A sleek, slithering catch made on the Allegheny River
On the night of May 31, Nicole Bandzuh, of Freeport, was bank fishing with her boyfriend on the Allegheny River when she pulled in an unusual catch. Greenish silver and snakelike, it had distinct pectoral fins behind the head. Ms. Bandzuh had landed an American eel.
“We had just set up at our nighttime catfishing spot when on her second cast she reeled in the eel,” said boyfriend Aaron Malecki, also of Freeport. “I am a regular fisherman of the area and had never seen nor heard of anyone catching one. It felt about 5 pounds and was close to, if not over, 2 feet long. I was able to wiggle the hook out after some trouble ... and released it back into the water.”
Ms. Bandzuh’s catch isn’t endangered or threatened, but it is uncommon to find one that far north in the Ohio River watershed.
The only freshwater eel species in North America, the American eel has a complex life cycle that begins many miles off the East Coast in the Atlantic Ocean’s Sargasso Sea. After hatching, tiny transparent larval eels drift with the ocean current. It is unknown why some American eels migrate up the Delaware or Potomac rivers while others find their way to the Mississippi River. This one drifted more than 1,000 miles into the Caribbean and turned north at Louisiana.
Males remain near the tributary mouths. This female swam some 2,000 miles upstream through the Ohio River and up the Allegheny, a journey that took years. It is likely that Ms. Bandzuh interrupted the eel’s upstream ascent. After living in fresh water for 10-20 years, females begin their downstream migration in autumn. They mate with waiting males on their way back to the Sargasso Sea, where they expel some 2 million eggs before dying.
Last August, an American eel was caught in the Allegheny River near Verona. Another was caught near Springdale in 2006.
“Surprisingly enough, we caught her on hot dog marinated in garlic, as we were going for catfish,” said Mr. Malecki.
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