4lb 6oz Eel caught at Meynall 7.45 2/10/08
The freshwater eel, that mysterious traveller from the Sargasso sea is present in virtually all river systems in Britain but is most notably absent from the Soar, Wreake and Eye, rivers which it would access via the Humber and Trent. Eels were once plentiful in Leicestershire's rivers and pond and can grow to over 8lbs.
Jelson man Phil Gilbert remembers eels being caught from the Wreake in the mid fifties. He said, "They were good ones, around 2lb, then they stopped.Why?
My curiosity was aroused even more some years ago, talking to an eldely local overlooking the remnants of Hoby Mill, on the river Wreake.The man said,see that old grate there? that was the eel trap, so they came up in sufficient numbers to harvest, but stopped in the fifties."
A woman from Stapleford on the River Eye told him there was still a trap at the outflow of the Stapleford Park Lake into the river.
Phil added that he was sure he found the answer when he was at a Salmon and Trout Association meeting function. A guest speaker from the Trent Salmon Trust spoke about the successful reintroduction of salmon into the river Dove via the river Trent. He explained that the reason for the demise of the salmon was the obstacles put in the river, particularly the Trent. The Enviroment Agency would not consider a programme to re-introduce salmon to the Dove until all obstacles at Colwick Sluices just downstream on the Trent had been resolved. A fish pass wascreated in recent years purely by accident when Holme Pierpont canoe course was created in 1957. His theory was thrown into doubt when the fishing proprietor of Cropston told him that they found many eels there in the late seventies. They were large ones weighing 4 and 5 lb and would have come up the river Lyn from its junction with the Soar at Quorn via Swithland rReservoir.. As this was 20 years after Colwick Sluices were built, his theory looked flawed, however, eel expert Barry Connell says that eels only grow at 10 years to the pound , so the ones in Cropston were 40 to 50 years old.The theory was still good as they would have ascended to this reservoir before the sluices were built. He has a documented record of an eel of 1lb 8oz caught on the river Eye on November 29 1970 and heard that when Savages Hole in Syston was filled in they found eels, large ones that nobody knew were there-when was this?
Somewhere in a lake or pond in Leicestershire more than 50 years old there could be a monster eel.
Bob Fossey Jelson SRC
