wet day Friday, no customers and a bit of free time
so decided to see how many eels are in the stream on our land so raided the freezer and stole a lamb forequarter (told the wife it had bad freezer burn), tied a rope on it and popped it in one of the pools in the stream
waited a 1/2hr and had about 30 smallish eels hanging off it and doing death rolls to tear off chunks
so i tied it to a waratah (steel fence stake) left it for an hour and then came back to it
when i got back the waratah was bent over at about a 30 degree angle and because of the rain the water was pretty murky, where the rope dissapeared into the water was a mass of writhing eel bodies that looked like medusas head with a bad lice infestation
pulling on the rope took a fair bit of effort but as the forequarter emerged
a coil of black anaconda rolled around in the boil up and the rope was pulled out of my hand
a quick dash back to the house and i was armed with a large round whitebait scoop net and a helper (Lee)
while Lee slowly pulled on the rope i perched on the bank with net fully armed and ready
part of a big black head emerged and about 4 feet behind a tail came out of the brown soup of water, so i plungd the net in behind the tail as the head released the meat and turned to go downstream
lifting the net resulted in me flat on my back and one gumboot full of water with the net on top of me , a bit heavier than i thought it would be
i folded the net over and attempted to scramble up the bank so nice Lee dragged me up by the scruff of my neck and i dragged the mud covered net
we stood up and i flipped the net over and out slithered a large length of black drainage tube (best description i can come up with) onto the wet grass and headed back to the stream
a mad scramble ensued till it was back in the net, and after another dash back to the house the drainage tube is now cruising in the eel pool
the eels head is just on 10 inches long, body about 6 feet long and after consulting my helper weighs in excess of 20kgs
it is now the queen of the eel pool
we returned to the bait and have caught another 3, close but not as big as arnie the anaconda
Today Monday N.Z. time
one of the customers today is a keen hunter and eel fisher
i had the water level down to try to clear the algae in the water
i said i needed a photo to get a relative size of the big girl, so he said he would get in for me while i took the photo, he's about 6 foot 2
he then picked one up and said it's about 12kg
i said thats not the one, so he looked some more and found her
but couldn't hold her properly
he estimates about 20kg and the biggest he has seen
some of the others wanting a feed
what has no legs and an arm
my eel when its happy
nz dept. of comversation website for eel info
http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-animals/fish/facts/eel/
so decided to see how many eels are in the stream on our land so raided the freezer and stole a lamb forequarter (told the wife it had bad freezer burn), tied a rope on it and popped it in one of the pools in the stream
waited a 1/2hr and had about 30 smallish eels hanging off it and doing death rolls to tear off chunks
so i tied it to a waratah (steel fence stake) left it for an hour and then came back to it
when i got back the waratah was bent over at about a 30 degree angle and because of the rain the water was pretty murky, where the rope dissapeared into the water was a mass of writhing eel bodies that looked like medusas head with a bad lice infestation
pulling on the rope took a fair bit of effort but as the forequarter emerged
a coil of black anaconda rolled around in the boil up and the rope was pulled out of my hand
a quick dash back to the house and i was armed with a large round whitebait scoop net and a helper (Lee)
while Lee slowly pulled on the rope i perched on the bank with net fully armed and ready
part of a big black head emerged and about 4 feet behind a tail came out of the brown soup of water, so i plungd the net in behind the tail as the head released the meat and turned to go downstream
lifting the net resulted in me flat on my back and one gumboot full of water with the net on top of me , a bit heavier than i thought it would be
i folded the net over and attempted to scramble up the bank so nice Lee dragged me up by the scruff of my neck and i dragged the mud covered net
we stood up and i flipped the net over and out slithered a large length of black drainage tube (best description i can come up with) onto the wet grass and headed back to the stream
a mad scramble ensued till it was back in the net, and after another dash back to the house the drainage tube is now cruising in the eel pool
the eels head is just on 10 inches long, body about 6 feet long and after consulting my helper weighs in excess of 20kgs
it is now the queen of the eel pool
we returned to the bait and have caught another 3, close but not as big as arnie the anaconda
Today Monday N.Z. time
one of the customers today is a keen hunter and eel fisher
i had the water level down to try to clear the algae in the water
i said i needed a photo to get a relative size of the big girl, so he said he would get in for me while i took the photo, he's about 6 foot 2
he then picked one up and said it's about 12kg
i said thats not the one, so he looked some more and found her
but couldn't hold her properly
he estimates about 20kg and the biggest he has seen
some of the others wanting a feed
what has no legs and an arm
my eel when its happy
nz dept. of comversation website for eel info
http://www.doc.govt.nz/conservation/native-animals/fish/facts/eel/
