More Ozark Fish Facts: American Eel

[Quillback]

It sure won't help. Scary to see such high prices for them, the "legal" fishermen will put pressure on them, then it also makes poaching so lucrative that it's almost a given that you'll have people out there getting all they can. Inevitably this will lead to a population crash. Sometimes species can recover from a crash, sometimes they can't.

I wonder if there are genetic differences between eels that return to someplace like a Missouri stream and those that run up a Maine river. Reason I wonder that if there is a crash in the Maine populations, they may not be able to rejuvenate the run by using eels from Missouri fish (as an example). They found this out in the PAC NW with salmon. A Chinook that swims 200 miles upriver to Idaho is genetically different than a Chinook that swims 2 miles up a coastal stream to spawn. If you wipe out the Snake river fish then they can't be replaced with offspring from a coastal stock.

[countryred]

Good read and info. They are a neat critter. Hard to believe how much some fish travel.

[herchammer]

Anyone ever see an eel break the surface to take something off the top? I saw something, in my youth, on Bryant creek, that I've never been able to explain. I was casting dry flies, just to see what might bite, and something, very long and slender broke the water, like a big bass hitting a topwater lure. I don't know, to this day, what i saw.

[fishinwrench]

Gar ?

[herchammer]

I'd say that's the most likely explanation.