Hello everyone! Today I want to talk about a special fish species, an animal that brought me terrible memories when I was a child, "eel", always feel like a snake! With a pointed head, a long body, and a body full of mucus, I grew up to know that the fish that didn't look very good was so delicious!
Fried eel segments
Chinese has begun to eat eels more than 2,000 years ago, "Yunnan Materia Medica", "Diet Recipes with Rest", "Compendium of Materia Medica", etc. have described the medicinal value of eels, believing that they have the effect of "adding lean essence, replenishing weakness and blood, and strengthening bones and muscles".
Hubei Shashi has a famous dish "leather eel", also known as "bamboo eel", with a history of more than 200 years, with boneless eel section wrapped wet starch, fried in two times under the frying pan, the appearance of the dish is exquisite, the taste is crisp and tender, is the "Jingbang" chef's housekeeper dish.
Pimp eel
Jiangsu people eat eel, that is more researched, Huaiyang cuisine in the famous dish "xiang oil eel paste", let people know that Jiangsu people can not only taste light, encounter eel such a delicious, but also can be heavy oil and salty. A spoonful of hot oil poured down, all kinds of bait, no! With the sound of frying oil, a unique delicacy is born!
Ring oil eel paste
ah! How to become a food show, we are a fishing number! Come and go! Everyone wiped the tears from the corners of their mouths, and then went to the main topic to talk about how to fish for such delicacies.
(1) The living habits of eels
Eels are also known as yellow eels, long fish, and luo eels. Its body shape is snake-like, up to 50 cm long, yellowish brown, with black spots, a large head, a large mouth, thick lips and small eyes, and no pectoral and ventral fins. The dorsal and fins are low and flat connected to the caudal fins and are very inconspicuous. Eels grow fast, have strong vitality, are not easy to die even when they leave the water, and often live in ditches, mud ponds and rice paddies. Eels are good at punching holes, because making holes in the mounds will cause water loss in rice fields to harm crops, and in the past it was regarded as a pest by farmers.
It often burrows along the edge of fields, ponds and ditches, ranging from 2 to 10 cm from the surface of the water, and its depth can be turned downward and deepened as the water level drops. During the winter, in order to avoid the cold, the cave is often dug to a depth of more than 1 meter, sometimes up to 2 to 3 meters deep. The fish is an individual, the largest of which can reach 2000 g.
Eels generally drill out of the hole when the water temperature reaches 15 ° C in the early summer, stop feeding when the water temperature drops to 10 ° C in late autumn, and live deep in the cave after the frost falls, no longer going out. In order to survive the winter safely, the opening of the cave is often tightly stuffed with mud, leaving only a small ventilation hole for ventilation, and then enters a dormant state, and begins to wake up out of the cave to feed after the second year of stinging. The fish has a suitable temperature of 18 to 25 ° C, in such a water temperature, the feeding is exuberant, and it is also the best season for fishing.
Eels are mainly distributed in the eastern and southern parts of Asia, and are distributed everywhere in China except the western plateau. It is highly adaptable and can assist breathing with the mouth after leaving water. It does not like to swim, likes to rest in the cool and damp cave, and comes out at night to move and forage. The stone bridge piers, stone ridges, stone embankments and gaps in the stone blocks of the docks along the river are often its residences.
Yellow eel
(2) Tools for fishing eels
1. Hard hook fishing tackle
Eel fishing is a special hook, the method is: choose a long about 0. 5 meters, diameter 0. 9~1. Made of 2 mm steel wire (can also be replaced by strips on bicycle wheels). First sharpen the tip of the wire, bend it into a hook shape, the hook tip is about 7 mm long, the hook door is 6 mm wide, and a wooden handle is installed at the upper end of the hook handle or the other end is bent into a circle with pliers, the size of the circle can be inserted into the finger, and the direction of the circle is best consistent with the bending direction of the hook. If fixed to a wooden handle, the wire can be shorter.
Eel hook
Bicycle strips are an excellent material for making fishing hooks
2. Soft hook fishing tackle
You can use a 12-14 fish hook or a 13-15 HHH fishing hook to tie a nylon line of more than 8 pounds (about 70 cm long) to the handle of the hook, and the other end of the fishing line is tied to a small wooden stick or small bamboo stick 15 to 20 cm long.
Soft hook
3. Hook fishing tackle
With a thin bamboo pole the thickness of a finger, tie a piece of No. 12 wire to the head of the bamboo pole and put on the earthworm. The hook is used in places where the aquatic grass is dense and the wire hook is difficult to hook, and is used to lure out eels, and then use the wire hook to induce fishing, which is extremely convenient. You can also use the hook directly to catch the eel.
In addition, it can also be made into a fork shape (best welded) with No. 8 thick iron wire, and the other end of the wire can be fixed with a thin iron wire, and then welded firmly, if necessary, as a harpoon, fork eel.
4. Bamboo clip
After catching an eel and pulling it out of the cave, it is best to clip it by the neck of the clip and drag it ashore. This is because the fish body is extremely slippery, it is easy to let it run away by hand, if there is no clip, you can circle the cloth strips on your fingers a few times, and then go to catch the fish, so as not to let the eel slip away, empty joy. If there is no bamboo clip and no cloth strip, you can first stabilize and not move for a while, wait for 1 to 2 minutes after the eel will loosen its strength, then you can take advantage of its unprepared, suddenly lifted, and smoothly dragged it out of the hole.
The clips for eels are preferably serrated
(3) Bait for fishing for eels
Eels are carnivores, mainly preying on small fish, shrimp, insects, tadpoles, earthworms and larger zooplankton, feeding activities are mainly carried out at night, only in the season of high water temperature in the daytime out of the cave to feed. When fishing, the bait is mainly made of live whole green earthworms.
(4) Cheats for fishing spot selection
The eel is a demersal fish that specializes in burrowing on muddy ground along streams, ponds, and lakes, and often has nests on the edges of rice paddies. But there are also many eels that inhabit the mud bottom caves, most of which cannot burrow in the caves during the day and only come out at night to feed.
In the stone crevices of the pool is a good place for eels to hide
During the breeding period, there are two common types of eels in their burrows: one is a bubble hole, and the other is a bubble hole.
A bubbled eel hole is easily identifiable by floating on the surface of the water at the mouth of the hole with a diameter of 6 to 15 centimeters and composed of a ball of foam. It is worth noting that the floating nest of eels is somewhat similar to the floating nest of fighting fish, and the two are easily confused. The difference between the two is that the floating nest of the fighting fish is generally small, the appearance is gray and white, and the eggs are not visible, while the floating nest of the eel is relatively large, and if you look closely, you can see that there are fish eggs. The eels in the bubble hole are more ferocious, and most of them are thicker male eels, and this yellow eel will swallow the bait very crisply when feeding, so it is easy to catch.
Bubble-free eel holes, no floating nests on the surface of the water at the mouth of the hole, the hole is also small, living in this kind of hole is generally a relatively small female eel, therefore, it is more difficult to identify the cave without bubble hole. Rice paddy mounds and snail holes in thin mud, as well as caves with a variety of insects, are similar in appearance to bubble-free eel holes and are easily confused. But if you look closely, you can still tell the difference: the unbubbled eel hole is generally deeper, and the opening and inside the hole are relatively smooth, and sometimes you can see small bubbles coming out of the hole.
When we look for eels, we can look for them in the crevices and mud walls along the edges of rivers, ponds or lakes, or we can look along the mounds while walking, and look for eels in the caves next to the rice mounds, often more than those along rivers, ponds, and lakes, and it is much easier to catch.
It is not difficult to find the cave of the eel, because the cave of the eel is not too far from the horizontal line, generally in the water a few centimeters below the horizontal line, or a few centimeters above the horizontal line, mostly not more than 10 centimeters.
Eel hole underwater
(5) Fishing cheats for eels
1. Eel fish star characteristics
The yellow eel's fish stars are produced when its head sticks out of the water to breathe, and each fish star is as large as a pea, ranging from 3 to 5.
2. Hard hook fishing method
No matter what kind of fishing method is used to catch eels, it is necessary to choose a good fishing point first, and it is absolutely impossible to release empty cannons in the waters without eels. So, how to choose the right fishing spot? The first thing to know is that the eel is hiding in a hole, unlike other fish, which can be hooked by throwing a nest with bait. The caves where eels live are generally in ditches, ponds, lakes, some rice field edges of the caves also have its residence, there are also river stone piers, wooden rows, stone dams, docks in the stone block gaps, in the water under the roots of trees, reeds, rudder and other roots, there are also eels inhabiting. Finding eel caves in these places as fishing spots is easy to succeed. In addition, the eel will also be star-like, its star is as small as a marble, large as a cup-sized bubble, this is due to the food stimulation of it, the mouth opens to spit out gas, or it lays eggs during spawning. If such a bubble is found to be not far from the cave, then there must be eels living in the cave.
When installing the bait, the tip of the hook is penetrated from the mouth of the large earthworm, and then the hook handle is vertical, and the entire large earthworm is worn onto the hook handle, so that the hook tip is directly against the tail of the large earthworm, like a straight and slender earthworm (the hook tip has been hidden inside the earthworm). Earthworms used for eel fishing should be thick and smelly.
The eel's burrow is generally level with the water surface, or 1 to 3 cm above the water surface (this is due to the relationship between the rise and fall of the water surface), and the difference is not too large. When the eel enters and exits the cave, it will leave some fresh marks on the soil at the mouth of the cave, if the section is thick and large, it means that there are large eels in the cave; thin and small, indicating that the eels are also small. Since eels live alone, there is only one eel in a cave.
When fishing, the person stands on the shore, then gently probes the hook into the hole, and slowly turns the bait hook upside down, going in and out until the eel bites the hook. Generally speaking, eels are gluttonous, as long as they smell the smell of earthworms, they will come out to find the food it loves to eat, when they see earthworms, they will bite the bait hook and pull it into the hole, then our hands will feel it, at this moment we should push the hook forward, and slightly twist the angle of the hook, so that the hook can hook the eel deeper, do not let it escape, and then you can immediately lift the hook, the action of lifting the hook should not be tight or slow, in order to smoothly pull the eel out of the hole. When lifting the hook, do not be too fast and too violent, otherwise it will pull the mouth of the fish open and unhook.
3. Soft hook fishing method
Soft hook fishing is not like hard hook fishing with a steel wire that cannot be bent, so soft hook fishing cannot be put into deep eel holes. The fishing gear used for soft hook fishing is roded, wired and hooked like other fish, but the rod and line are very short. The so-called "soft" means that there is a thick fishing line above the hook, and the hook can be freely placed into the deeper part of the cave to lure the eel to the hook. In addition, the rod of the soft hook fishing method does not have to be held in the hand, but inserted on the ground.
The fishing tackle of the soft hook fishing method is to use a piece of thick wire 15 to 20 cm long as a "fishing rod", a thick fishing line tied with the same length as the rod, and an ordinary fishing hook tied to the line (the hook door is wide and larger). At the beginning of the fishing, first put the bait on the hook, use a fork to send the bait hook into the eel hole, tie the other end of the fishing line to a thick wire about 20 cm long, put the hook behind the hole, and then insert the other end of the wire into the soil not far from the hole, which must be inserted firmly. The soft hook fishing method is not limited to the hook at one hole, and the same pair of fishing tackles can be used to hook at 3 to 5 holes at the same time. When the bait hooks are all put into the hole, it is necessary to look at each hole one by one, once it is found that the fishing line has been dragged down, and when it is constantly moving, it means that the eel has eaten the bait hook into the mouth, then the eel can be dragged out of the hole, and after the eel pulls out of the hole for a while, it is clamped with a clip and carried to the shore. If you don't have a clip, wrap a cloth strip around your finger to prevent slipping, and then grab it and carry it ashore.
4. Cage trapping method
The cage trap method is to use 8 to 10 cylindrical cages made of bamboo pieces, the diameter of the cage is 7 to 9 cm, the length is 36 to 40 cm, each end has a large hole in the mouth of the cup, and each of the cage mouth is stuffed with a curtain, and the mantle has a bamboo piece of 6 to 7 cm long. After the curtain is stuffed at both ends of the cage, if an eel burrows in, it will not come out, and the method uses such a "mechanism" to trap the eel.
The method of trapping is to put 2 to 3 thick and fresh green earthworms in each cage, and use a clip to clamp the half-cut body of each earthworm to prevent it from escaping. Earthworms put into the cage continue to squirm, because the cage has a lot of small holes, from the outside you can see the earthworms in the cage squirming, it is easier to smell the smell emitted by the earthworms, when the eel smells the smell, it will come out to find food, when it finds that there are live earthworms in the cage, the eels will burrow into the cage to eat, once they go in, they will never find an exit. The cages are generally placed at dusk, and the cages are tied with ropes and fixed to the shore near the water near the cave, and they can be collected the next morning. There is no limit to the number of cages, generally 5 to 10 can be used, and professional eel catchers can use dozens or even more than 100. In several southern provinces of China, such professional eel catchers can often be seen in the past, using a flat burden to pick up a high pile of cages, about 100 or more, flowing along rivers and ponds to trap, the harvest is very good.
Eel cage
5. Herringbone cage trapping method
This eel fishing method is mostly used in the summer wheat harvest, ploughing the land and flooding the water and then planting seedlings, and some farmers in Jiangnan provinces, especially professional fishermen, often use this method to trap eels. Using this method to trap eels, it only costs a lot when preparing bamboo cages, but there are many benefits; one is very labor-saving, no need to stay up late, you can get a good rest; the second is that the effect is good, the yield is high, and the cage can be reused for many years, which is more cost-effective. This cage can also be used to catch river shrimp, a cage for both purposes, and the utilization rate is relatively high.
This bamboo cage is herringbone-shaped, consisting of two bamboo cages woven with fine silk, each with a diameter of about 10 cm and a length of 30 to 35 cm. The top and bottom end of the herringbone bamboo cage each have an inlet with a diameter of about 4 cm, and the inside of the inlet is lined with bamboo pieces 4 to 5 cm long, forming the shape of a funnel. This funnel-shaped import is deliberately reserved for the eel to enter the cage, but it cannot come out after it enters, because it is only imported, not exported.
The other lower end of the herringbone bamboo cage has a lid that can be opened or closed, and is used to place bait and collect fish. When starting the operation, the bundled large earthworms are placed into the cage as bait to lure the eels from the nearby holes into the cage. This kind of bamboo cage is generally dozens, or even more than a hundred, connected together with long ropes, like a long dragon, so it is also called "eel dragon". Because there are more eels in the rice fields of Jiangnan Provinces, people often put the cage in the rice field in the evening, let the cage be soaked in the rice field in whole or part, put a cage every 2 to 3 meters, and come to collect the fish the next morning. This method is simple and convenient to catch eels, and the harvest is very good!
Herringbone cage
All right! How to catch eels today is talked about here, hurry up and try it! What other fish fishing techniques do you want to know? Leave a message in the comments section to let me know!
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