CHAPTER XXI. 



BOBBING FOR EELS. 



SPEAKING of eels, Mr. Editor, I don't know of anything that will make 

 a worse mess in a boat full of hamper and loose lines than a big, active eel, 

 fresh drawn from the mud. It is not so much that he twists everything 

 into an inextricable snarl, but he befouls everything he touches with a 

 viscous slime which nothing but drying in the hot sun will effectually 

 remove. Of course, in trying to clear the tangle, the slime gets on one's 

 hands, and when they are once besmeared you -are comparatively helpless- 

 Frenchmen would say hors du combat; in fact, a foreign language can 

 alone express the predicament. 



Perhaps you know how it is yourself? Eel slime! Slippery is no 

 name for it. It is slicker than goose grease and as sticky as fly-paper. 

 Did you ever try to turn a door-knob with your hands soaped? It didn't 

 turn, did it? But you could let go all the same? Well, eel slime sticks 

 while it slips. It is fast and loose at the same time. It holds on while it 

 lets go. Its ambiguity is as queer as the Irishman's frog which stands up 

 when he sits down. You can no more unsnarl a coiled line with an eel in 

 it than you can eat soup with a fork. If you are new to eels, or eels are 

 new to you, you are likely to persist in the effort until you are as hope- 

 lessly involved as a fly in a web. The eel will thread loops and bights 

 faster than you can open them out. He will thrust his head through one 

 ganglion and his tail through another, and then tie himself into a running 

 bowline, and reeve himself through the turn of the knot, and come out 

 both ways at once. And your hands are getting slippier and stickier all 

 the time. You cannot hold on to the eel, and the line won't let go of your 

 fingers. Your only recourse is to cut it off as close to the snarl as you 

 can and throw the whole mess overboard together. 



But one can seldom get off so easily. Voila! When the line has 

 taken several turns around the painter, and over and under the cleats, 

 and through the handle of the water-jug, and over botn oars, the only 

 alteratives are, either to knock the boat to pieces, or cut everything loose 

 with your jack-knife. Of course the knife is in your pocket, for, being a 

 novice, you haven't thought to leave it handy on the thwart, and the 

 quandary is how to get it out and open without daubing your clothes and 

 the knife, and splitting your thumb nail. In any event there can be but 

 one solution of the gordian knot, and one series of results, and these are 

 a much-soiled suit, a spoiled holiday, an irrepressible eel, and a score of 

 two-feet lengths of cut line useless for shoestrings and not strong enough 

 for reef points. 



As a matter of fact, no one but a tyro will angle for eels unless he is 

 properly equipped and prepared. Fishing for eels, Secundem artem, as 

 an expert fisher, is one thing to catch one by chance, while fishing- for 

 other fish, is quite another matter. If ever an old fisherman becomes 

 involved with an eel, the incident takes him quite unawares. No greater 



