The islands of New Zealand are home to the largest freshwater eels in the world. This is a statement which a friend of mine made on his return from a holiday there. His stories of monster eels seemed beyond belief We knew that Mark Andrews (ex National Anguilla Club member) had done some pioneering for big eels on the North Island and caught eels to 13lb- 14oz but these stories told of even bigger eels than that - 20, 30 even 40 lb. This inspired Pete Drabble and myself to plan a trip to the South Island to see just how big these eels really do grow too and try to catch one ourselves. There are two types of eel to be found running up the rivers of New Zealand. The Long-fin eel grows to a much greater size than the Short-fin, and it is the Long-fin that we are after. No one can explain why these eels grow to such a massive size. The largest biologically confirmed eel weighed 50 ½ lbs and was almost 6 ft long. Nowadays biologists claim that the eels weigh nearer 45 lb. The Lone-fin is the top predator in New Zealand rivers. It is mainly a flesh eater and they eat not only live food, but will readily strip a dead carcass. A few years ago there was a motoring accident in the Nelson region. A young man drove his car into the river and was injured. He woke up in hospital the next day, after being anaesthetised to find he had a leg missing. It had been eaten away by eels as he lay unconscious with blood oozing from his leg injuries. Stones we have heard about huge eels in New Zealand often relate to them being present in large numbers. Unfortunately such stores are out of date and, though there are still some big eels around they aren't in such numbers as there were 30 years ago. On the internet I learnt that the main reason for the decline of the Long-fin is loss of habitat which has had a far more damaging effect on eel stocks than has the impact of commercial eeling. Although Long-fin eels can weigh as much as 20 kilos, they are slow to develop and will take 30 - 100 years to reach this size. The people of New Zealand have been slow to “develop” too. Only in the last 30 years have they gone about land drainage and creek straightening. Suddenly overnight, the habitat of the Long-fin eel was vastly reduced. The straightening of creeks took out undercut banks, deep holes and waterside vegetation on which the eels depend on for their survival This resulted in great numbers of hungry eels swimming up and down the creeks looking for food. Hungry eels are easy to catch - very easy. So came the commercial netters of the 1980’s. They took tons of eels which were so very easy to catch.
The government has now realised that the eel “harvest” is a crop which needs to be managed at sustainable levels. Commercially, the eel fishery is very important. It has an annual total catch in New Zealand of approximately 1500 tonnes and an export value of 10 million dollars. Stocks are now protected by the Eel Management Plan which relies on a quota system to provide future stocks of eels for commercial “harvesting”. Unfortunately this system takes eels before they have chance to grow to any size. The result is that most waters in New Zealand now have large numbers of small eels making up the biomass. However, there are designated areas where eels are protected so that large breeding females can grow to maturity then complete their migration to breed in the pacific. The commercial people aren't allowed to fish in these areas but we were, so long as we returned all the eels we caught.
We fished two different lakes in these eel conservation zones. They both had naturally balanced stocks of eels with 10% of eels being large females over 4 kilos. This was proven by our catches, with one in ten eels going over 4 kilos, which is how all the waters must have been 30 years ago and still would be if left alone by commercial fishermen. The first "un-tampered" water we fished was Lake Paringa were we camped on the shores. Here, Pete devised a method to single out the bigger eels from the masses of smaller ones. Using a massive bait attracts the attentions of many smaller eels which cannot swallow such a large bait. They grab a hold of the bait and spin around to loosen and tear a mouthful off. By holding the rod and trapping the line between finger and thumb, Pete was able to touch leger, thus he was able to feel what was going on. He would shake the smaller eels off. When a big eel turns up the line would rip out of his fingers as the eel gets the whole bait in its mouth and swims off. Runs kept on non-stop during the hours of darkness and we landed loads of eel, with the best weighing 11:04, 11:12, 12:03 and 12:12.
In the Nelson region we fished another water where the eel stocks have been left alone to find a natural balance. The rivers in this area have been fished out by the commercial people and all the many eels we caught from these rivers were under 4lb. But the lakes which feed the rivers are in a National Park where the eels are protected. We fished one night on Lake Rotoroa, catching loads of eels - 7's, 8's, 9's and although we caught nothing over 11lb – 05oz that night, this was only due to the smaller eels getting to the bail first. This place has serious potential for a monster eel. The biggest eels we caught were from “prison waters” on the upper Waitaki system. This comprises of a series of rivers, hydro canals, dams, huge lakes and their tributaries. There is more water to go at here than in the English Lake District. The whole system is in effect a giant eel prison because fish-passes were un-thought of when the dams were built and the population of eels has been landlocked for many years now. The lowest dam of the Waitaki system was completed in 1954, leaving the eels effectively cut off from their seaward migration. I suppose a few big eels may pass the dam, and some elvers may wriggle around the dam daring times of extremely high rainfall when water floods over weirs and dam spill-ways but all in all, eels are scarce around here. New conservation measures are now being implemented which may affect and sizes of eels in the future. Elvers are caught at the bottom of the dam, then transplanted higher up the system. Big eels over 4 kilos are then trapped above the dam and released below so they may get back to the sea.
We caught eels from two lakes here - Lake Benmore and Lake Alexandrina. Eel runs were so hard to come by that I managed to blank out on Benmore for a whole week. Each evening we filled a giant swim feeder kind of contraption with a mix of eggs, cat food, fish, offal, blood, guts and anything else we could get hold of. Various road kills and dead fish were wrapped up in chicken mesh. These were then tied to the end of a cord and thrown in; we didn't want to “feed off” the eels, just attract them. A bucketful of eggs and blood was then thrown in the margins. Our ground baiting activities set up a massive oily slick trailing out over the vast acreage like an oil spillage. The Freshwater Eel has the greatest sense of smell of any freshwater fish, in fact, the Great White Shark is the only fish with a greater sense of smell, and we all know how well they respond to the smell from rubby-dubby. This extensive baiting up exercise was necessary due to the vast acreage and low eel population of these lakes where, despite such extensive baiting up each evening we rarely got more than one eel run a might. We probably wouldn't have caught a single eel without baiting up. It was worth all the effort too because these were the biggest eels we caught. Pete managed eels of 15:10 and 14:00 from Benmore- On Alexandrina he caught three doubles 16:03, 15: 10 and 12:04 while I managed to land a 15:04. The scenery on these hydro takes is spectacular with Mount Cook and the Southern Alps as a back-drop. The lakes are fed by glacial melt water which accounts for the bright blue azure colour. The brighter the sun : the brighter blue the lake glows. It really does look awesome - the bright blue surface reflecting the snow capped peaks and glaciers. I never thought I would end up fishing for eels in a glacier and there we were. The contrasting climates and landscapes on the South Island lends to an interesting and varied trip as one minute. you can be, in an alpine area with snow capped mountains and massive glaciers, then not too many miles further on you can be in the sub-tropical with impenetrable evergreen forests and giant ferns. The Alps form a ridge along the middle of the island which acts as a barrier trapping the warmer, damper air coming from the west between the mountain ridge and the sea. Hence the climate on the west coast is sub-tropical in great to the alpine mountainous regions and the drier land to the east.
It was great fun exploring the many different trout rivers for eels as we travelled round the island. We tried many of these on our travels, such as Pomahaka River, Bullocks Creek, Punakatki River, Kakapo Creek, Atbara Creek, Waikia Plver and Anguilla Stream. However, the average size of eels was only 2 or 3 lb due to effects of over fishing. You could invariably stalk eels in the crystal clear water. Or were they stalking us? On some rivers eels would come and look at Pete and myself on the bank to see if we were edible. Unfortunately these eels are so obvious, that over the years, nets have been placed under every road bridge and today it is necessary to hike off to where the netsmen haven't been to find some older, larger eels. We did just this on the River Nile where we literally walked up the river for a couple of days; we walked up the river-bed because the sub-tropical bush, which grew to the edge of the river, was impenetrable. We managed a few doubles from the more remote, almost inaccessible, areas. No great angling skill is needed here as the eels show no fear of man. They are easily spotted in the crystal clear water and will come to the edge, right to your feet, even pop their head out of the water to take a bait. Another river we caught doubles from is Kennington creek nearInvercargill where oversize eels are returned by the local processing factory. Laws within the Eel Management Plan state that all eels over 4 kilos must be returned alive. We caught 9's and a 10 from here, but nothing of the size that factory owner reckoned we would. The largest eels we saw were in an aquarium called Hokitika Waterworld where the hoarding outside claims these are the biggest eels in the world. These eels really were 40 or 50lb maybe much more its hard to say. Proof enough that this size of eel is no myth. We have them on video being stroked and tickled by a diver during the daily, hand-feeding display put on for tourists. At times these giant eels seem bigger than the diver. Later I was to learn that at the eels at Hokibka Waterworld were over size eels taken from local creeks. These eels were supplied by an eel processing plant in Hokitika (which shut down two years ago). Apparently they handled lots and lots of oversize eels which were all returned to Lake Mahinapua, so that may be worth a go. One place reputed to hold monster eels is Mataura where slaughter-house washings swill into the river. This Is the most horrific place to fish. The river is already coloured and stinking of industrial effluent before it plunges through a series of water-falls in a rocky gorge around which a massive slaughter-house has been built. The smell of death lingers here where the river is topped up with vile coloured slaughter-house discharges. The current is strong, It was so strong when we fished there for an afternoon, it felt like the River Severn in full flood and I found it hard to hold bottom with my biggest leger. Pete succeeded by touch ledgering using a huge rock wrapped in a stocking with which he was able to just hold bottom. Lift his rod tip and the current would move the rock downriver, thus he was able to search the swim and catch a 5 lb, 9 lb and a 12 lb eel as I sat moaning about the situation. Incidentally, this “stone in a stocking” leger is very useful over snaggy ground. My 2oz and 3 oz legers were washed into rock crevices where they stuck tight, meanwhile Pete's flat rock was bouncing over the very same crevices without jamming as often. When one did get stuck he merely pulled the stocking free from the rock with a firm strike, since the stocking was tied on with a knot which can be pulled out if the need be. He soon plucked another rock from the ground, tied a quick knot and was fishing again within a minute. Once again I was out fished by a very worthy fishing partner.
Most of our bait was collected, or scraped up, from the road as we filled our road-kill bucket on route. Various road-kill birds and other delights such as fillet of hare, rabbit's leg, possum meat, liver, heart and other bits. Then there was the trip to the butchers – lamb offcuts with cows and pigs hearts and lungs. Sometimes we used cleaner, more user friendly baits such as chopped ham with pork from a tin, dead trout, bullheads, squid and monkfish.
People we met on the way advised us to use rotten eggs, rotten or burnt meat and fresh blood to attract eels. Victor Thompson, owner of the eel processing factory at Invercargill is an expert on eels. He told us this is rubbish about rotten meat and assured us that fresh bait is necessary. Also he confirmed that eels will home in on burnt or singed meat faster than fresh, something to do with drawing the concentrated meat scent into the water. I'm licking my lips now thinking of that barbecue smell that gets drawn out of the meat - seems it works on us as well as the eels. Fresh blood and freshly killed animals laid in the margins were also highly recommended to draw the eels in (this is pretty obvious when you consider the road accident near Nelson). Apparently the best attractor of all is eggs, fresh not rotten. Something to do with the albumen is a very effective eel attractant even under large dilutions such as the massive hydro lakes we baited with eggs. Victor's favourite bait are pau pau shellfish guts which he supplied us with. We used these successfully in Kennington Creek near his factory but the smell followed us for days after. It really was stronger and more lingering than the smell of sardines or mackerel. Obviously fairly sturdy tackle is needed. I used 28 lb line, very strong hooks and telescopic rods which are actually designed for sea fishing out of a boat. I had no difficulty landing eels on these rods which are small enough to go in a rucksack for ease of travel. Unfortunately each rod sustained a broken tip section due to mistreatment - I stood on one and actually ended up using a couple of oddly shortened stumps for rods during the last fortnight. We camped and roughed it for 40 days and 40 nights during which nearly every item of clothing, camping or fishing tackle broke as it got a severe testing on a tough trip. I was glad that we only needed basic tackle for basic ledgering with no need to sacrifice anything fancy, specialist or over expensive. Its free to fish for eels in New Zealand. No one fishes for them with rod and line so there is no need to buy a fish and game licence. I found this hard to believe so I phoned to speak to an official. He confirmed that eels are not regarded as a sports fish - so we don't need to buy a licence - but we must return any trout we accidentally catch. These islands boast the biggest trout in the world and it was surprising how many big trout we caught at night on baits such as rabbit and possum meat. During daylight these predatory trout hunt mainly by sight but once its dark rely more on their sense of smell. They certainly homed in on our rubby-dubby style baiting each night. So how big do eels grow in New Zealand. Certainly 50lb, maybe 60 lb as seen at Hokitika. Eels of this size are thin on the ground these days and a lot of time may be needed to catch one. Lets consider the difficulty of catching an eel over 5 lbfrom the UK. Not an easy task and a lot of time may pass before one is caught, let alone a 6, 7 or 8. So too in New Zealand, a 20 lb eel is a major task let alone a 30, 40 or even a 50lb. Such monster eels do exist, we just ran out of lime on our trip. Plenty of waters were explored and a lot was learnt about Longfin eels, much of which I have tried to pass on in this article and the two videos of our trip. I've had a few enquiries from NAC members with regards to going on a trip to New Zealand. Perhaps things will develop until a full posse of members are going which would make for the fish-in of all fish-ins. For those of you that are thinking of going I will give you a few more pointers to help you in the right direction. Firstly be carefull of venue selection as a lot of time may be wasted on waters with no eels. We wasted a lot of time on waters infested with crayfish before it dawned on us that there were no eels in these waters to keep the numbers of crayfish down. Remember most waters have been commercially fished and will only hold smaller eels. For bigger eels you need to go where they have been left alone such as eel conservation zones and remote parts of west coast creeks. Our biggest eels came from hydro lakes in the upper Waitaki system. The commercial fishermen are allowed here but they don't bother because all the eels are too big for taking - all over 4 kilos.
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