Striped bass have a hard time saying no to an eel.
Sharpies have been using these slimy, squirming critters to catch stripers for more than 100 years, and they’re still popular for those who cast, drift or troll for large stripers.
Eels are a tough, durable bait with a history of attracting the largest striped bass found in coastal waters, from North Carolina to Canada. Three of the four world record bass taken since 1913 were caught on eels. That’s no coincidence.
One story
I was dressed in a shortie wetsuit, standing on a rock at the end of Earth. It was June, and the water still had a chill, especially after dark. A folded multitool was shoved under the neoprene of my left short sleeve and a dry eel rag was tucked under the right. I held a stiff 10½foot G. Loomis rod with major pulling power. I imagined it was my elephant gun for big stripers.
The reel was an old-school, manual-pickup Penn 706Z spooled with 65-pound braid and 50-pound fluorocarbon leader. The knots on the swivel and hook were good, pulled tight while moist, trimmed short but not too short. The swivel was beefy, and the 6/0 hook was new. This has long been my go-to eel rod for big fish along rocky shorelines.
A 12-inch eel writhed slowly on the hook as I prepared to cast. The eel had been chilling nicely on ice with a few-dozen comrades for a couple of days. I thumped it hard, twice, against the edge of a cooler to stun it, and then I inserted the hook beneath its chin and pushed it out the eel’s left eye socket. If I fish it long enough, I’ll rehook it through the right socket. (I may learn the hard way that karma is a bitch.)
