The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

When using just one rod i would also touch ledger. Eels are superb for feeling bites as most of the time they are quite easy to detect on the finger tips.

If using 2 rods i like a bobbin with an isotope but fished like those pike-alarms, drop off style. I do this alot for eel and zander and it works like a charm. Fix the bobbin to the rear bankstick and position the rod so that the bobbin with its cord tensioned is under the spool of the reel. After casting, tighten up to the lead/bait, hang in the bobbin and open the balearm. The bobbins lineclip should be adjusted so that it will prevent line from going off the reel even with some current but let the line slip free when a fish takes line. The bobbin will drop and you know theres something taking line. If the fish swims to you the bobbin will also drop but slower and not suddenly.

Without current in the water you can also place a coin on the spool after opening the balearm and place a metalplate underneath it. When line is taken you`ll hear a "pling".


Eels can get rid off hooks very easily so if one is deep-hooked just cut the line close to the eels mouth and let him go. Ive used a big keepnet for eels often and if the hook wasnt touchable outside the eels mouth i have often cut the line and put the eel into the keepnet. I crimp down the barb on my hooks and after 3-4 hours 99% of the eels got rid of the hooks, with the hooks including line lying in the keepnet. Im sure that if a eel is deephooked the troublsome unhooking process is far worse for the eel then letting him get rid of it himself.
Dont ask me how they do it, though

Thanks I mentioned earlier that I will experiment with touch ledgering as recommended by a Mr Perret! I will try at the weekend an see if I can catch a biggun!

Ididnt read all of the thread before posting first , edited my last post now.

No worries I've done it before and I think we all appear to do it now and again! Times too short to read all!

I think the Heron bite alarm is a vintage bit of kit so surely one could be used in combination with a MK IV. I'm sure I read somewhere that RW used one.

Woodytia wrote:I think the Heron bite alarm is a vintage bit of kit so surely one could be used in combination with a MK IV. I'm sure I read somewhere that RW used one.

More than that - he designed it! based on his earlier homemade device, (possibly called the "Bedlam"?). there was a good little article on the old PP forum many years ago.

I would just sit and watch the propped up rod tip for bites, when fishing the estuary for Eels we used this method and for Flounders as well. How about using a bell on a peg on the rod top just for a change, just like we always used to. Reedling.

It does not matter what alarm you use but whatever you do you must not wait for the second run the risk of deep hooking and killing the fish is too great. You mentioned Dick Walker but do keep in mind that his eels were killed for the pot and that deep hooking did not matter to him. There is an old photo, I think in Still Water Angling, where you see an eel being killed by having a knife driven in the back of the head. Times change, eels then were everywhere in large numbers - not now. I do not fish for them now for that reason although I did a lot of eel fishing in the 1960s.
Give them every chance to recover their numbers.

Thanks Chris I've already said I will not wait for the second run! Not that I've found a problem with the way we do it. Using worms and burying the hook in fish baits also cause deep hooking so we also avoid those. We only fish for them about twice a year and if lucky catch a couple!

I'm with you all on the first run strike principle and I must say, if you have the time and patience, feeling for bites with eels is a good way forward too. There is a distinctive twitch or two and then a draw of line across the pinkies, and striking then I have found that i have lip hooked most eels. One of my most memorable tussles was with a big eel, fishing a Shropshire lake when I was a teenager. The eel went just short of 7lb and it fought like crazy. What was startling was to see it taking line whilst swimming backwards, a fish with forward and backward gears! Back then the national record was 8lb 8oz so this was a very significant fish, with the broad head of a mature eel. She must have lurked there for ages, very few people were allowed to fish the lake and I only got a go at it because my friend's father was doing some plumbing work for the farmer. Bait- a gorgon's head of lobworm, but the debates about fish versus worm baits is another issue isn't it!