Pound for pound, Maine’s most valuable fish is an energetic baby eel known as a glass eel or elver. The price of these babies is controlled by market ups and downs, but they’ve been known to reach over $2,000 per pound of squirming infants in a great year. They’re sold to Asian importers who raise them and resell the mature eels for delicacies.
They’re American Eels (Anguilla rostrata) thought to be migrating from their parents’ salt water breeding ground in and around the Sargasso Sea to their parents’ fresh water maturing streams and ponds in Continental America. At some time after maturity (usually years), they’ll migrate back to the breeding grounds and die there after breeding. Thus, they are “catadromous” fish that have life cycles in fresh and salt waters.
Their Maine fishing season opened Monday, March 22, and will end June 7. The season is timed for the eels’ arrival here from their long trip. Methods for harvesting them are limited to hand-dipping nets and “Fyke” nets (usually pronounced “Fick” nets). Most fishermen use Fyke nets placed in the historic paths of the incoming eels. These are large, thin-meshed funnel nets with a trap and capture bag at the end.
Above, you see eel fishermen setting up and tending to their nets yesterday at low tide in the mouth of Patten Stream in Surry, Maine. By high tide, the nets will be mostly under water. Below, you’ll see an archive image that shows why these fish are called glass eels – they’re transparent except for their eyes and backbone.
Leighton Archive Image
(Surry, Maine)