(Originally published September/October 2013)
By Eric Burnley
In 2011 I was privileged to fish on the Penta Gone with Capt. Ed Szilagy during the White Marlin Open. Ed called me the day before I was to join him and asked if I could bring a few eels when I came down from Lewes, Del. That was an easy request, and I soon had a dozen snakes on ice purchased from Joe Morris at Lewes Harbour Marina.
Ed said he wanted to fish the eels for white marlin and his young mate had no idea what he was talking about.
I knew exactly what he wanted because when I began fishing offshore in 1973 we always had one or two eels in the spread. Whites eat them like candy and we caught more than a few on this bait.
Since this was a tournament the eels had to be rigged with circle hooks and the mate quickly handled that job before leaving the dock. Throughout the morning Ed was getting considerable grief from the mate over using rockfish (striped bass) bait for marlin. Once on station he reluctantly put two eels in the spread and I should not have to tell you what bait caught the first white. At the end of the day we had released three white marlin, two of which we caught on eels.
Back in the day, we rigged everything with wire leaders and J hooks. Today mono has taken the place of wire in most rigging situations. In the following illustrations I used 100-pound High Seas mono leader with the J hook. The 8/0 circle hook is secured to the eel with rigging wire. I used a modified ballyhoo rig for this purpose.
I always ran my eels
