The pull of the tide drives the elvermen onwards
By I SPENT an evening this week with the elvermen of the River Parrett. They are, by their own admission, a salty bunch; standing welly deep in the muddy banks at Bridgwater, Somerset, and using language riper than a pregnant two-foot European eel.
But they know their craft, and their river, intimately. The elvermen are only allowed to fish for the tiny baby eels that arrive in their millions from the Atlantic and are washed up with the spring tides each year using traditional nets attached to long poles.
It is a deliberately imperfect method to allow the elvers a chance to continue upstream. Despite the numbers that arrive, the European eel is still critically endangered and in Britain fishing is tightly regulated.
This means that to make a profit during the fishing season, which runs from February to May, the elvermen have had to become masters in the way of the tides.
On the Parrett they fish on the flood tide as it provides a steadier stream than the ebb tide, when the water is pulled back out. On the nearby Severn Estuary, which has the second highest tidal range in the world, it is more of a lottery. At this time of year water surges downstream so fast that the Severn Bore is formed – a roaring wall of water.
The elvermen described all these movements in reverent tones, as well as patiently explaining to me the difference between spring tides – which occur when the Sun, Moon and Earth are in alignment – and neap tides – which occur between the spring tides and when the Sun and Moon face the Earth at right angles.
We caught some elvers, about 0.7lb in total which equates to fewer than 1,000. Not much, but then the elvermen say they don’t do this for the money.
Every year, they say, will be their last. Yet the pull of the tides is not just something that works on eels.