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The history of an eel weir from The Eel
Man —
Just the basic physics of it is what gives it quite a bit of its
design-you're capturing, you're focusing, you're funneling… They have
been radioactively carbon dated in the Massachusetts and Connecticut
area 5900 years ago… |
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Just how many eels can you catch in one night anyway? —
…If you could imagine, up there, full with eels. This thing
totally covered. I mean it was like solid eels like a mat right here
like this. I’d stand up here and dig some out and throw them in the
boat…wasn’t even a dent until about five o’clock in the morning... |
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Ray explains the emotions that go through a person when they realize
how much work they have ahead of them —
I had mixed emotions. One was, 'My God, they're here.' I had been
going through a whole year where I was quite concerned because the
catch was real low compared to the previous year... |
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Ray talks about the health of the river now compared to when he was
a child fishing in the same place that his now lives —
The shad never ran when I was growing up in this area because
they could not get past the pollution down below. That has all been
attended to in a good way, and they are actually generating a migration
now. So yeah, I would say it has improved tremendously... |
