eel moratorium.. has it begun?
 

Just got back from the bait store... I was told I should grab them quick as they arent going to be available very soon... First time I was warned by my guy there....

Ill admit I do not know all the details.. was there a date set etc for eels being restricted?

nope, canada, where most eels are coming from now , have changed there regulations on size. its making it more difficult to get them. Just get an eel pot and pot your own :hee:

From what I have heard if anything is going to happen, its at least two years away, so you have a couple of seasons left to get a 50 on the eel.Once it does happen (if it does) just toss a pot out and get your own for fishing, I wouldent worry about the eel police finding you at 2am on some remote rock.If eels are "endagered" its because of the demand from other countries that consume them for food, not from bass fisherman.

who would eat one of them slimey bastages :yak:

Eel is actually pretty tasty.kinda tastes like chicken.

Unagi :drool:

i was told the same at my tackleshop last night..... eels are going to be hard to get next season. My hunch is that the eel suppliers are going to milk this and drive up prices before any moratorium happens. We'll see though.

not if you pot your own

I can see it now a huge underground eel market :beat: They will always be availible one way or the other. :bl:

got horseshoe crab ? :jump1:

Yeah!!!
Screw conservation!
Lets go kill some schoolies while we're at it too!

I'm curious.

If possession of eels were to become illegal would any here continue to use them?

If yes how would that be different from keeping an undersized bass or hunting/
fishing out of established seasons?

You know damn right well that the tackle shops will be raising prices...they will say " It is not me it is a supply vs demand thing", then they will use the gas prices as an example.

Next they will increase the price of chunks (who uses chunks :bl: ) and say "Since everyone has switched from eels to chunks the demand has gone up for the chunks so I had to increase the price"

Then they will increase the price of lures because "the lack of bait, because of the denamd, has increased the price of lures"

Hey fellas...you increase the price of everything fisherman will not come to your stoe for anything. Wit the gas prices preventing some folks from fishing we dont need any more pricing pressures!


On an off topic....I just saw that the Airlines are raising prices because of "fuel prices". So if the prices of gas drops do they drop their prices....I THINK NOT!!!

Buy stock in Sluggos

I just reread my post....man there was some venom in there.

I need to catch me some fish.....it has been a while with the twinks :splat:

Here we go! lumping everything else into the eel problem, I dont kill school bass..

I cant answer your question on how it would be different.

As to would I still use them...I plead the fifth on that :D

I would have no problem at all fishing sluggo's they work great, so if eels were none existant thats what I would use.....

It might be time to get the 55 gallon plastic drum out.

My uncle had a nice system going for years with pots and keeping them in the drum.. He isnt using the hardware anymore.. might as well get some use out of it.



and if you really want to be an activist, instead of making ridiculous comparisons like eel use and killing schoolies... go picket the party boats where I would guess that 50% of what comes up in the way of small cod/haddock dont back down alive.

Not regularly... but if one happened to swim by or something.. i cant say i wouldnt.

Why not just eliminate the commercial harvest of eels, What percentage of users would pot their own? I think it would be pretty small.

Make sure you have your license to harvest horseshoe crabs first....

I went back to potting my own. I had to pay $1.90 each recently and half the time they don't have any. And forget about fresh bait anymore. Nobody carries fresh/not frozen. :huh:

got wood?

$1.90? wow

still at $1 apiece and I am one of 3 guys who buy them from this guy.

Overseeing how people unhook fish on a party boat is a mate's job most of the better boats they actually do their job.
DEM was down at Capt Leroy's thursday night checking permits and fish.
They were also in Padanaram creeping around after a couple reports of shorts being taken off the breakwater.

And its the correct comparison.
If you're gonna ignore laws, you might as well just take short fish.
There's no difference.

You got a problem with a moratorium on certain species? Fine, take it up with the DEM and the State. Don't ignore the laws and do whatever the hell you want, because it'll make you no different than the piles of people down at the East End or any number of "popular" places that blatantly ignore the size requirements and catch laws.

Look, if I want to fish eels , then I am fishing eels! simple as that.

You guys are taking this way to far, there is no "moratorium" on eels and its not gonna happen, relax and dont worry about it. thare are plenty of landlocked eels in freshwater ponds, pot those and your ok in my opinion.

It wouldn't be any different. Poaching is poaching.

All the self rightious people! I would bet anything that any of you in the middle of a blitz where the only thing that was working was eels, would take one and hook it right up, moratorium or not!!

You'd lose that bet.

You feel the same way about taking shorts under the cover of darkness? Explain the difference to me.

Granted, I can only base on what I see, but I would hope they would put a moratorium on pogies and herring long before eels. Or hell, put the moratorium on any and all live bait, except for maybe clams and worms. Do it for a year or two.

Id be all for that if it helped.

Not worth the explanation or the argument that will ensue, I do not take shorts as your post implies. I dont think eels are endagered, I think there needs to be a 5 or 10 year study first, I think most of it is politics, one person says they see less eels in a tidal river and all of a sudden its an endangered species..There is a world out there of people , like it or not who consume eels for food and thats the problem, not bait fisherman on the east coast..

No kidding.
But its the internet, you get used to it.

remember there was a large group of people who didnt think the bass were in trouble in the 80's and they didnt have the internet to compare notes.

and not to underestimate this valuable tool, nor the crisis that marine fisheries in general are facing, but you still need to weigh the value of the information based on what you know of the source.

Endangered species regulations have a purpose, despite how silly some may seem, or how destructive to someone's lifestyle. I doubt that eels will be listed as endangered, as I have heard otherwise in fisheries management circles. But if they were, I'd find another bait and respect the managers and the law. That's just me; y'all can do what you want, although I do advocate obeying wildlife management regulations.

The breaking of wildlife laws should not be excused with the question "am I going to eat it?" Someone probably ate the last dodo. That doesn't justify it any more than someone shooting it for feathers for hats, or whatever. No matter why it occured, the conscious destruction of an endangered, regulated species, should not be condoned. If you're hungry, buy ramen noodles instead of bait or ammunition that you would use to break the law.

So
If eels were banned, and one used them for bait and caught a striper -

Would that striper be considered an accessory to the crime? Entrapment?


I am going to take my bucket of contraband and head out and see if I cant find a few fish with jail stripes that are looking to break a few laws.

:jump1:


and it was delicious!

However, your exactly right of course

do they have low sodium ramen noodles?

I'm not greedy and so self absorbed I'd break laws to do something that can be done a million ways.

#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&, I'm not implying you take shorts. Just trying to understand your rationalization that it's ok to use an illegal bait if they should be banned.

What you've repeatedly said is you'd break the law. What would you say about people sneaking into a herring run at night and taking them even though they're a legal bait? Is that ok if they REALLY wanted them just cuz it's their bait of choice?

Expand your horizons, try something new. Bass can be caught lots of different ways. If you're as good as you always say you are, I'm sure you'll do just fine.

I know the prices will be high but think bigger the eel....
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Big Fishy


Just a thought,or



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lots of them :eek5: :eek5: :btu: :jump: THANK YOU GOD IF THIS COMES TRUE.....

ME and my thought's

Look they may call me "#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&" but I certainly fish other methods, how would you know? I just feel its the best bait for cow bass. As far as other methods , well I would certainly put more time in with sluggos, Next to that I would chum and chunk and if I wanted numbers when there were fish on mullet or something I would plug.

Your baiting me into something stupid, you want me to say "I am breaking the law" Since your questions are totaly hypathetical at this point an answer from me only invites trouble, as of now eels are legal!! I will say this, if they were not legal and someone offered me some? I would use them in a heartbeat and break the law :laugha: :laugha:

Was talking to a couple of bait shops last night about the eel situation. According to them ( iahve no independent knowledge of this) the Canadian goverment has prohibited the export of eels under 14 inches long. This is not only going to mean bigger bait eels but also higher prices, as the prime size bait eels get scarcer.

That explains it then
The eels at the bait store I go to have been very on and off size wize

The ones I got yesterday, were all innertube size.... REALLY nice ones.. :)