The Favorite Daughter Asks "what's in the river Dad"

Seven or eight years ago my FD was fishing with me at night below the dam on P4. She asked about the river and how many species of fish there are. I told here about 109 (+ Asian Carp now) which prompted her to ask how many I’ve caught. We went through the list and came to the American Eel which I haven’t caught.

We talked about the amazing life cycle these “fish” have and how they spawn in the Sargasso Sea making their way past and back up through 20 + lock and dams. I chuckled because what better place for a snake like fish to spawn but close to the Bermuda Triangle?

I’ve heard of a few being caught on Pool 4 but I haven’t actually seen one. Most times, I told her they were caught on the St Croix by the Sturgeon fishing community.

I’ve told this story before so you might know that within 15 minutes of talking about eels, she had my boats first on the end of her line. I think I’m going to start talking about hooking a bag with $1m in it and see what happens.

So last Saturday I was talking to my new friends while fishing and recanted the story. They asked how many have you caught and I explained “one”, the one with my Favorite Daughter 15 minutes after talking about them.

Guess what? Within 30 minutes of telling my daughters eel story we had my second eel in the boat!

Did I tell you about the dream I had pulling in a couple million dollars out of P4??

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More on the amazing (and amazingly ugly) American Eel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_eel

It would have been worth a few bucks to watch you take the eels off the hook…without cutting the line.

Tom Sawvell wrote:

It would have been worth a few bucks to watch you take the eels off the hook…without cutting the line.

I’m willing to bet that did not happen – either time !!!!

There’s a guy out east that traps eels, the only person (supposedly) in the United States. He smokes them and gets $30 per pound. Can hardly keep em in stock.

5th Amendment Rights exercised.

Other natural threats come from interspecific competition with exotic species like the flathead catfish (Pylodictis olivaris) and blue catfish (Ictalurus furcatus)

Looks like you should’ve thrown it on a bigger hook!

That’s pretty unbelievable they migrate that far.

Its maddening they can harvest so much commercially then all of a sudden their numbers are low, and they wonder WTH happened.

Cool species, hope they can recover.

dont they make spam with those things?? the slimy part is pretty similar.

it is really cool to know about their life cycle and how far they travel. ive caught them on the MN in the mankota area and yrs ago saw someone catch one on the Miss at the minnehaha outlet.

dem are good eats BK, even better then Spam.

sidenote,
they bite!!!

tink I pass….