2. Where do eels live? Eels live in holes and crevices in the corals. How do you catch eels? Get together a good assortment of fishing tackle. Catching eels requires about the same equipment as carp fishing. A good solid rod-and-reel system with a medium-strength line will suffice. Fishing in the darkness or on moonlit nights offers a better chance of hooking eels.

3. Life cycle As New Zealand eels have never been seen spawning, this part of their lifecycle is based on what scientists think happens. In autumn, adult eels leave fresh water and enter tropical seas somewhere in the South Pacific, where in deep water females release eggs. Males fertilise them. Adults die after spawning. Eggs hatch into larvae that float to the surface and drift back towards New Zealand. They may take about 17 months to arrive. They then change into glass eels – transparent baby eels. These enter estuaries and turn darker – from which point they are known as elvers. Elvers move upstream and find a suitable place to live, where they grow into adults. Over a decade (or more) later, adult eels head out to sea to spawn and the cycle continues.

4. Eggs Larva Glass eel Elver Then adult

5. Most people are debating about where the eels go to breed so we dont really know where eels go to breed

6. Female eels grow bigger, become adult later and live longer than male eels. A female long fin eel will become an adult and ready to produce eggs when she is about 60 years old (!!!)and a female short fin eel when she is about 40. Some females don't breed until they are 100 years old. Male eels are younger when they mature. When the adult eels are becoming ready to migrate, their guts shrivel and they stop eating. They will never eat again. Their eyes become very big to help them see their way through the ocean.

7. A 16-kilo long fin Rangi Goodman (left) and Don Edwards hold a monster eel. It was caught by their friend Warren Kennedy, from the Wainuiomata River in June 1965. Weighing 16 kilograms, and 1.68 metres long, it had a girth of 81 centimetres. While eeling, Mr Kennedy had noticed what he thought was a log, and moved aside. But when the log followed he realised what it was, and speared it. The largest recorded long fin eel weighed in at 24 kilograms.