The Chesapeake eel fishery doesn't get written about. About twenty eelers land ninety percent of Maryland's harvest, almost all of it in pots, and most of it goes for conch bait and export. Here's the gear and the rules, for the commercial eeler and for the crabber who runs a few pots for his own trotline bait.
The pot
Two designs, both old. The round pot is a wire cylinder with two funnels in series leading to the bait chamber, so an eel that gets past the first has to find its way back through two. Funnels are often cloth, denim being traditional, because eels slide through fabric and can't back out. The rectangular pot is a wire box, often with a concrete patty cast into the bottom for weight, that holds better on hard bottom and in current and shakes out easier when rebaited.
Maryland sets no standard on pot size or shape. It sets one on mesh: since January 1, 2017, eel pots must be built of wire mesh no smaller than 1/2" by 1/2" unstretched. Smaller mesh requires an escape panel. The mesh rule is what protects glass eels and elvers; legal Maryland gear doesn't retain them.
Bait
Surf clam bellies and razor clams are the standard. Horseshoe crab was the old bait and is now avoided for conservation reasons; clams work as well.
Where you can set
Not in crab pot buoy-free channels. Several counties restrict all gear except hook and line in certain waters; DNR publishes an eel pot restriction list by county. Buoyed pots follow the same marking rules as crab pots.
Who can fish eel pots in Maryland
- Commercial eelers under a tidal fish license. Eel harvest is reported by pounds and gear, and Maryland has closed weekends in the fall in past years to stay under the coastwide catch cap.
- Commercial crabbers may run up to 50 eel pots to catch eels for their own trotline bait, no harvest limit, with catch reports required, under the same mesh and size rules.
- Recreational crabbers holding a recreational crabbing license may use eel pots to catch their own bait. The license covers it; the county restrictions still apply.
American eel has a minimum size and reporting requirements set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and adopted by Maryland. Confirm the current minimum and any season closures with DNR's Chesapeake commercial regulations before you set.
Other states
North Carolina sets the same 1/2" minimum mesh on eel pots under the recreational commercial gear license. Delaware regulates fish pots with escape vent rules that came from the sea bass plan. If you eel outside Maryland, check the state.
Perch and the rest of the pot fisheries
White and yellow perch on the Bay are mostly fyke net, pound net and hook-and-line fisheries, not pot fisheries, so we'll leave them to a separate article. Peeler pots, shedding floats and the softshell side of the crab business are worth their own too. Tell us what you run and we'll write it.
Where we come in
We don't make eel pots. We do mold plastic parts in Baltimore for the pots that fish this Bay, and eelers have asked us about funnel rings and bait box parts. If there's a plastic component on your eel gear that breaks, wears, or costs too much, tell us what it is. That's how the door hook and the cull ring got made.