Read the article with FishingTheSpot: the conger eel
Keep an eye on this subject!
Thousands of species spotlights and techniques but also all the local information about your city!
Meet other anglers near you and share your fishing fishing trips, afoot or on a boat, at sea or in freshwater
See the fishing tripsThe Conger Eel
April to September
58 cm
Did you fish
this species this month?
The Conger Eel belongs to the Anguillidae family. Its average size is 40 to 150 cm for an average weight of 4 kg. It has a life span of 50 years old. They breed from spring to summer. The best period to fish for Conger Eel is from April to September at night.
Snake-shaped, oval body and the rear part is vertically compressed. The skin is relatively thick and covered with mucus that covers the scales. The lower jaw is longer than the upper and the nostrils are tubular. The dorsal and anal fins merge with the caudal fin and this all forms a single continuous fin that starts well behind the pectoral fins. There is no pelvic fin. Back brown-green with yellowish belly for yellow eel but back black with silver belly for silver eel. It turns black with a silver belly in silver eels for individuals ready to migrate to the Sargasso Sea.
The Conger Eel lifestyle
The diet of the conger eel depends on its stage of evolution and it is a fish with a varied diet. In fresh water, its prey consists mainly of insect larvae, crustaceans and fish, but also rodents in large individuals. At sea, eels feed on small fish and crustaceans. During their migration to the Sargasso Sea, adults do not feed and live off the reserves accumulated during the yellow eel stage.
The marine migration of the conger eels is still a real mystery. Scientists can only make observations on its evolution. In spring, the larvae cross the Atlantic in response to ocean currents and the Gulf Stream. The estimated journey from 6 months to more than a year varies from depths of 25 m at night to 300 m during the day. As they approach the European continental shelf, their size is between 55 and 90 mm. It is then that the larvae metamorphose into elvers with translucent bodies. Most of them complete their entire growth on the sea coast (mudflats, marshes), in estuaries and in the lower parts of rivers. The others are moving up rivers and streams in search of developmentally suitable areas where they settle and become yellow eels until they reach reproductive age. This reproduction takes place in the Sargasso Sea and the cycle begins again...
The Conger Eel habitat
The conger eel is a euryhaline fish that lives at shallow depths in fresh water and estuaries. It is sometimes found in "lagoons" such as the Arcachon basin or the Thau basin. It prefers mixed rock-sediment zones and is particularly fond of soft sandy-silt bottoms. It can be found at altitudes of more than 1000 meters.
The distribution of eels extends along all coasts of the North Atlantic: from Florida to Greenland, from Senegal to Scandinavia, as well as in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. There are regular attempts to introduce into Asia and Central and South America, but breeding is not carried out....
The Conger Eel angling
In terms of seasonality, it is from April to September that eels are abundant.
Eels are caught by trawl, traps and lines. If traditional lead fishing gives excellent results, feeder, or float fishing also proven its worth. Nevertheless, the eel is one of the species threatened with extinction, and its stock is included in the IUCN Red List. Its fishing is therefore highly regulated. To ensure that there is no eel in the water, be sure to check before you go in search of this phenomenal fish.
