The Maryland Watermen's Association is dedicated to the interests of all who derive beauty & benefit from Maryland's Chesapeake Bay Waters

Eels are caught in eel pots that are hand made out of fine mesh wire with nylon funnels sewn in them. The eel pot is baited with horse shoe crabs, razor clams, herring and sometimes crabs.

The eels find their way into the pot to get the bait, but cannot find their way out because of the design of the funnel. Eels are very good to eat but not very popular in this country.  Most are shipped live by air freight to the European countries.  The season for eels is spring, summer and fall with the spring being the most important.  Small "pencil" eels are used as bait for catching Rockfish on the Chesapeake Bay.

"Buck Fever" out of Rock Hall, Maryland	Capt'n Chucky Clark
Capt'n Clark grabs the eel pot and unhooks it from the line	Charles "Poony" Crouch takes the pot from the Capt'n
Charles "Poony" Crouch dumps the eels and Dan "Mussels" Didrker rebaits the pot	Razor clams are used for eel bait
Baited eel pots ready to go	Baited eel pots stacked for the trip back to the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay
Dan "Muscles" Didrker makes the 3 miles of trap line ready for resetting	Eel pots are placed about every 75 feet on the 3 mile line
Assembly line operation gets the job done quickly and efficiently	Charles "Poony" Crouch attaches eel pot to line as it slides over the stern
While crew resets eel pots the Capt'n makes repairs	Live tank full of eels headed to Europe for eating
Capt'n Chuck Clark shows off days catch	The forth pair of hands is the "power wench" which brings in the 3 miles of line and stores it into the drums automatically

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