The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1899-12-27
SOMETHING ABOUT EELS.
The Incidental Eel Caught While
AnEllnR-One Way of Fish
ing for Eels.

The year round trying at the various
seasons for one kind Of fish and another,
there may be found along the North
river, sitting on the retaining wall out
side the tracks of the New York Gem
trail & Hudson River railroad, surtlng
Riverside park, more or less men hsh-
ing. If a man fishing here should eaten
an eel. as sometimes he does, he would
probably turn with it to the nearest
Pail of the track behind him and Kill 1t
by breaking It's head on the rail, saying
perhaps meanwhile to it. and to him
self: $50 you're the chap that's been
stealing my bait, eh2" for the eel is
great bait stealer.
Sitting on n wharf, a man catching an
eel in like circumstances would Kill 1t
on the stringpiece; and, in boat, on the
boats gunwale; but these would be cells
caught incidentally to other fishing;
nn,srmen catching cells for market
Not kill an eel in that manner for
ION that the bruises would show
on the eel when it was skinned and so
make 1t unn1rketahle.
A man catching cells for market from
An. If he had a lapstreak boat cells
thrown on the bottom could climb up
TO the gunwale on the protecting edges
Of the planl1ing, but they can't climb up
the straight sides Of a box. If he were
fishing with hooks and lines, one of
the various ways in which cells are
caught, he would very likely have what
81 called trot line, this being long
Zine, perhaps 800 or 600 feet in length,
moored at each end and having along 1t
at intervals of three feet as many as 100
or 200 hooks, each hook on short line.
When the fisherman overhauling the
trot line comes to hook with an eel on
1t he simply pulls united the knot In
The short line, so removing 1t from the
trot line, and drops that short line,
hook, reel and all into the box, and goes
on overhauling the trot line and taking
off the cells in the same manner until he
has got them all. AS he goes along, in
place of tha hooks and short lines, he
takes Off, he ties on the trot line other
short lines with baited hooks attached.
His trot line all overhauled and reset,
he goes at the cells in the box, taking
the hooks out of their mouths, and then
rebaiting these hooks and getting them
ready to put on the trot line again.
The fisherman taking cells in this man
ner, when he had got box full would
go ashore and dig shallow hole in
the sand and empty in the cells and then
AL up the hole with the sand. This
would keep the cells from getting away,
and also make them so that they could
be handled. From this mass of cells and
sand the fisherman would take the cells
one at time and skin them. When he
had finished this work he would gather
up the eel skins, excepting possibly
some of the larger ones and throw them
IN bunch into the water. There crabs
and shrimps would feed on what there
was about them that could be eaten,
and the residue would In time disap-
pear.
Eelskins are put to some uses, and &C.
casionally man wears one around his
wrist as q cure for rheumatism. Once,
by farmers near the seashore, they were
commonly used in fails, for tying the
club to the handle; there was nothing
that served the purpose so well. Not
80 many fails are used nowadays, but
where one is used it is likely to be found
with its swinging arm attached to the
handle with an eelslin, as of old.-N. Y.
Sun.