Pole-Poking for fun and profit

Our hosts took us Pole-Poking for California PrickleBack MonkeyFaced EELS.
There was a very low tide (-1.1) scheduled for Sunday morning at 6:55 am.
We had to get up at 4am and hit the road.
We got to the coast at about 6:30 and the fog that is usually there at that time of the morning wasn't too heavy. We take our long bamboo poles and hiked down to the water.

You pick a rock and start poking your pole into any hole you can find.
The pole has a two inch long string with a big silver hook on it, we bait it with squid and the EELS really like it. I poked around for a few minutes and I caught the first one of the day.
No reeling in, no worry about your line breaking, just call someone with the burlap bag and we bag em, unclip the hook from the pole (carefully, they bite), twirl the bag shut and you are ready to start again. Put a new hook on, load on the bait and go back to the same hole. Very satisfying.
We all had fun, and they are cooking up the EELS right now. They invited some more friends over and we will see how it is.

Wendy started pole-pokin about 40 years ago. Her dad saw someone doing it and found out the details. The fisherman was Portuguese and was glad to explain the technique. They made poles and started practicing. Sometime later another Portuguese fisherman showed them the finer points of pole-poking technique and they became very competent from then on. The top secret hint: THAT ROCK. Wendy has returned to THAT ROCK for forty years. The system works, don't mess with it.

2007-07-01 Pole-Poking for California PrickleBack MonkeyFace EELS

I have uploaded a very large group of pictures because the scenery was so wonderful.

Click HERE to see our photos.

Click HERE to find out more about the California PrickleBack MonkeyFace EEL.