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Harry-
I didn't want to intrude on your Post with boat...dam shame.

....but when I read about the live eel in your bilge...I had to share.

Your river came up to meet the boat, our ocean came in to meet the homestead. When Sandy came in she went over the sunken pool and I guess made a deposit. Cause after that winter the pool froze over, Spring came around and we first saw little jellyfish in the pool...then the kids said they saw fish...yeah right I thought. But sure enough by mid summer my father in law was putting his Killie Trap into our pool to collect bait each week before heading out to go fishing. They were not huge, but a couple inches long and plentiful. Schools of them, never fed them other then to bait trap or to shoot video. Think I took this video around August last year...fish lived till the chill set in...almost a year.

It sucks to say the least...but for me, I always got a chuckle each time I went over and saw fish thriving in our pool...better to laugh then cry.

Carl, Thats quite the livewell..killies are fluke candy..BH

That's funny Carl......I can relate......there is a freshwater lake named Shelby located a few hundred yards from the Gulf of Mexico here in Baldwin county Alabama. Storm surges dump lots and lots of saltwater in the lake, along with a few species of saltwater fish.......then we hear reports of aligators in the Gulf......Mother nature sure has a way of stirring things up.

Picture this! ! ! DeNada's bildge is/was full of MUD....I am laying on the cabin floor on my belly with my hands in the bildge area between the engines......stirring up the mud while the pump is discharging the silty mess overboard,,,,back where it belongs......Chris on the other stern end of this bildge area has a water hose squirting water into the bildge. He then directs the water jet to the area beneath the "Battery Shelf" and out comes a blast of mud. I scoop as much as I can into my hands and place it in a 5 gallon bucket.....when all of a sudden I feel something unfamiliar......I dismiss it as something that may have fallen into the bildge......like a Jig Tail or something.

Keep in mind the one major thing that scares the shehite hot of me is a SNAKE! ! !

On the next scoop I pickup that damn eel and somehow in my panic and all in one smooth motion I throw him into the bucket and bounce to my feet without smacking my head on anything.....

Damn....I hate slithery things......never seen that one coming......the last thing I ever thought I would see in the boat is an eel.......

hb

Harry--- yes you definitely have me beat. I HATE snakes...eels are great bait for large Stripers here, but I'll troll tubes or drown worms unless the Bass are real big and super finicky. Hate them! Grabbing one in a confined spot...gives me the Hebee Geebees.
Funny, as a kid I have been told I used to leave garter snakes in my pockets...or so mom said. Either way...she stopped checking my pockets before doing the laundry.