'Record' seven-foot conger eel trawled off Plymouth in UK

Wednesday, May 20th 2015 - 20:44 UTC

Full article 7 comments

Commercial fishermen trawling off the coast of the United Kingdom near Plymouth were stunned last week when they brought aboard a seven-foot, roughly 130-pound conger eel. The eel had gotten caught up in the trawler’s nets and was already dead by the time it was brought out of the water, but its sheer size surprised even the fishermen on board. Read full article

Comments

Disclaimer & comment rules

Frank
Rather strangely a lot of people seem to think Congrio is Conger Eel... even appears as such on menus.

Maybe thats why this story has appeared in MP.

Its not... congrio is known as ling in Australia and New Zealand and kingklip in South Africa.
May 21st, 2015 - 12:54 am - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
Clyde15
Actually, Conger is rather good eating. Ages ago, when I used to fish off my local pier, if anyone caught a Conger, they would take it to the local Chinese restaurant who were happy to buy it.
Catching congers from a small wooden dinghy is an exciting sport. The fun starts when the fish is landed, writhing and snapping in the bottom of the boat.
It is NOT recommended to try and take the hook out when the fish is still alive as you can easily lose some fingers. Also, do not try to hit it with an axe when in a wooden boat. My cousin tried this, missed and went though the bottom planks of the boat with the axe. It was a race to get ashore before he became a submarine. To top it all. the Conger escaped back to sea.
May 21st, 2015 - 09:26 am - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
lsolde
You write quite a humourous story, Clyde.
Still giggling.
May 21st, 2015 - 09:32 am - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
Voice
2
That brought back a distant memory....
Do you remember this story...on Loch Long...?
Like a lot of folk....I never believed it....
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/spl/aberdeen/missing-diver-attacked-by-eel-1.663689
May 21st, 2015 - 10:15 am - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
Clyde15
#4
No, I don't remember that one/
I had a rod broken by a Conger when I was fishing late in the evening off Ayr pier.
There was a tremendous drag on my line which I thought was submerged tree trunk and then it started moving about. I then realised it was a Conger. Before I had a chance to lift it off the bottom it must gave gone back into it's lair.
It was heave-ho for about 15 minutes and then the rod snapped. I cut the line at once and that was it. Six weeks later someone I knew caught and landed it from the same spot with my Mustad 10/0 hook and trace still in it's jaw.
It weighed in at 25lbs and was just short of 4 feet long.
May 21st, 2015 - 07:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
knarfw
@1 That's interesting Frank. Ling is a member of the Cod family commonly found in the waters around the British Isles and is a completely different species from the Australian/New Zealand version. Trust our antipodean brethren to put a different name to something ;-)
May 22nd, 2015 - 11:55 am - Link - Report abuse 0
-+
Frank
@6 Yep, that's happened rather a lot... magpies, whiting.

Anyway..... this is Congrio aka the Pink Cusk Eel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink_cusk-eel

It even gets described as conger in english/spanish dictionaries.
May 22nd, 2015 - 10:16 pm - Link - Report abuse 0
-+

Commenting for this story is now closed.
If you have a Facebook account, become a fan and comment on our Facebook Page!