Fishing eels in the river?

[str1persn1per]

Has anyone successfully fished eels in the river during the spring run? I know stripers love killing them everywhere else the rest of the year, I've just never heard anything about them being used in the river. I would love nothing more than turning those bait stealing, leader twisting, line sliming bastards into a meal for a big striper, but not knowing if there is a particular technique for the river or if they will even produce leaves me hesitant to try as i have limited time to fish and dont catch huge numbers to begin with. Any information is greatly appreciated.

[StriperG]

I personally have never used eels for bait, but have heard that others do well with them. Just keep in mind that you can only use eels 9"-14" for bait, and the daily limit is 25.

[Doc Z]

I've tried eels......all I ended up doing was drowning a dozen eels which catching dozens of Striper on bloodworms.

[Dwayno14]

My grandfather would take us every year we fished eels in the ulster county area in the late 90's and early 2000's, and with great success catching mainly large stripers over 20lbs . Here is an old photo with my pap and I . Sometime during the mid 2000's the bite started to fade on eels and we switched to chunk herrring, it also became more difficult to buy eels, and mucheasier to get fresh herring. I still wonder if fishing eels wouldn't yield less bites but catch more trophy sizes stripers .....

[Bannerman]

Eels work..drift them just like you would worms or on the flats under a float. You’re not going to get the numbers that you would with worms, but you will get bigger fish