Don't Eat The Lamprey

GAT

GAT

Dumbfounded
Forum Supporter
I tell you what. I wouldn't eat Lamprey no matter the health concerns. Those are some seriously spooky look'n critters ! I know they are anadromous and an indicator species, but I sure didn't know people ate the suckers.

OHA issues health advisory for lamprey in the Columbia River and its Oregon tributaries​

Agency recommends limited meals due to levels of PCBs, mercury in lamprey tissue

PORTLAND, Ore.—Oregon Health Authority (OHA) is issuing recommendations on the amount of lamprey from the Columbia River and its Oregon tributaries that people should eat.
 
Any resident fish of the Willamette from the coast fork down is contaminated by mercury.
I saw a lamprey moving upstream in a tailout, I have questioned wet wading ever since!
 
Chadk said:
Except that lampreys are not eels.
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Ok, my bad as that is what we always referred to them as when we saw them. Mainly brook lamprey.
I’d eat a lamprey myself just to try it….and eels are very good tasting. At least the ones I’ve tried.
I believe the local tribes used to harvest lampreys.
SF
 
I remember when I first moved to this part of Oregon and started fishing The Siletz. This was during the early 80s and the river was full of the slimy snaky look'n eels and I figured there must be something wrong with a river that supported so many eels. I was 100% incorrect.

Slowly but surely the numbers of lamprey eels started to decline. In fact, in the last five years I fished The Siletz, I don't remember seeing a single eel in the river. Not one.

A good friend and fishing buddy also worked for ODF&W to ultimately become a fish biologist for the mid coastal rivers of Oregon. One of his studies was Lamprey in relationship to their numbers and the numbers of anadromous fish. When the eel's numbers of return was high, so was the wild salmon, steelhead, SRC. Likewise, when the eels were far and few to return, so were the returning fish.

It became clear to me that about the same time I stopped seeing eels on The Siletz that the numbers of returning wild, anadromous fish took a dive.

Nowadays, I have a different opinion of eels than I did many decades ago.
 
GAT said:
I remember when I first moved to this part of Oregon and started fishing The Siletz. This was during the early 80s and the river was full of the slimy snaky look'n eels and I figured there must be something wrong with a river that supported so many eels. I was 100% incorrect.

Slowly but surely the numbers of lamprey eels started to decline. In fact, in the last five years I fished The Siletz, I don't remember seeing a single eel in the river. Not one.

A good friend and fishing buddy also worked for ODF&W to ultimately become a fish biologist for the mid coastal rivers of Oregon. One of his studies was Lamprey in relationship to their numbers and the numbers of anadromous fish. When the eel's numbers of return was high, so was the wild salmon, steelhead, SRC. Likewise, when the eels were far and few to return, so were the returning fish.

It became clear to me that about the same time I stopped seeing eels on The Siletz that the numbers of returning wild, anadromous fish took a dive.

Nowadays, I have a different opinion of eels than I did many decades ago.
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FYI- lampreys aren't eels.
 
I've always wanted to go poke pole up a monkey faced eel on the jetty. They are also not real eels! I can't remember the show but I think it was on discovery or history channel a while ago, there was a guy on the east coast who had an eel trap on a river and his job was basically trap, smoke and sell eels, evidently quite the delicacy.
 
I got some smoked eel from a patient who's from the Hoopa Tribe on the Trinity River in CA. Holy shit was that good.

I told my ten year old daughter to try some of the "smoked salmon" a patient gave me. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she was blown away by how good it was. Then I said "oh wait, that was the eel!!!"

She was not thrilled at my ruse but had to admit that it was some real good stuff
 
FontinalisFin said:
I've always wanted to go poke pole up a monkey faced eel on the jetty. They are also not real eels! I can't remember the show but I think it was on discovery or history channel a while ago, there was a guy on the east coast who had an eel trap on a river and his job was basically trap, smoke and sell eels, evidently quite the delicacy.
Click to expand...

It pretty interesting how they harvest those monkey face eels from the rocks with a stick, mono or wire and a chunk of squid on a hook.

As @Travis Bille mentioned, smoked eel is excellent.
This is in Amsterdam but I’d be begging for an invite from that store if I lived nearby.
SF

 
I went back to where i grew up on Chesapeake Bay last year. Most of the crab boats were rigged for eels (American Eel) as the crab fishery has collapsed. Not sure if this is true but the guy on the dock said they become unagi in sushi restaurants. I thought unagi is freshwater eel and these are catadramous brackish water eels.
There is a episode on one of Discovery’s channels of a guy catching lamprey on the Klamath spit with a pole and they twirl the lamprey around-super cool!
 
My former employer commissioned many lamprey studies during the years I worked on the Columbia. The Wanapum People have always revered lamprey, these fish have been an important part of their culture for eons.

Personally, I don’t like lampreys . I was wading an under the dam conduit once and had numerous lamprey swim against my waders. Unnerving.
 
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla had been doing studies for a decade or so, and had started planting lamprey in many local streams over the last several years. They had their first harvest a couple years ago. Lamprey is considered a first food. Wonder how this will affect their projects?
 
Lamprey (and hagfish) are at the base of fish evolution, collectively the jawless fishes or Agnatha. Pacific lamprey, like Pacific salmon, are anadromous (grow in salt water, breed in freshwater) and semelparous (breed once and die). The adults when at sea rasp tissue and fluids from the bodies of bony fishes. Other lampreys, like brook lampreys, complete their whole lives in freshwater and are primarily filter-feeders/detritivores. As @Buzzy and @Stonedfish pointed out previously Pacific lamprey do have important place in the culture of inlands PNW tribes. I know that the Yakama Nation has a specific program to rebuild Pacific lamprey populations in the Columbia River.
In the PNW, we do not have true eels (Order Anguilliformes). This group includes moray eels, conger eels, and freshwater eels (Family Anguillidae). The anguillid eels are catadromous, the opposite of anadromous. And they are semelparous -> spawn once and die. Members of this family breed in the ocean and migrate as larvae into freshwater rivers. They may spend several years in lakes and rivers before migrating back to the ocean and to the general area where they were born. American eels (Anguilla rostrata) and European eels (A. anguilla) have historically been harvested in hoop traps. It is VERY disconcerting to be snorkeling in a freshwater pond in New England and have a 3-4' long eel swim up to you. Both species migrate thousands of miles to spawn in the Sargasso Sea. Both species (but especially the European eel - considered critically endangered) are in substantial decline due to poor freshwater conditions, barriers to freshwater migration, and overharvesting.
The other "eel-like marine fishes in the PNW are not members of the Anguilliformes. The wolf eel is in its own family, the Anarhichadidae, and most closely related to another group of eel-like fishes, the eel pouts (Family Zoarcidae). The eel-like fishes that you find in tide pools and under rocks in the intertidal are various species in the family Pholidae (gunnels, a family within suborder Zoarcoidei) and the Stichaedae (a family within the order Perciformes). The ling cod is an eel-like fish related to greenling; it is neither a ling (a type of cod) or a cod. Common names can be a nightmare. [Though, to be honest, the use of molecular phylogenies have led to major disruptions to the scientific names, both genus or species, for lots of marine organisms. But that has the potential to settle down with more accurate understanding of the evolution of diversity on Earth.]
Steve
 
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