The story of the european freshwater eel, anguilla anguilla, is truly one of natures fascinating life-cycles. Born in the Sargasso sea they drift across the Atlantic Ocean towards europe on the currents of the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift, at this stage they look like a curled up leaf and are known as leptocephalii. When they reach the european shores they go through metamorphosis into glass eels or elvers and are almost transparent, they start to swim into rivers and up into the freshwater where they spend the next 6 - 20 years feeding and growing into the eels that everyone knows. At this stage they are known as yellow or brown eels but in fact could also be a shade of blue, green or even red.

They feed on a wide range of foods preferring fish and invertibrates. they are mainly nocturnal feeders and during winter months may become inactive if the temperatures are low.Growth is determined by several factors, availability of food, average ambient temperature and stock density. In the lower reaches of rivers where the stock density is high eels are small and predominantly male, further up rivers where the stock density is lower large females predominate.

As eels reach maturity the eyes become bigger the head broader and the fat content increases, the undersides of the skin turn silver or bronze and hence they are known as silver eels, this change prepares it for its journey back to the sea. When the conditions are right the eel makes its way down the rivers assisted by the current and out to sea to begin its long, theoretical swim back to the breeding grounds of the Sargasso sea, theoretical because as yet there is no scientific evidence to prove that eels swim back that far....