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Best bait for freshwater eels?

Printed From: The Fishing Website
Category: Saltwater Fishing
Forum Name: Newbies Corner
Forum Description: If you're new to fishing this is the place to ask any questions about getting started ...
URL: https://www.fishing.net.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=123982
Printed Date: 29 Mar 2024 at 8:48pm


Topic: Best bait for freshwater eels?
Posted By: deacs
Subject: Best bait for freshwater eels?
Date Posted: 13 Apr 2017 at 9:48pm
With all this weather I have plenty of water in the backyard/over the fence and given i havent been able to go fishing for ages thought i would entertain myself by trying to catch some eels (which i can see sometimes swimming around)
I have been using salami for bait and have hooked 1 and had 2 other bites/misses in about 3 hours worth of fishing.

Is that just usual for freshwater eels or should i be using something else for bait to get more bites?

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Replies:
Posted By: kitno
Date Posted: 13 Apr 2017 at 10:04pm
Any bit of red meat should do it. As a kid, my mother fed the cat gravy beef. I would pinch a bit for eeling. Caught heap's of them with it.

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2024 Grunter Hunter.


Posted By: Reel_Tech
Date Posted: 13 Apr 2017 at 10:08pm
Chicken frames for burley are the best (what allot of the commercial eeler's use in their hinaki's). Then a piece of red meat once you have them around. We have a lake below us on our front yard an its riddled with them, like a snake pitt. They nail most of our ducklings so I get the cuzzies round to burley up and help themselves.


Posted By: part-timer
Date Posted: 13 Apr 2017 at 10:12pm
as above...  a bit of scraps from the butcher..  offal... etc..  liver etc...  the more blood the better..


Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 14 Apr 2017 at 8:04am
Red meat works well. One of the problems with trying to catch them after lots of rain is that they gorge themselves on earthworms that get washed into the water. Having said that eels are pretty much always hungry.


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Best gurnard fisherman in my street


Posted By: Catchelot
Date Posted: 14 Apr 2017 at 8:31am
 I have done really well with chicken and sometimes liver.


Posted By: Izy
Date Posted: 18 Feb 2018 at 7:34pm
Fresh pipis are amazing, last week my mother and I went for a eel with our hand lines on the farm I work on for the first time. She had kahawai and I had shelled me a few pipis from maketu, which she thought was hilarious. So just because she laughed at me, I thought I would prove a her wrong. Which I did, less the 5mins I got my first one, less then 15mins I was pulling in my 2nd we started eeling at 6:30pm we were leaving at 7:50pm with 7 good sized eels. So give pipis a go, don't laugh at those who do you'll be surprised. My mother was!!!!


Posted By: taurangatroutmaster
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 1:56pm
Used to do heaps of eeling when i was a kid, earthworms were by far the best bait, always outfished mates using red meat


Posted By: MB
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 2:05pm
I'm no expert, but from what I've seen of them, anything will do. Smellier/bloodier the better I suppose in terms of attracting them to your hook in the first place. The eels in my mate's stream are rather partial to a beef sausage! 


Posted By: Tagit
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 3:35pm
A trick I  learned 50 years ago when I first started catching eels was to break a rotten egg onto the waters edge of the stream where you are fishing then leave that spot quiet for 30 minutes or so. Used to leave a baited line tied to a fence post and would often return to find an eel on it. After that you could get a stream of them. Used red meat for bait but bacon fat also worked well from memory. The rotten egg would drag them from 100's of meters down stream.
One of the biggest eels I ever saw swallowed a small eel I had hooked on a line I left overnight in the headwaters of the Mohaka river in Hawkes Bay. Got it almost all the way to the bank before it let the small eel go. A salted eel hung in the hut chimney for smoking makes a nice change from venison if you are in the bush for a week or more.


Posted By: Tagit
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 3:37pm
We often get eels when snapper fishing around dark so I suspect that a nice 1/2 Pilchard would work just fine as well.


Posted By: smudge
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 5:13pm
Originally posted by Tagit Tagit wrote:

A salted eel hung in the hut chimney for smoking makes a nice change from venison if you are in the bush for a week or more.


In my case I think venison would make a nice change from eels. I need to take lots of food if I go hunting Big smile


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Best gurnard fisherman in my street


Posted By: pjc
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 6:09pm
pigs liver,anything cheap or free,nothing wrong with a small fresh water eel smoked,we made a ihaka out of chicken mesh and tied a bait at the closed end worked well,in the opening shaped a funnel out of mesh so when the eel went in it didnt feel the sharp bits but wouldnt exit.

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Posted By: Muppet
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 7:12pm
Originally posted by deacs deacs wrote:

With all this weather I have plenty of water in the backyard/over the fence and given i havent been able to go fishing for ages thought i would entertain myself by trying to catch some eels (which i can see sometimes swimming around)
I have been using salami for bait and have hooked 1 and had 2 other bites/misses in about 3 hours worth of fishing.

Is that just usual for freshwater eels or should i be using something else for bait to get more bites?

deacs has having a child reduced you to eel fishing? LOL 
I have not stooped that low yet....

How is the little one doing? 


Posted By: Muppet
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 7:14pm
Best bait by the way will be a bunch of big earthworms threaded down a strong longshank hook. If that works in the UK it will work here I am sure of it. Had a go with red meat here years ago after my Maori mate insisted that was best and caught zilch, I gave him no end of stick. LOL


Posted By: Catchelot
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 8:07pm
Originally posted by Tagit Tagit wrote:

A trick I  learned 50 years ago when I first started catching eels was to break a rotten egg onto the waters edge of the stream where you are fishing then leave that spot quiet for 30 minutes or so. Used to leave a baited line tied to a fence post and would often return to find an eel on it. After that you could get a stream of them. Used red meat for bait but bacon fat also worked well from memory. The rotten egg would drag them from 100's of meters down stream.
One of the biggest eels I ever saw swallowed a small eel I had hooked on a line I left overnight in the headwaters of the Mohaka river in Hawkes Bay. Got it almost all the way to the bank before it let the small eel go. A salted eel hung in the hut chimney for smoking makes a nice change from venison if you are in the bush for a week or more.

A Tongan bloke that I fished a wee bit with reckon smear hunks of chicken with egg yolks, let them marinate...whatever and then throw them out ... and yep sure enough he caught the first after not a long wait.


Posted By: MB
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 8:38pm
Originally posted by Tagit Tagit wrote:

We often get eels when snapper fishing around dark so I suspect that a nice 1/2 Pilchard would work just fine as well.

Just out of interest as I'm mildly fascinated (and disgusted!) by eels, are they "freshwater" eels or conger?


Posted By: deacs
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 9:14pm
Haha Dan this is almost a year old! And come to think about it my little one is almost one and doing very well thanks, i see your boy is growing up fast.

I still haven't caught an eel this is a nice reminder to have another go the drains were full the other week but i might wait until the water goes down after this next storm. Fishing trips this year have been almost non existent apart from a few lb trips unsuccessfully trying to catch kingfish on stickbaits... so yes eeling has been pretty much it!

Tagit, come to think of it caught a few small eels on the manuka so don't see why that wouldn't work!


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Posted By: kaveman
Date Posted: 19 Feb 2018 at 9:36pm
we always used fresh sheeps hearts or intestines for eels. Caught heaps to 20lb in local streams in Waikato region


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Posted By: ghetty
Date Posted: 20 Feb 2018 at 12:45pm
my kids enjoy catching a few eels in the stream below our house. They catch them by scooping them up with a landing net, rather than hooking or spearing, because many of the eels are longfins.
 
Anyways they were keen to go one day, and we didn't have any meat or reasonable bait. So we sent them down with a knob of smelly cheese. I wasn't expecting much but they still caught some! So I'm of the opinion that basically anything with a scent of protein or oil will work.


Posted By: Tagit
Date Posted: 20 Feb 2018 at 1:13pm
Originally posted by MightyBoosh MightyBoosh wrote:

Originally posted by Tagit Tagit wrote:

We often get eels when snapper fishing around dark so I suspect that a nice 1/2 Pilchard would work just fine as well.

Just out of interest as I'm mildly fascinated (and disgusted!) by eels, are they "freshwater" eels or conger?
Freshwater ones migrating out to sea. Caught one a couple of weeks back in the harbour and another one a couple of weeks before that. Seem to get one or two every year


Posted By: MB
Date Posted: 20 Feb 2018 at 1:39pm
Cheers.


Posted By: terrafish
Date Posted: 10 Jul 2018 at 6:29pm
Bit late in the piece and just a newby here but heres my 10 cents worth. Grew up next to the waipa/Waikato river and number one bait for eels was bacon. everything else caught them to but nowhere near in the same numbers. Worms were good for action but everything ate em, eels, catfish, rudd, and more than a couple of trout, The only thing that came close was a dead pidgeon from under the waipa river bridge. Tie a bit of line around the legs hang it in the water on the surface, wait for eel to get a grip and start to spin then slowly draw it out of the water up the bank where a well placed flick of the toe would see it further up the bank, man those suckers can move. helluva lot of fun and no hook to remove!!


Posted By: Muppet
Date Posted: 10 Jul 2018 at 6:52pm
Makes sense, everybody like bacon 


Posted By: Alan L
Date Posted: 11 Jul 2018 at 8:49pm
I've caught several, on trout flies. Not that this helps the original poster, but shows what a range of food they are happy to take.
Alan


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Legasea Legend member


Posted By: GSPOT
Date Posted: 12 Jul 2018 at 8:47am
Trout guts.  Eels will come from miles. 

I have one spot in the Karangahake Gorge where i can nearly always catch a trout and they will be chased about by a couple of big mofo eels as you play it.


Posted By: CJ-475
Date Posted: 29 May 2020 at 11:35am
I find that lamb or pig entrails always work quite good. eels generally don't get too fussy about what they eat. once you catch one it is great smoked!


Posted By: jac
Date Posted: 29 May 2020 at 12:53pm
X2 trout especially bloody gills



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