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The eel fishery at Toomebridge is situated close to where Lough neagh starts it's journey to the sea (river Bann) just a little downstream from the main Londonderry road bridge.
Main Building
The main door with the very appropriate designed surrounding railings.
The
river Bann flows from here through the countryside and on to Coleraine where
shortly afterwards it meets the Atlantic ocean. Eels unlike salmon dont
reproduce in freshwater , but go out to sea to do there thing, in fact
they travel all the way to the sargasso sea between bremuda and Puerto Rico.
This urge for the eels to travel to the sea can be a matter of life and death
because unknown to them the fishery at Toomebridge have there trapper boxes
set and ready for a good catch as they migrate downstream to the sea.
Many dont get to enjoy there romance in the sea but instead end up on someones
dinner table in Europe
for
a slightly different event.
By
the way the Eels die after spawing in the Sargasso sea.
Spanning the river Bann a little downstream from Toombridge
The Eels are also commercially
fished for by boat out in the depths of the Lough.
No nets are used.hand lines each containing hundreds of hooks baited with the
common earthworm is the way they are captured
.
Fishermen and locals enjoy cooked eels now and then. Stewing and frying is the
usual cooking method and should be served with fresh buttered soda bread..so
im told !
Eels in the UK are becoming a more popular food as they once were, many years ago eels were esteemed for their food value and were considered an aphrodisiac. In many parts of the world fish is a popular food and eels are considered a delicacy and it suprises many people that even in the UK eels are more expensive than Salmon. The chinese and Italian communities, however, have always been keen consumers of eels for they are a very nutritious fish as can be seen from the table below.
Fish Protein
% Oil % Calorific Value/Kg
Cod 16.5
0.4
715
Herring 19.5
7.1
1452
Salmon 17.5
17.8
2376
Eel 16.3
23.5
2400
What has been the dish of kings, the subject of myths
and the traveller of epic and mysterious journeys? The eel. Beginning life in
the Sargasso Sea, the eel travels across the ocean, lives for twenty or so years,
and then is driven by some instinct back across the ocean to spawn and die.
And the next generation starts the story again. No one knows why the eels return,
or how the orphaned elvers learn their way back. One man discovered, after many
adventures, the breeding ground of all eels - and he is the hero of this book.
Eels were being caught and consumed 5000 years before the birth of Christ -
Aristotle and Pliny wrote about them; Romans regarded them as a peerless delicacy;
Egyptians accorded them semi-sacred status; English kings died of overeating
them. There are many strange practices among eel fishers all over the world,
and many great fortunes based upon the eel harvest. This book, a combination
of social comment, biography and natural history, is also an account of Tom
Fort's obsession with the eel, his journeying to discover the eel in all its
habitats, and the people he meets in his pursuit.
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