The eel generally moves with the autumn floods. The silver eel disappears eventually from the coast to swim the many thousand kilometres to the Sargasso Sea. Researchers believe this takes between three and four months but cannot say for sure how many eels reach this distant ocean area. Many sports fishermen hunt for the really large types of eel that can be up to four kilos in weight. Eels reaching this size can be due to the fact that for different reasons they do not find their way back from the lakes and dams they have grown up in, or those who have lost their sexual instinct to swim back to the spawning areas.
Some eels seem to develop an unnatural appetite, which means they put on a lot of weight.
There are other species of eel in other areas of the ocean. For example, the American eel exists between the Gulf of Mexico to Labrador. Other species of eel are found in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. The biologists claim that there is only one species of eel in Norway but many anglers distinguish between the pointed nosed eel and the square nosed type. Those two different types take different bait.