Eels are a popular but expensive food item in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food. In some areas in Europe, eels are still eaten as a delicacy, smoked or jellied. Regardless, though eels as food have become more rare in the western world, there is still a worldwide demand for eel fishing. Eels take a long time to mature, however, and so the eel population of most rivers cannot support commercial fishing; so individual local fishermen generally perform what little eel fishing is still done today. Historically, eels were likely caught first by hand. They spend much of their time in the shallows, and river eels like to hide in the mud. Due to their length, fishermen would have an easier time catching them than they would in catching most fish. But lunge-and-grab fishing would not satisfy human ingenuity for long.
Though eels can be caught on a rod and hook, this is inefficient, and the eel’s tendency to wrap itself around things becomes problematic. A more efficient, less troublesome way to catch eels is through the use of an eel pot. An eel pot is basically a large cylindrical or rectangular wire container with a mesh funnel sewn on one end, and one more funnel sewn into a lower container with bait inside. Likely some primitive version of the eel pot was invented very early on: some reports suggest even as early as 1,000 B.C. The eel pot is lowered upright into the water, and the eels swim in through both funnels (into “the parlor”) to get at the bait, and they are then unable to exit. If weir-low dams designed to catch fish are built, an eel pot may not even need to have bait inside. The pot can be placed on its side at the end of the weir, and eels will simply swim in. They have a tendency to hide in holes in the shallows, and the eel pot looks particularly inviting.
In general, eel fishing is only done in the shallows, and the eeler lifts the eel pot up out of the water, then dumps it into a larger bin. If the eel pot is particularly full, he or she may have to pull the eels at the top out by hand so that the pot can pour. When eel fishing is good, a single eeler can catch two tons of eel in just three days.