North Carolina State Library 

 Raleigh tL C. 



University of North%arolina 

 Sea Grant Program 



NEWSLETTER 



June, 1975 



Guy Hamilton, part 

 time eel fisherman. 



Learning to make 

 eel pot at advisory 

 trkshop 



Si 



mm 



Guy Hamilton is one of those Americans 

 who earns his living knocking dents out of bashed- 

 in cars. The red paint spattered across the belly of 

 his gray workshirt and a tag on his windbreaker 

 proclaiming that he's an employee at "Dealers 

 Auto Service" testify to that. 



It's not that the work or the money at his dad's 

 body and fender shop in New Bern is bad. But like 



1235 Burlington Laboratories 

 NCSU, Raleigh, N. C. 27607 Tel: (919) 737-2454 



Part-time work 

 that is paying off 



alot of folks trying to hold the reins on today's 

 galloping prices, Hamilton wanted to pick up some 

 extra cash in his spare time. Last spring, he hit on 

 an idea that, put into action, has beefed up his bank 

 account — with a small investment in time and 

 money. 



That idea: fishing for eels. 



Hamilton came across the idea from contacts 

 with University of North Carolina Sea Grant ad- 

 visory agents. With their help, he built his first eel 

 traps and learned about good baits and fishing lo- 

 cations. He opened his business a year ago with 

 eight traps. This spring Hamilton has more than 

 30 in the rivers new New Bern. 



For work that rarely takes more than three hours 

 a day, eel fishing can be well worth the time, 

 Hamilton found. During one week in the height of 

 the season last fall, 12 of Hamilton's traps caught 

 600 pounds of eels. At 50 cents per pound, Hamil- 

 ton could see his part-time work beginning to pay 

 off. 



Most of the eels that Hamilton and other Tarheel 

 eel fishermen land wind up in Europe. Dealers 

 travel the coastal area collecting and transferring 

 eels from holding tanks to live-haul tank trucks. 

 The trucks take the eels to processing plants where 

 they are frozen alive, a requirement for selling 

 them abroad. 



Hamilton is just one of hundreds of North Caro- 

 linians who have taken up eel fishing under the 

 direction of UNC Sea Grant advisory agents. Five 

 eel harvesting and handling workshops held in 

 coastal areas of North and South Carolina and 

 Georgia, numerous television appearances and 

 hundreds of informal contacts have provided facts 

 needed to launch many individual eel operations. 

 Advisory agents began working on eel harvesting 

 and handling technqiues in 1972. 



It is estimated that one-half million pounds of 



See "Eel," page 2 



