March 30, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Elver fishing season opened on March 22 but, while Downeast stream banks are blossoming with fyke nets, at least so far, the juvenile eels that can fetch $2,000 per pound or more when the market is hot have been pretty scarce.
“Everyone set their nets to save their spots,” Darrell Young, an elver harvester from Franklin, said Monday morning. “The water’s too cold. I haven’t even started fishing yet.”
According to Young, fishermen with nets in the Union River have been landing only a few eels at a time.
“I spoke to one girl,” Young said. “She had 50 eels in her net.”
That’s not many, considering that it takes about 2,000 elvers to total a pound.
The few elvers that fishermen have been taking haven’t been of very good quality either.
“They’re weak. They don’t want to buy them,” Young said.
Weak or not, the few elvers that have been coming to market are fetching a reasonably good price.