UTER
Photo: Clinton & Charles Robertson from RAF Lakenheath, UK & San Marcos, TX, USA & UK, CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Anguilla rostrata
How to catch American eel in Florida
American eel feed in 0–0°F water and bite best at 0–0°F.
Bait · in the book, no points
About
The live eel: a snake of a bait from the brackish creeks and the bait shop coolers, that a cobia will leave a ray for. Slimy, tough, and worth every dollar in April.
How to fish it
An eel trap or a minnow trap with fish scraps in a brackish creek; or buy them by the dozen in cobia season. Ice slows them down for hooking.
What it eats
an eel trapthe bait shop
Getting it, rigging it
Getting it
An eel trap in a brackish creek, or from the bait shop by the dozen in cobia season. Keep them cold and slow.
Rigging it
Hooked through the lips on a 5/0 to 7/0 circle hook and sight-cast to a cobia or dropped to a cobia on a ray — the eel is the cobia bait.
What it's for
What to fish it with
the sizes that fish itHook#8–#1
Braid10–15 lb
The rule
not confirmed hereMinimum size for harvest; confirm at MyFWC.
The current rule at MyFWC →