Stomach contents- eels ?
 

I had the opportunity to open-up a decent bass recently and found a decomposed eel, approx. 15" in her belly. While I don't keep many bass, I do take one for the table now and then. Typically I have found Lobster, crabs, and a few fish inside, but this is the first time I found an eel.

Question(s):

1. How many of you have found eels in your bass, and

2. Do you think the eels are natural prey (in the northeast) or leftovers from other fisherman ?

Fcap, we used to put traps in Milford Ct when I was a kid and get buckets of eels. They're definitely natural striper prey.

1. Never... Partner had one w/a congor eel in it's gut.

2. :huh:

I'v also seen eels in a striper's stomach. Eels = Striper Candy. Everbody loves candy....

Ice

So that's where it went?

Never once found an eel in a bass's belly..Crabs,lobster,scup,baby weakies,snapper, and a few rocks :huh:
I saw a thread recently where a guy had a 50 something with a bird skull in it belly....
I do think bass eat eels tho, they eat anything...

I've cleaned hundreds of bass, never saw an eel in the belly before. I've seen:

Bunker, herring, clam, crabs, shrimp, worms, scup, blackfish, weakfish, snapper blues, ling, whiting, pollock, bergall, flounder, fluke, spot, croaker, butterfish, sandeel, spearing, killies, searobin, mackeral, and even a catfish, but never an eel.

Could count on 1 hand all the fish I've cleaned with eels in them.

I cleaned two bass on Saturday. Larger fish was empty. Smaller fish had 3 lobster claws, no body at all. These were pretty big claws, at least from a 1.5#lobster. Where did the body go? These claws were still blueish, so they were recently eaten. Maybe this fish likes claw meat only.
It also had at least 5 green crabs and mussel shells.

Eels are few and far between. Maybe 5 in my 30 years of cleaning fish.

I have found sinkers, hooks and plastic bags. Rocks, seaweed and shells are common.

I once found a good size conch in the belly of a mid 30# fish.

Parker23 I'll bet there's 3 one armed lobsters happy to be alive under a rock.

#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^& finds stripers all the time with eels in them !:laugha: :laugha:

Ive pulled around around a dozen eels out , just pulled a 14" out of a mid-teen bass just yesterday.

Yes - have gutted fish to find eels in stomach - rare but happens...

I've never got an eel out. This year it was more crabs than anything and most were empty.

Could this be a sign of the declining bait??

Has anyone ever used crabs for bait? seem like it would be a good idea lately.

took a nice fish friday night from the back side of a rock pile that i missed a fish monday night fishing with eels

guess what she had in here stomach

an eel, and a chick lobster

for the most part though usually lobsters, crabs, finfish

I have had stripers come on the boat and regurgitate lobsters up to 2 lbs. From what I gather, the eels have been very plentiful this year with all of the rain and flooding earlier this spring. No doubt they feed on eels, and alot more around this year than in the past.

Jim you must have caught the fish I dropped Thursday :D
Must have been a few around friday even this blind squirrel found a halfwya decent fish :angel:

could have been bryan


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None.
You need to be fishing eel spots to find them or doing a lot of fish cleaning because they are a rare forage. Eels like back bays, salt ponds, etc.

From what I understand the Merrimack and other rivers are full of eels this year, although I don't fish it and I don't fish with eels, my understanding is that due to the floods and drainage runoff this year, alot of the green crabs and other striper food has suffered significantly, but the eels have flourished.