People will most likely complain about the ‘nasty weather’ that reached south western Sweden by the beginning of this week. Eels will NOT!
They actually seem to like
these rainy weather conditions for their long journey towards their spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea located in the North Atlantic Ocean. After 8 days without any signs of migration activity upstream the power plant in Ätrafors we finally caught two eels during the last night! These both are number 21 and 22 since I started my survey during the last third of september. Compared to the other traps we run in the Ätran catchment that is just a little contibution to the sum of the Eel-O-Meter (check below).
BUT: during the last weeks/days we had been modifying the cages several times after we recognized that they seem to be capable to escape from the cages. These two catches in combination with some experiments we applied during the last days, finally show a satisfying result of the invested effort we spend on the modification.
I guess, now we are finally well prepared for the upcoming (hopefully…) migration peak that presumably will be accompanied by low pressure and rainy weather conditions.
Extremely low numbers, but great if they move at last!
Pervious nights we had about 10 eels each!