EELS!
Got off of work early so decided to do some night fishing,went to Ct Outfitters for Bait,they advertise having large live bait on the internet so I decided to give that a try,got there and all they had was little shiners and..uh..eels.I must have looked at the eel tank for a good five minutes before deciding to give them a try.I never fished with eels,never fished in a body of water that had them before moving here,never knew you could use em for bait,nothing.Good thing I told the kid behind the counter that I never fished with them.I had absolutely no idea and if left to my own devices as far as baiting a hook with them,my night would have been shot,I never would have gotten them out of the baitwell.They are impossible to grab with a bare hand,I had no rag(as the kid suggested I use) so i took off my T-shirt and used that.The other thing is beating them over the head,never would have thought of that but it is easy to see how they would knot up you line in no time.I even asked the kid if i have to worry about them biting me.Okay so I got my eels and I head to the Cove,I pull in and shorly after an old man comes running up to me and insists that it costs fifteen bucks to launch there.I argue that it's a kayak and that it's technically not even a boat because it's not registered nor does it need to be.He's not going for it so I hand it over.I've been pissed all weekend over that!I've launched a couple of times this year before they put their docks out,no charge,from now on it will be from the DMV.I head out to the river,fished the channel in front of the cove for a couple of hours,nothing,fished the bridge pilings downstream,nothing.Fished that section of the river south of the bridge that EVERYBODY fishes(where the channel is right up against the bank),nothing.By the time all traces off daylight were completely gone I found myself comfortably anchored across the river from the entrance to Keeney.Around 9:30 I started to get bit on the rod with the eel on it.First one a catfish,second one another nice catfish,third another cat,fourth a nice fish ,had it on for over ten minutes,pulled hard,then pulled the hook out before I ever saw it,perhaps my last chance at a keeper striper for the year?One last bite,got a big a$$ eel on a small eel,contemplated using him as bait but it was late by then and I decided to call it a night.