Live Eels

[Plum Island]

I'm going to try fishing tonight with live eels.
I will post my results

Has anyone fished live eels? what were the results?
I already tried: herring,mackeral,bucktails,swimmers
and had no results. So my friend said go with live eels.

[JohnR]

How do you intend to fish these live eels?

[fishsmith]

Plum,
Do a search on Eels and you should find all you need.
For a beginner they will be quite a challenge, but doing a search on eels should give you a good head start.

If you do get eels, toss em in the sand to get a grip on them, and keep them ice cold to make them manageable.

Good Luck, nothing like a good eel knot at night, make sure you bring the "herring,mackeral,bucktails" if the frustration becomes too much.

[saltydawg]

We fish with eels most of the time. We have a coleman cooler we use for the eels. Take an old towel and get it damp, not wet. Get the towel as close to freexing as possible. fold so half is covering bottom of cooler. Put in eels. fold over top. Put at least two of the "Blue ice" containers(froozen) on top of towels. Place "blue ice" containers in zip lock bag if you are married. They will be covered with slime by end of fishing trip. Wives usually frown on that being placed in "their" freezer.

Take several of the green scouring pads with you. Use them to grap and hold the eels. Use circle hooks. Hook from bottom of lower jaw up and out an eye socket. Immediately put eel into the water. cast and hold on.

If you have eels left over, you can keep them. We use an aquarium with an airator bubbler. We normally have anywhere from a half dozen to 18 eels in there all summer. You have to keep a top on the aquarium or your wife will find eels al over the floor. Try to keep out of light or put something dark around the outside or the eels will begin to get very light colored. The fish don't seem to take them if the get too light. Change the water about every 3 to 4 days. Keeping them will save a lot of money.

Good luck!

[JohnR]

Place "blue ice" containers in zip lock bag if you are married.

LMAO - So true, so true...

Personally, I use a shiner bucket with holes in the bottom so the ice melts away and does not drown the eels. For transporting, I use a block of wood in the bottom of a 5gal bucket and put the shiner bucket on top so the the melt off doesn't eventually drown the eels (they will choke on their own slime).

Plum, fishing eels as you would a chunk can often be a pretty bad thing to do as they will ball up on your line or do whatever they want. Some people have perfected a chunk live eels from shore bit but I like to cast and retrieve them as a plug. Consider them a poor casting live "plug" and that's how they work best from shore...

[Joe]

If I were you I would elect to fish Sunday night with my live eels instead of tonight - We just had a serious easterly blow and the water is cloudy with considerable weed.
By Sunday night conditions will have improved considerably.
Everyone is so psyched to fish Friday nights (I know!) but sometimes you just have to curb your enthusiasm. Sunday nights are a great time to fish as most everyone is fished out by then and the crowds are less.
Well either way, good luck.
Joe
www.surfcasting-rhodeisland.com

[saltydawg]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John R
[B]

LMAO - So true, so true...

"Plum, fishing eels as you would a chunk can often be a pretty bad thing to do as they will ball up on your line or do whatever they want. "

Sorry, we fish from a boat and drift, troll or cast to rocks, ledges and shore. When casting, we will sometimes, cast short of rocks and keep tight line. Their struggling to get to rocks can sometimes trigger strikes when nothing else is working.