eels not that active it's harder for the fish to find(JMO) so I'll change up,but there have been times when the fish are stacked in and I've caught 3 fish on the same eel,sometimes the fish can be real finicky and need to be catered to.

5/0

In the mouth and out the bottom will keep them alive the longest. drawback is that they can be cast off if not carefull.

the eel stays alive a lot longer than most people think. It doesn't wiggle and ball up but if it can just barely raise its tail tip , its still alive.

This time of year I would rather have a dead rigged eel than a live one anyway.

I was told a tip from a friend and was experimenting with hooking the eel in the tail. I figured that it would keep them alive longer and I was surprised how long they stayed alive. With it being tough to hook the eel through the tail I also figured that the eel would stay on the hook longer.

When you put the eel in the water they seem to swim much better with the hook in the tail.

Is this a good idea? Have you tried this before and what were your results?

I got into a school of fish this year that where feeding on silversides they wouldn't take a live eel. At first I thought they wouldn't touch eels period because of all the bait it the water but once they went limp they where hittin it almost every cast. I've taken 5 or 6 bass on 1 eels no problem... good barb and a new prick.

They work when they are limp...in fact I have caught large on "cigar butt" eels that have been bitten off by bluefish, they don't have to be real active to catch fish.