August 1, 2016 — I recently watched a man fishing in the Arkansas River at Little Rock who caught an American eel. When he set the hook, the angler was pleased with the reaction. The fish surged away, stripping line against the drag. The man grunted and cranked, smiling all the while.
When the 2 1/2-foot fish was finally beached, the man’s demeanor abruptly changed. I doubt he could have been more horror-stricken had he landed a 20-foot anaconda. He dropped his rod, ran to his pickup, extracted a .357 revolver and proceeded to plug the “beast.”
When the gun was empty, he smiled again, turned to me and said matter of factly, “I hate @#$+&eels.”
I decided not to share my penchant for a delicately herbed anguille au verte.
The eel’s long, snakelike body gives folks reason for pause. Beady eyes punctuate a small pointed cranium. The eel’s underlip protrudes in a perpetual pout, and the slug-colored hide is ensconced with thick, snotty mucous. Hold a bass in one hand and an eel in the other, and it’s hard to believe they’re both fish.
Despite their repugnant appearance, however, eels are delectable and worthy opponents on rod and reel. Catch-and-release (or catch-and-run-away) may have been invented by anglers who caught eels by mistake, but among families of Old World origin, no Christmas is complete without eels for the table. This winter specialty keeps thousands of commercial fishermen at work netting tons of live eels to sell in Boston, Chicago and New York.
Eels can be caught in Arkansas waters, too, but they are sporadic in occurrence and not commercially important. The species is most common in larger rivers like the Arkansas, Mississippi, White, Ouachita and Red.
For 23 centuries, man speculated on the origin of the eel. Aristotle was convinced that eels rose spontaneously from mud. Roman scholar Pliny the Elder believed young eels came from bits of skin adults rubbed off on rocks. Scandinavians postulated that another fish, the Aalmutter, was the “eel mother,” while Italian fishermen espoused the idea that eels copulated with water snakes. In early America, it was generally assumed that eels arose spontaneously from horse hairs that fell in the water. These whimsical notions had support until 1924, when scientists discovered facts as astounding as the age-old beliefs were fantastic.