American Eels on the Fly Rod

I was a pretty typical fisherman for a long time. I did what was normal. I fished for bass mostly, then bass and trout mostly, and I looked down on other species just because other fisherman did too. There wasn't one singular thing that changed my angling perspective, but I think the seeds were there early, well before I even really started fishing. I was a bug and herp obsessed kid. Steve Irwin was my idol. I learned to be awed by things others were scared of or grossed out by. That has never left me. I'll stand up for any spider, any snake, any insect, and I pretty much always. But for some reason the roots of species persecutions and dislike are so strongly embedded in the fishing world that they, for a time, buried themselves into my own angling practices and thoughts. I did things and thought things that I still hate myself for, and it took years for me to gain the perspective I do now.
Anglers like to think they have a deep understanding of everything going on where they fish, a better understanding than any non-angler, and that makes them better conservationists. It was partly my realization that only fishing for a handful of "game fish" caused me to only know a tiny fraction of what was going on that caused my perception of angling and conservation by anglers to shatter. My understanding of local waterways wasn't turned on it's head, instead it was suddenly revealed to be extraordinarily limited. The path was clear: if I wanted to have the best data set I could, I needed to stop ignoring most of the things in front of me. I'd just stepped outside the box. If I fished for everything, I'd gain more than just a small understanding of the fisheries I take part in and the issues they face. All too suddenly I realized that there was a nearly endless world of opportunity in front of me now, opportunities to do things very few people had done before.

Juvenile Anguilla rostrata scaling wet rocks on their spring upstream migration

Nobody fly fishes for eels. Hardly anybody fishes for eels with hook and line at all in the U.S. for a myriad of reasons. Eels aren't really well liked here. Their snake-like form leads to as snake-like hatred from many. And, like snakes, they are largely misunderstood. Of course, as one who is utterly in love with snakes, it didn't take long for eels to get under my skin too. I saw my first adult American eel years ago, well before I'd become and obsessed fisherman, while crabbing. It came out from a hole in a bridge abutment and started feeding on a piece of chicken. It was biting then death rolling to break off chunks of meat. I was captivated. Fast forward almost 10 years and I read James Prosek's book Eels and that was that. I became enamored by eels and started to spend time specifically looking for and observing eels. Eventually, I had to try to catch one on fly tackle. I'd already had a number of chance encounters that resulted in me catching them on the fly, but it wasn't until this summer that I set out with the specific intention of catching eels.

One big issue in targeting eels with flies, or any artificial for that matter, is that they are solitary nocturnal hunters that won't move far to take something. It's very easy to get them on bait as, like most nocturnal fish, they are drawn to the scent. But to get them to take an artificial you'd need to put it right in front of them. With schooling fish, that's easy. But eels more or less evenly disperse themselves in water of all depths and varying speeds and move around a lot, there's no way of guaranteeing you can get your fly in front of an eel that you can't see. So, I had to sight fish at night. There are places where available artificial light can result in sight fishing after dark, and I've taken advantage of this before, sight fishing for striped bass in bridge lights and common carp under a streetlight. But I doubted I'd find such a reliable situation with eels close enough to home to hit consistently.

That left me with spotlighting.

A few years ago I learned that I could catch certain fish at night by spotting them with the aid of a flashlight or headlamp and catch them presenting a fly to them at close range. I also learned that in many cases, without getting very lucky and seeing a certain species out in the open in daylight, this was about the only way to catch some fish with the fly. My lifer slimy sculpin fell to this technique, as did Noah's lifer tessellated darter, and without spotlighting these species required much more time and much more frustration. My ethic with spotlighting is pretty simple: it should only be done as a last resort, never for species that are easy to find without light aid, and never somewhere someone else may end up fishing that night. With eels, I knew I'd be able to find them, as I've done so many times. And I knew at least a few of them might be willing to eat a fly, as I'd had an eel take a fly under light incidentally once before. I also knew I wouldn't see anyone else out there. The streams I'd fish are seasonal trout water, very low and very warm now, and with little else to attract the average angler at night. However, I'd also spent enough time at night spotlighting creeks and river to know that the individual responses by eels to being lit up varied wildly, with most opting to high tail it back into the darkness. Some even bolt and hit me in the legs before I've even noticed them. If having snake like critters bump into you while knee deep in a river sounds scary to you, this is not likely to be your thing, whether you are targeting eels or not. Other creepy crawlies abound as well, and some nights having a light on is just not an option if you don't like breathing in insects.

For a week or two I went out ever few nights specifically to look for eels. My methods were very simple: I walked long stretches of river between sunset and 2:00 a.m. armed with a bright light, a 5wt rod, and a selection of small long shank streamers with barbs filed down. I don't even take chances with leaving a little bump there, eels are the hardest fish imaginable to handle. I'd be lucky to get a decent photo of one. 
I also spent more time observing than presenting flies to fish. I very quickly got an understanding of how eels were distributed and behaved. There were occasionally a few of them in close proximity, especially in pools, but for the most part they were 20 or more feet apart. Some were actively moving and hunting and these proved to spook the easiest. Others were sitting completely still and seemed to be ambushing baitfish. It was one of these that was the first I got to eat a fly. It was a large one, easily 28 inches, and biggest I'd see on any of these trips, so of course I lost it. In short time I learned to entirely ignore hunting eels and only fish to ambushing eels. But even those in ambush weren't immune to panic and evasive maneuvers, more so upon noticing the fly than anything else. I soon learned that part of the reason some would spook revolved around whether or not I'd already caught or hooked another eel on that fly. If I had, they'd spook every time. If it was a fresh, un-slimed fly, they either did nothing at all until it touched them then spooked or ate it after a bit. This discovery is what lead to my only captured eel on any of these outings. I got really fortunate, it was a pretty relaxed one willing to let me photograph it.

   Part of the reason I didn't catch another is that I'd quickly decided it wasn't worth the pain of handling more eels if the weren't really big, and a really big one never presented itself after I'd made that call. I just kept going out though, and it filled in a lot of holes in my knowledge of both these local eels and other species in the watershed. Now I know where big adult eels are likely to be, where juveniles are, where white suckers are, and what the overall small fish biomass is in these waterways in late summer. Though I understood the seasonal eel migrations, when they happen, and what triggers them, I had no idea what their feeding strategies were really like until I did this.
My data set grew. I'm more well armed to understand the fish and where the live, and I'm better prepared to fight back if they come under threat.

Think outside the box. Don't rule out any species. Question the reason why others do rule out some species. Progress is best made where few others are looking. You don't need to try to catch an eel, but you do need to respect them, and nothing helps one gain that respect like observing and interacting with a species. That makes it personal.

Until next time.

Fish for the love of fish.

Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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