Did you know eels can travel short distances on land? That’s because their skin and gills can absorb oxygen letting them breath out of water. The American eel goes through many stages in its life. First the eel eggs hatch into small larva in the Sargasso Sea they drift through currents for about a year until they reach the Atlantic coast. Once they have reached the coast they have grown fins and look like adult eels but are only three inches long. The eels then either move into freshwater rivers or stay in marine waters, but either way they develop a greenish grey and are about four inches long. After being in clear rushing rivers the eels get a yellowish green color, but instead of feeding in the day they switch to feeding at night.
American eels eat any dead animals or insects that fall into the water, such as earthworms, larva, beetles, termites, centipedes, dead fish or any small dead animals that could have drowned or been swept away in a waterfall. So if you’re fishing for eels and wondering what bait to use just put any of these things on your hook and you’ll have a pretty good chance of catching one. And this may sound strange but you can actually catch an eel without using a hook, you simply tie a piece of juicy meat to the end of your line, wrap it and string it through with wool yarn. When the eel bites your bait it’s sharp little teeth will get caught in the yarn and when you begin to pull him in the eel thinks its meal is getting away and will bite down harder causing its teeth to become more tangled.
When the eels have come inland up the rivers they can be found in the midwest, south and southeastern part of the US. They can also be found on the eastern side of Mexico and Canada. And can also be found throughout Cuba.
There are many physical changes that American eels undergo enabling their return to the Sargasso Sea at the end of their lives. The eels transform from shallow water bottom dwellers to ocean travelers. They don’t feed during ocean migration and their gut begins to degenerate. For refueling their long swims, their fat reserves are increased. Their eyes become more sensitive to blue and double in size causing better vision in bigger and deeper waters. The eels now develop a dark bronze back and silver belly. Once they arrive at the Sargasso Sea the female lays up to 30-million eggs, and the male fertilizes them. It is assumed that the adult eels die, though researchers have never seen eels spawn in the wild.
