Eel's

[Greenheart]

All the books & TV documentarys say that Eel's travel overland between ponds, rivers & lakes etc. I know they will travel up ditches, drains, sewers & very small waterways etc, but even though i've spent thousands of hours fishing in wet & dry conditions, in daylight & darkness over the last 40 years. I've never seen an Eel wriggling overland. Has anyone on this forum ever seen this or have hard evidence that they do. I've never met anyone who has. I do wonder if it's a bit of an urban myth. I personally believe that they travel to landlocked ponds etc via small ditches & drains at the elver stage of their life.

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Once fishing a pond right next to the river severn I thought there was a snake in the grass but this turned out to be an eel about 2lb and soon slipped into the pond. This was on a early tench session so not sure whether it had come from the severn or the pond.

The trouble is eels are getting few and far between un like 20 years ago when you were plagued by them. So maybe this is why its so rare to see them move over land ?

[Greenheart]

Other than Elvers, I never saw any onland even back in the days when they were really common. Even the Elvers were in water, all be it very shallow.

[Wilza]

Thats a good point,I've never seen an Eal out of the water before!! but i always catch loads when fishing at night for bream using worm, so they aint that rare in the the river yare and Wensum.

[Catfish Virgin (Still!)]

Back in the early 1970's I did see several eels (maybe about 4 or 5) moving through wet grass and into the old weir pool at Throop. It was at dawn and I was just setting up for spell of barbel fishing.

I thought they were Adders or Grass Snakes at first but they were definately eels of about 1lb or 2lb each. They were moving suprisingly fast and I suppose they were moving from the main river or millstream into the weir pool.

Around that time, the Stour seemed to be absolutely full of them. We used to fish for them with 1/2 a bleak and caught them to 5lbs. Sadly no longer, they seem to be very rare nowadays.