My first time in the yak forum - sent a friend of the yakking persuasion here yesterday, he's probably lurking around somewhere...
On eel transport - the ziploc idea sounds dandy but if they get warm they're gonna die and they also will have the potential to drown in their own slime, which will happen when they're stressed. Don't get 'em upset - a happy eel is a live eel and they will produce less slime if you don't do things to stress them out. They produce slime to help themselves escape predators. So don't play with them, jostle the bag too much or lift the lid to admire them. They like being left alone. A lot.
Use the soft-sided bag, 3" of bubble-weed (rockweed) inside, and a small lunch-sized freezer pack. The bubbleweed also calms them down because they'll burrow down into it and feel safe - just like their natural tendency to head for the bottom under weed and rocks. Just figured that out this season after trying it. Also keeps 'em in the bottom of the cooler where they belong instead of trying to escape out the lid.
Use a green 3M scrubby pad to grab them and grab them right on the gills when you're ready to hook them. Use a short-shank live bait hook and put the hook down their throat so that when you push it thru the thick skin between the lips and the gills the hook eye will be the only thing you see in front of the lips. If they try to ball up around your leader once they're hooked, put them in the water right away - they'll straighten right out as they try to swim away. If they ball up around your leader, cut off your leader, retie and go back to step 1.
The End
