Understanding the Laws of Physics

[Hitcher]

Eels. They’re a largely unappreciated part of New Zealand’s native fauna. Anguilla dieffenbachii or Tuna kuwharuwharu to Maori. A species of fish with no natural predators, apart from small boys with barbless hooks attached to the end of a broomhandle and others keen to exploit them for commercial benefit.

When we were kids, eels were something that lived in the creeks and streams on our farm. Sometimes one would be spotted meandering, if the water in the stream was clear enough. They looked big but largely harmless. But at a certain age hunting and catching an eel became something that young blokes just had to do. Some sort of rite of passage, or whatever.

Dad must have passed through this rite of passage. He had technical knowledge and knew where to buy a barbless hook. “It’s so you can get the buggers off after you’ve caught them”. He also knew how to lash the hook to the end of a broomhandle.

Mum and Dad’s farm was dissected by creeks and streams, as most properties in that part of Taranaki are. Digging and cleaning drains with spades was a perennial task, until the backhoe digger was invented. One year a bunch of Mormon drain diggers was enlisted for the purposes of drain cleaning, whose efforts were assisted by a grandfather with a passion for high explosives.

Back in those days, Grandpa was able to wander into the back part of Newton King’s stock and station store in Stratford and buy gelignite, detonators and rolls of fuse. He had no qualifications, just heaps of “experience”. He knew how to make things go bang, but usually with a bit too much bang. Stories of him disposing of the corpses of large animals and depositing a large stump on the roof of the house beneath which my Nana was blissfully luxuriating in a hot bath were legend.

Grandpa arrived at home one day as the Mormon drain diggers had encountered some heavy going. Off to Stratford he shot, returning a while later with stocks of Alfred Nobel’s finest. Plugs of gelignite had detonators inserted and these were then joined together with cordite. The armed sticks of explosive were then spaced evenly along the length of the proposed drainage channel. A fuse at one end was lit. Observers retired to what was presumed to be a safe distance.

Whoomph! It rained lumps of mud and stunned eels. “The old bloke sure likes his gelignite,” muttered one of the Mormons, hand over his mug of cocoa to keep falling lumps of mud out.

This was the first occasion I had ever handled an eel.

I learned a lot about eels that day.

I learned that mothers had no interest in cooking them, despite a grandfather’s suggestion to the contrary and after personally delivering Mum with the largest one I could find.

I also learned one of the lesser known Laws of Physics: When you drop an eel into a hot bath that also contains your sister, your sister moves faster than the eel.

[ellipsis]

...our kids staple in the early years were spuds, cabbage and smoked eel...they loved it and while they did we grew spuds, cabbages and I speared and smoked the Tuna...I smoke a pretty good bit of eel...hard to light tho....

[SMOKEU]

It's strange how they still move around even after being disemboweled and quartered.

[ellipsis]

...i bet William Wallace didn't...

[riffer]

I can still remember being 12 years old and spending time at a Scout camp in King Country (must have been late 70s). Of course, being 12 year olds, we had to do some eeling, and I was given a string line and hook, and baited it with some old beef.

I got a bit relatively quickly and was instructed to "hang on to the bastard, and dig your heels into the bank!" which I dutifully followed.

Until the whole sodden bank gave way and this King Country eel dragged all 40 kgs of me and about 50kgs of bank into and down the muddy stream.

Geez, I nearly shat myself.

Long story short, a few fellas dragged me and this five foot long behemoth out of the stream, I was made to kill it, and hang it until morning when I had to gut the bugger.

SMOKEU is right - they don't half move about - even when you've cut off their heads. It's that nerve that runs along the inside of the backbone. Very freaky when you're 12.

But by golly it tasted good smoked over a fire.

And I can still remember the experience nearly 34 years later. Thanks for bringing back some good memories Hitch.

[007XX]

Thank you for making me smile after a long night with a twitchy toddler.

I am reminded of a similar adventure when I was around 10, and of course only boys had the most entertaining games, making me a terribly bruised tomboy.I was pressured into becoming a young lady, but never felt much compulsion to do so. My parents, in a bid to encourage me to make girl friends, enrolled me with the local girl scout movement.

They started by trying to make me wear a skirt, while we learnt how to erect tents (which I could already do with my eyes closed), and tried to convince me that climbing a tree was not a skill which mattered in this day and age for survival.

Anywho, off we go on a camping outing in the back of the New Caledonian outback, a strip of grass tucked between a mangrove bordered beach and lush foliage as camping site.

Tents get erected, campfire gets started. I'd managed to sneak a pair of bike shorts under my skirt and was gleefully delighting in my own cunning inventiveness.
Dinner is made and consummed, the obligatory lame scary ghost stories told around the fire camp, then everyone is sent off to bed to their tents with sleeping bags already on the ground.

In goes the older girl scout leader ( a rather prudish 18 year old little tart who particularly disliked my tree climbing skills), as being the oldest, she had privileges of having her sleeping bag in the middle of the tent, away from the doors (and potentially invading critters in the middle of the night).

We, the youngsters, are just peacefully brushing our teeth when we suddenly hear an ear splitting shriek erupt from the tent, followed by the sides of it going through the motions of a raging tornado, and out bursts the team leader, running faster than any human I have ever seen.

In her knickers, I then saw her climb the nearest available tree at the speed of a hyperactive chipmunk dopped up on crack and proceed to clutch the trunk so hard I thought she would leave an indent in there were we to ever pry her off of it.

As it turns out, we were not far from the time of year when female coconut crabs laid their eggs and it had occured to one of those little beauties that our team leader's sleeping bag was indeed the best habitat for this. There she was still, now fully erect in protest, so what were we to do?

I grabbed the biggest stone I could find, and squashed her just enough to make her lunch the next day. Never hunted and gathered something that tasted so much like victory ever since, and needless to say, I was from then on able to climb trees to my heart's content and never forced to wear a skirt either.

[Scuba_Steve]

I can still remember being 12 years old and spending time at a Scout camp in King Country (must have been late 70s). Of course, being 12 year olds, we had to do some eeling, and I was given a string line and hook, and baited it with some old beef.

....

But by golly it tasted good smoked over a fire.

And I can still remember the experience nearly 34 years later. Thanks for bringing back some good memories Hitch.

Huh not quite as long ago for me, but must say my 1 (& unfortunately) only taste of eel was also at a Scout camp, tho we didn't catch it. We were all learning about the wonders of Damper & Somemores as well as partaking in the usual toasted marshmallows.
We had a Maori fella with us (one of the adults) next thing he comes back with this massive 6ft? eel (at-least looked that big from memory) caught using only a sharpened stick, he just poked the stick into the ground over the fire, left it overnight & few of us keen to try had eel for breakfast.

This Maori fella was good to have round, another scout trip was a tramp through the bush to which he spent alot of it collecting huhu grubs into a bag, when we got back to camp we had a bbq he chucked them on & offered them to anyone willing. I was the only one to start with but fuck I'm glad I did, they're good tasting little bugs they be

[Usarka]

In a somewhat random seque, the character with the polo eye in this video's name is the Hitcher...... Eels up inside ya.

http://youtu.be/HwcF6ea2PMQ

[Nova.]

Thank you for making me smile after a long night with a twitchy toddler.

I am reminded of a similar adventure when I was around 10, and of course only boys had the most entertaining games, making me a terribly bruised tomboy.I was pressured into becoming a young lady, but never felt much compulsion to do so. My parents, in a bid to encourage me to make girl friends, enrolled me with the local girl scout movement.

They started by trying to make me wear a skirt, while we learnt how to erect tents (which I could already do with my eyes closed), and tried to convince me that climbing a tree was not a skill which mattered in this day and age for survival.

Anywho, off we go on a camping outing in the back of the New Caledonian outback, a strip of grass tucked between a mangrove bordered beach and lush foliage as camping site.

Tents get erected, campfire gets started. I'd managed to sneak a pair of bike shorts under my skirt and was gleefully delighting in my own cunning inventiveness.
Dinner is made and consummed, the obligatory lame scary ghost stories told around the fire camp, then everyone is sent off to bed to their tents with sleeping bags already on the ground.

In goes the older girl scout leader ( a rather prudish 18 year old little tart who particularly disliked my tree climbing skills), as being the oldest, she had privileges of having her sleeping bag in the middle of the tent, away from the doors (and potentially invading critters in the middle of the night).

We, the youngsters, are just peacefully brushing our teeth when we suddenly hear an ear splitting shriek erupt from the tent, followed by the sides of it going through the motions of a raging tornado, and out bursts the team leader, running faster than any human I have ever seen.

In her knickers, I then saw her climb the nearest available tree at the speed of a hyperactive chipmunk dopped up on crack and proceed to clutch the trunk so hard I thought she would leave an indent in there were we to ever pry her off of it.

As it turns out, we were not far from the time of year when female coconut crabs laid their eggs and it had occured to one of those little beauties that our team leader's sleeping bag was indeed the best habitat for this. There she was still, now fully erect in protest, so what were we to do?

I grabbed the biggest stone I could find, and squashed her just enough to make her lunch the next day. Never hunted and gathered something that tasted so much like victory ever since, and needless to say, I was from then on able to climb trees to my heart's content and never forced to wear a skirt either.

was she hot?

reminds me also, the other day i was in the digger dredging out the pond and i caught an eel by accident :L it got out though but i was wondering what the fuck it was

[007XX]

was she hot?

reminds me also, the other day i was in the digger dredging out the pond and i caught an eel by accident :L it got out though but i was wondering what the fuck it was

The crab ended up in a pot of boiling water, so yes, you can say she was pretty hot

As for the team leader... Well, I was 10 and not that fussed on other chicks back then.

[Paul in NZ]

Ah Eels... Poor victims of mans (or more boys) barbarity for generations....

Back in the day... You could at almost any decent corner hardware store purchase a 3 or 4 pronged eel spear head. This even in domestic Christchurch where a threat of eel was remote.

However i too was a Boy Scout and back before we had kiddy fidling, Boy Scouts were actually a secret socity of eel killers... Every 'camp' (steady on you lot it wasnt like that then) we would bring these evil pronged wonders complete with barbs and lash them to manuka poles and have at em...

One year we went to Durville Island.... There is a swamp there.... At the side of the swamp is a very old and leaky dinghy. A dinghy that is more rot than dinghy but maintains still enough of the dinghy about the rot that small boys will believe that it is still sound enough for expeditions... (it wasnt)

So - one night me, masher and stretch (you need a good nick name to be a good scout - mine was peanut, i wasnt queens scout material really) are out with a prized Tilley lamp and mashers new 4 pronged eel spear lashed to a freshly cut length of manuka pole joined by more green bailing twine than you gould imagine. The creek ended at the lagoon and thinking that maybe the 'big ones' are surely in the deeper water we find the dinghy... semi afloat.... being semi intelligent thats enough so we set out...

We were right.... The big ones were out deeper... Along with the little ones... They were litterally bumping and heaving on the bottom of the boat in a gea seething mass of eeliness... A bottom that really didnt need a lot of bumping... It was rather uncomfortable...

Now swamps and lagoons are easily confused.... Especially coming from the creek end as they are mostly an increase of wettness really at that point. The interesting thing about this is that if lagoons become swamps and eels dont make it to the ocean they get quite big... Big as in fucking enourmous really... And just as we were thinks, blimmin eck theres a lot of bumping going on and why are my feet so wet (the dinghy was leaking) stretch spies the biggest eel in the lagoon...

Big?? it was an eel Kujo.... It was forming loops and humps like the loch ness monster... Shit it probably was the loch ness monsters ugly big brother and he couldn't help himself... OH YUS - before we could say 'um' the brand new heavily 'barbed' 4 prong spear was driven into the giant eel with all the power a 14 year old vigin could muster... Far out - the surface of the water erupted and the pole started to vibrate like a tuning fork and in a flash of insight stretch said oh fuck... Well we couldnt get the eel off so we decided we could bpin it to the bottom of the lake with he 2 other 3 pronged spears we had..

erm....

One spear made it angry... 2 more really pissed it off and 3 boys were holding onto kujo he eel writhing just below the boiling surface and now to cap off out misery it was obvious that the dinghy was evolving into a submarine... The thought that we might be sharing the same space as this giant presented us with the old discretion being the better part of valour argument and it looked like our eeling badge would have to wait so... We ditched the spears and two bailed while i rowed... (I could have won a gold medal I tell you)

Next day we thought - it cant have really been that big... could it??? And I'd really like my spear back.... So we trooped off back to he scene of the crime... Out in the pond floated 3 manuka sticks...

The dinghy had a good 6inch eel shaped hole smashed in the transom...

We just walked away leaving the spears where they were, they are still there if you feel brave

[Ocean1]

We just walked away leaving the spears where they were, they are still there if you feel brave

Nice.

There's a big one turns up in my pond occasionally, scares the crap out of the kids and the dog for a day or two and buggers off again. Thing is, he's got to get over a fair bit of non-water to get there from the stream.

[Nova.]

The crab ended up in a pot of boiling water, so yes, you can say she was pretty hot

As for the team leader... Well, I was 10 and not that fussed on other chicks back then.

back then


BACK THEN

BACK THEN


what about now

[ellipsis]

...at the seaward end of Lake Wairewa, (Forsyth) which is a few hundred meters from where I sit now, a few hundred trillion stones are all that keep the lake from the sea...at the prescribed time of year a lot of activity with shovels and rakes takes place down there...George an older maori friend and his whanau and hangers on dig channels towards the sea, these can be thirty feet long and a couple of feet deep with a deeper bowl at the seaward end...when the eel decide it's time for the off into the deep blue Pacific and they bugger off from the rivers and lake towards the sea, they end up in them drains...I used to help George often when they were running to sea...some nights we could hook 400 to 600 eel...that was hard work in itself, but the next day or two was full on...drying them on the fencelines and other contraptions and then splitting them...lots of fun, lots of beers and lots of smoked eel...this is a pretty unique way of trapping the tuna I believe and George has a bit of a cult status all over the country...the eels are all pretty much a standard size...the big buggers that you see in rivers and ponds etc are barren old girls who dont go back to sea to breed, they just fuck around getting bigger in their chosen system...if I told you of the size of a couple of eels I have seen in our river systems round here you would not believe me...so I wont...

[Oakie]

'Laws of Physics' ... eels .... ?

Oh, now I get it. That'll be 'Eel = mc2'