 This little tiny glass. He'll brings a lot of money into the state of Maine. $20 million dollars. Yes $3,000-4,000 Gold rush of Maine What is up guys? Joe Holland here. It is before 3am in the morning I got a wipe the sleep out of my eyes I am head to the coast to see about how to catch and everything you need to know about Elvers what's an Elver you're gonna find out. Oh, there goes a fox It's been a little while since I've been on the road before 3 a.m We're gonna head to where fresh and salt water meets to meet up with my buddy Abnan Who's gonna teach us all we need to know about Elvers Abnan is all set up on a retaining wall On a freshwater river that meets salt water. So he's fishing a high tide He has an aluminum polled net a foam pad to sit on and a bucket for the glass eels that he catches Near the water He has a propane lantern to attract the glass eels and Elvers The eels come in from the ocean towards the fresh water on the high tide and Abnan Blindly swings his net to scoop and catch them as they come up the river The American eel is unique because it's the only Caterdromis fish in North America meaning it lives mostly in fresh water But returns to the ocean to spawn as opposed to anadromis species That live in salt water and travel to freshwater to spawn Adult eels may live in fresh water from 8 to 25 years before returning to the ocean to spawn They leave their fresh water growing areas in the fall and migrate to the Sargasso sea and spawn during the late winter The Sargasso sea is a large area of the western North Atlantic Located east of the Bahamas and south of Bermuda is actually just an area of the North Atlantic That's full of a Sargasso, which is a kind of seaweed that floats in the ocean rather than existing close to land For the American eel the Sargasso sea is where the life cycle begins and ends After spawning the adult eel dies the eggs hatch after several days and develop into a larva stage The larvae drift in the ocean for several months and then enter the Gulf Stream current to be carried north towards The North American continent as they approach the continental shelf the larvae Transform into miniature transparent eels called glass eels as glass eels leave the open ocean To enter estuaries and ascend rivers. They are known as Elvers This migration occurs in late winter and early spring and throughout the summer months Some Elvers remain in brackish waters while others ascend rivers far inland Fisheries for yellow and silver eels have a long history in Maine Having occurred since the earliest colonial settlements. The Elver fishery is relatively recent having begun in the early 1970s until 1978 and then started again in the early 1990s The fishery was non-existent from 1979 to the early 1990s due to a collapse in market demand for Elvers In recent years market demand has increased dramatically Elvers are highly valued in the Far East Japan China Taiwan and Korea where they are cultured and reared to adult size for the food fish market Due to recent intense market demand Elvers have now become the most valuable marine resource in terms of price per pound reaching over $2,000 per pound the fishing season for Elvers in Maine runs from March 22nd through June 7th Although the fishery may be closed earlier if Maine's quota is met harvest methods are restricted to hand-dip nets Like Abden is using or fight nets the Department of Marine Resources Has renewed a lottery for permits, but they are capped at 425 licenses Yeah, it's pretty fascinating thing South Carolina is the only other place that they harvest them and the only harvest aquaculture quota It's the only state in the country that have some like this commercially It's been a fight to keep it A lot of the other states haven't done the work that Maine has to keep the fishery So they're pretty jealous. I mean it's a short season, it's 11 weeks It creates 20 million dollars worth of revenue for the fishermen. Wow Last year last year. I think the season was done Middle to the end of April only like five weeks. Oh It's quota-based. Yeah, it's quota-based. I I'm only allowed so many The state of Maine is allowed to have us at least nine hundred and ninety six hundred and thirty seven pounds 2012-2013 is harvesting somewhere around 18,000 pounds. Wow so They've tried like crazy to cut us back to nothing, but they've cut us back 50% of what we was catching It's all the Atlantic states the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is what regulates a lot of this stuff and It's all the whole 13 states along the Eastern seaboard they make up these rules The same thing with pogeys, stripers everything flounder Herring I've been down to Oh, yeah, I think I go I think I saw Oh, yeah Oh another one You got them That's cool Yeah, it's fun when you see you'll see four or five six women right by your light great steady No, are they all coming from the ocean Yep, yep All the way from the Bermuda Triangle Holy Shoe In the Sargasso sea All the adults will go down there from here and all over spawn and the babies come back The crazy thing about these are they're not a river specific species so you could get 10,000 pounds you can get 2,000 pounds and all depends on the fresh water content That's what they seek out is the fresh water. These will head up towards the Big medamic little medamic Washington pond There's a life until they're ready to go back out. It wasn't very many people doing it. There was, you know, just a handful I Get started in 91 When the big boom really hit and they went to like $400 a pound It was like 2,000 2200 people that had licenses at that time. Well back when I started all you needed was a commercial fishing license And then a few years after that it created the overall license Anybody could still buy one Something like that, but they put the moratorium on But they've dropped off this cold weather just fetched them right out Right there again, too. So it's really really early and I could have caught just what was here They've been laying here wait for the water temperature to get to a What they like Because they dropped right off last night. I only had a half a pound They're pretty pretty slow tonight, too The temperature makes a big difference. They don't like moving in this cold cold water If it was 50 degrees during the day, they would be all over the place Now I see that cell here. Does that have anything to do with these? Yep Yeah, I said it so it was close so she could get to it easy And they'll go in and get stuck in there. Yeah. Yeah, they call a card and there's a funnel like a funnel in the net that goes down and they go into a Something about the size of my bucket about three feet long They get in there Is this One year we had them. It was around 2200 a pound and close to a buck a piece for those right there right now there. Yeah, probably 80 cents 80 cents 90 cents That piece takes a lot of them to make up a pound That's why they a lot of times they only move at night Because anything and everything wants to eat them. Mm-hmm. It doesn't take much to eat them either doesn't know Oh my god Was there no quota then or there was no quota then Yeah, I was back then I was I didn't chase them like a lot of guys did love guys go all the way to Bangor Machias and places like that Chase them up the coast because as they come up they'll come into these rivers at different times. Mm-hmm something guys would chase them all season Hey predominantly just stayed around here city a fish Over in the sheep's gut because you could leave here at high tide go over there and still fish for another hour and a half Two hours because the tide's so late up there. Mm-hmm fish over there and get another pound pound and a half A lot of guys used to go to New Jersey and Massachusetts Back when there was no quota and there wasn't really it was the Wild West It's the start early you go down there and chase them up through I had a place in one year we didn't have our you chased them up to Bangor and Had a place that I sat Is it right where the old fish ladder was right across from the hospital power plant there? One day we took a book took a boat up because it was the easiest way to get to a lot of places because the the There's a long ways through the woods to get to the river and the road And I had a wall like this And I turned my light on and there was a band of them about two feet wide It was just nothing but eels three hundred yards. Oh my god. Oh and that wall right down through I get like six pounds in like two hours Oh, yeah, it's getting a little better than starting to move Do you get much for like competition not not now it used to be a little bit years ago A lot of guys or that was another thing we did too is you was allowed to Switch at the beginning of the year whether you wanted a pike net or a dip net because pre 2016 or so Whatever you've ever always fished with that's all you was allowed to have. Okay, you know some guys would have before 2012 you was allowed as many nets as you wanted. Wow And They dropped you down five naps and then they went If you had fished five fight naps you could fish up to two fight naps And then it was switched to a dip net and a fight net if you wanted to fish it Or if you just had a dip net and that's all you ever fished with that's all you was allowed but now we redid it so You can have whatever you want at the beginning of the season and but you're stuck with it I've always dipped I always loved different my wife wound up switching to a fight net She doesn't want to be down here all hours of the night She's good at it too. Yeah, you're real good at it. But yeah, no I've had this spot for a long time Once in a while you'll have it's not now but in fact years ago I used to have People come down and try to get this spot at the beginning of the season They get a couple of people that I fish with they get small quarters. So they come down They fish with me down here. They'll fish out on that front wall There was one girl called her quarter and two nights. Wow She's got a small folder and the other ones are from lines tribal member passing party You fish to your four nights you got his And then because they shut the Shut them off because they hit their quota All the tribe tribe. Yeah passing parties. Yeah, they all got different quotas my population Now does she have a smaller quota because she hasn't done it? Yeah, she she wasn't as aggressive as I was. Yeah Hey, she was false, but You know she said What's the most somebody has There was one guy. I don't I think he's still alive. He's got 150 pound quota. Oh my god. Yeah a lot of guys most Most fishermen get anyways from 10 to 25 pounds And you've got a handful it's got over 40 pounds 40 50 pounds and you've got a I guess two or three guys in the state that have over 100 pounds. Oh my god. Yeah So when they go it goes back to the fishermen for the most part and then new permits When they yeah, okay if one of those guys passed away Um That new uh, that new permit would get four pounds of that and the rest goes back to the rest of the fishermen. Wow So anyone that started off with four pounds Every you know would get a little bit of a taste every year Eventually what it'll do is take forever to do but everyone would be having seen yeah, but it could take 50 years for that happens Yeah Yeah, there used to be the wild west down the fs fights and people throwing each other overboard Oh, yeah You stand in there and hear it booting and hollering and screaming and make you know hear a splash Oh Four guys went swimming up there one night So it must have been crazy back in the day with the price. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah guys lugging guns Oh, it was cash. It was all cash sales back then. Yeah, you know some of the dealers Had one guy that was set up right in the earth and packing off for a long time Nothing to be sitting there with $100,000 We produced roughly around 1.5 to 2.2 million dollars with the clams out of here a year About a about a million dollars worth of alvers come out of here a year too. Wow Yeah, so this river is oh it produces a lot of product. Wow. I had no idea produced that much. Yep Because we got lobster on the bottom end on the lower end Probably that's probably in the millions We had a lot of fishermen from all over the fish on the lower end the fish out of friendship But they'll come up into here So how far from the actual ocean are we right now? Like the last inlet or whatever From here down is probably three miles to the girls and it opens up to like a hungry island You got hungry island bring them long island You know Oh past louds out of louds island outside of round pond That's all open ocean out beyond that It's pretty amazing that these elders like pick this river Yeah, it's a lot like I said it's a lot to do with water Water the fresh water content It's like in the Kenneback and in the Penobscot That's a huge drawing for them because there's a lot of fresh water comes down through That attracts a lot of eels. Oh my god. The Kenneback must be loaded. Yep The Penobscot's really big You know it'll produce hundreds of thousands of pounds In the last few years everyone's done pretty well Yeah, so they haven't even bothered to fish because they get there late Because that's so much further further away from the ocean. Oh, I see. Yeah And uh Yeah, they'll be they'll be towards the end of the season before they get up there in the Middle of May the end of May 1st of june So they haven't even been ever been fished on at all for a couple of years two or three years Everyone's already had their quota by then do you guys have a uh a size limit on your net? No, no, it's just whatever the fight nets though They can't be any Longer than 30 feet from the caught end of the wingtip. Okay. And this is just whatever you feel comfortable swinging. What if you can swing? Yeah, we're guys getting crazy back in the day. Oh, yeah, I've had bigger nets than this I had one that was over two feet across. Geez. I just too much This size here is about perfect. Yeah, a lot of people won't even swing this size. They get the regular net That's about this big. Oh, uh but Yep, they get a regular net that you can just go buy at the marine store That's probably two thirds that side Better it's nothing great Back years ago. This used to be awesome catching that many but Now do they have like big days in a in a nut in a nap too? They can yeah, I've seen I've seen it where I've seen videos like that in the union river A few years ago the guy dipped Dumped his net and it's two five gallon buckets full of them. Hmm. I see talking 80 pounds that Seen two thousand dollars a pound. Wow That's like the wind in the lottery What's that? That's like wind in the lottery. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he just dumped up We didn't need that many but he dumped him in a five gallon bucket and just Pouring them out and just overflowing. There was nothing but eels. There was no water in the bucket at all. Oh my god Yeah, I'm talking about 160 thousand dollars set one night He could have sold them all. Yeah, that's the one thing we've been pushing for the amount to do is You know these eels got to take a lot of a lot of work to get up into the fresh water The guys would like what they'd really like to do is if they get done they get a big mass like that It's put them up above. Yeah, give them a chance to get up there You know almost like a stalking Stalking program they do it with our lives State comes in they'll have a bunch of our lives live and take them up to a lake and put them in it You know, it's a hopefully they'll work their way back down You know go up and spawn and work their way back down Will they let will they do that or no? We've been fighting with them to try to get them to do it They've really been pretty apprehensive about it, which I don't understand why but I don't think they have the staff to monitor it They're competing competing product for the for the same food Anything in the water they uh, they're feeding on just like clams Going right down probably no sympathy though. There's probably 30 dollars worth of eels there I wish they could have a really good dip like it was Few nights ago. Hey, you never know When there was there'd be 200 300 eels 400 eels in there. No kidding So those buyers are the buyers set up for like everyday buying. Well, what they'll do is the buyers will Usually when they get 100 kilos, so that's when they'll ship out They'll send out 100 boxes and there's a kilo in each box 2.2 pounds Well, do they ship them dry? No, no they put them here and put the oxygen to them. Okay. Yeah Like in water? Yeah. Okay. Yeah Just like you would if you're just getting smelts and stuff like that. Oh, I see. Yeah Put them in a bag put some water in there They fly them over? What's that? Do they fly them over? Yeah. Yeah It's another thing people don't realize too is the reason why they want them at this size There's a an eel that's already formed a mouth and stuff like that Will not live in captivity. No kidding. They'll sign us up for that. I did not. Yeah, you get up The sushi smokey eel and all that. Oh, yeah, six billion dollar a year industry. Six billion. Yes Me he's got the only aquaculture farm in the country No kidding. Great in Walderboro. I didn't know that. Where's that? Right at the Industrial park. Oh like the old uh, where they had a shed factory. Yeah, where they were doing the shed Yep, just just just across the tracks from there. Yeah. Oh, that's good, right? Yep Just 50 60 people running around every trying to set the nets where they wanted them. It's crazy. Oh, yeah, it was like the wild west it was It was fun back then, but yeah, it was pretty unnerving and I had people were on edge all the time people getting robbed Oh, yeah stealing other people's eels. Oh, you want to leave your bucket like this and go to your truck You come back the thing would be gone Holy cow. Yeah Wow. Yeah, it was the wild west for sure. Holy cow. Yeah Yeah, not like that anymore. No, no, I can see it's not like that anymore No, I said it's me and uh, a couple other people at fish. They get small quotas They'll come down the first of the year and they'll set right there Oh, I guess there is somebody still up there. Yeah, that's probably Jamie just walking around Probably cleaning his eels. Yeah But uh, you know, Jamie'll fish there a little richie leaven cello fishes up there and mica fishes up there That's about it. Now this place used to have 25 30 guys up through here. Wow. Yep. Do you think the quota system helped it or? Well, I think switching being able to switch to fight net But before the all those guys that were here were all dip netters. Yeah, that's all they were allowed to do Oh, okay. So yeah Switching so you can have either off at the beginning of the season Changed a lot of a lot of the guys are older. Yeah back when I started I was in my 20s. Yeah, I'm over 50 now So do you think you'll switch it ever switch over? No, no, I love doing this. Nice. I would have to be something drastic for me to switch Yeah I love doing this. I love being out at night doing this pretty peaceful. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, very peaceful It gets rocky until then and it gets soft Yeah, it's on this side of it though. It's I'll sink to my knees Something in there Took quite a bit of jelly Something hatches in it. You sometimes you'll get jelly like I do dipping And come up the net and be all full of jelly Looks like jelly in these I'm gonna rinse this out. There's the cover I'm trying to rinse this out a little bit. That's a pretty swift net, huh? Yep Are there regulations on how wide it can be? Yeah, it's gonna be can only be 30 feet from wing tip to the cod end 30 feet. Yeah, and then whip anything. No, it don't matter And height doesn't matter. This is an eight footer. Oh, wow Some of these guys like that one there's probably a 10 footer. Wow. I'm having another one built for us It's a 10 footer so we can put it Put it up above on the other side of the wall Oh that guy's got his from the top of that wall down. Yeah. Wow. He's got a 10 foot net, I'd say And these got to get checked every there's supposed to be every 16 hours That's an odd number, isn't it just based on tide or yep Yep That must have been awful back in the wild the last of this having it having a net out Oh, yeah, card ends being cut off. Oh my god guys who run down cutting the card end off and run with it That's awful. Yeah, they cut it just cut it right off there and lug her off. Geez So you don't know what you caught yet? Nope. Nope. She won't tell you to get back to the house. Cool Do we have like baby jellyfish or something? No, it's something's hatched Could be krill. I'm not sure what it that hatches out of it. Let me see a couple heels in there Oh, yeah, it plugs the holes up so you can't get the water out of it Let me grab the blue one too. Yeah, I'll dump it dump it in that right now. This stuff's pretty nasty, yeah Yeah What do they tell me caught or something? I don't know. What are these fish? Ah, those are chubs. Oh, no, one of chubs, yeah Yep, yeah, we tried to get that net to catch everything. That's the good thing about those nets they catch a lot of that jelly Get it separated. Oh, yeah, let's see Yep, he's wary Yeah, there's one over there. I don't know if he's dead or alive It's another thing too is sea fleas. Sea fleas will bite them and kill them So everything wants to get these guys. Yep, it's about Jeff do this two or three times before you get all this jelly out Is that like a new problem? No, no always Everything comes in stages. Yeah, it does it comes in stages Like the first few nights, I didn't have any jelly The last two or three nights Like I said, I think something hatched And all of a sudden I get and at a certain time of the tide I'll get all that jelly Not many today, not least you had yesterday not even close You never know that's the thing why I like dipping because you never know You could anything catch a pound two pounds next night catch nothing it's There's probably Three four thousand dollars there Four thousand dollars worth of years Gold rush of mean Yeah, truly is. Yep Yeah, they say you claim it's like a 90 mortality rate on them. Wow So maybe 10% of them make it to adulthood But like I said, I believe when they are adults They produce a million per foot A million So they're smaller than Than your hair. Oh, yeah when they're hatched or balloons. Yep Yep, I believe that's what it is So I saw one black one earlier what I got. Yeah, he's a That one right there Yeah Yeah, no really if he goes through the net, he's legal. I mean there's a certain size But they really don't want them. Oh, okay, because they they've already developed a mouth. They've been up in the river for a little while There he is He's legal, but They don't really want something like that I'll put him back Water in it I'll go back down. I'll take dump them back overboard. Oh, wow. Yeah We're gonna have a good night. Oh, that's slick. We'll move this one through. Oh swim right through All the grass and stuff stays in there. Yeah They're pretty fast wicked fast What else happened in the wild west guys would grab your bucket? Oh, yeah, some people would come down and you didn't dare to leave your bucket alone See if they come back and it could be empty Yep, and it was shoulder the shoulder sometimes. Oh, yeah, there was it was there was people lined up. There'd be 50 people down here Right in this one area where I give it all by myself now There'd be 50 people here Yeah Putin in holler and all that All kinds of craziness any fights. Oh, yeah. I was down here one night four guys went in the water Yep. Oh, yeah, they had fights this year Oh, yeah, yeah, down one. They had some issues down in Pamuqued and issues in Camden I just go to those places. I'm going to them anymore Is it over like location? Yep Yeah, that's my spot. No, that's my spot Okay, there first you don't get it. Yeah, you know, the other person doesn't get it So one good thing down here is Most everybody's established their spot. Yeah, so it's pretty good down here But you get places that are early early In the season They want to take to the spot Little guys. Yeah That's what they like though. They've got little ones. That seems like more than the other night. Yep Nice That was a good one There's probably a couple hundred deals there If the moon's gone behind the clouds, that's why this they could have been driving them tonight that Nice We'll stickle back a couple hundred deals are better there and thinking things are close to a dollar a piece It's crazy. They go all the way over to japan with them. Yeah, what are you sure they've been back this Grow them out and they'll send them back here Alive. Yeah. No. Yeah. Uh, well a lot of times I think they process them all Okay They'll smoke them and stuff like that because smoke here is big here from what I hadn't seen Not that I'd eat it, but I didn't know that Yeah, smoke here, smoke here is pretty big here I probably didn't get quite as long Yeah Still still a hundred bucks there Hundred dollar bill no better. We take that one. Yeah. Oh, yeah, dip for five minutes five minutes for a hundred dollar bill