Eeelin 101 (Work In Progress)

[MotoXcowboy]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Eeling…

He basically said this about eels; fish them slow & deep. And always check to make sure you are fishing slow and deep, then check again and again.

First hooking the eel. As with all hooks, sharpness is the key and easily overlooked – even if you sharpened your hooks, they will dull after hooking several fish or fishing along the bottom – so re-sharpen your hooks!

I like to place the hook into the throat as far back as reasonable (don’t want to hit internal organs), to the back of the jaw and with the point coming through the bottom. This will make the shank of the hook parallel with the bottom jaw and depending on hook model, the eye will just be out of the mouth. Many people are advocated of running the hook inside the mouth and out one of the eyes. It is a good method with some advantages like being less likely to snag on the bottom and a firmer hold to the eel as the hook is held in by some cartilage (or whatever fish have) around the eye socket. It also has some disadvantages that I’ve seen, primarily that you run a good chance of killing the eel much quicker or doing an impromptu lobotomy on the eel. Running your hook thru his brain - that just can’t be good.

Last thing? Eels are VERY resilient creatures. I’ve caught Three high 20#ers and a 30 #er all on the same eel – and it lived. I was so in debt to this eel that I released it knowing that it’s tracheotomy would grow over J …

Good luck & Enjoy Eelin!

John how many snags do you get a night? I've been throwing them this way since reading "eeling 101" and I get hung up like crazy..eel seems to always find a rock and my hook gets snagged. My uncle told me its better to go through the back of the head or eye..He said its much less likely to snag and he says they still stay lively for a quite a while.. once they die you can always put them on a wobble head.

Makes sense..i am sick of snagging and not catching enough..but at the same time i hate popppin' poor eel's eye out when i can use him w/ hook through his trach and i like how the eel slides up the line after the bass is hooked. pretty cool letting a eel go after it has caught you some nice keeers too.

Id like to keep fishing w. hook out trach but snags are driving me insane. Is there a trick or tip you can give me for this trach method before I start ing out?