When three commercial fishing boats recently arrived in Ilwaco and tied up at the Ilwaco landing pier loaded with hundreds of black barrels, curiosity was aroused.

Upon checking with Lance Barnett, manager of Jessie’s Ilwaco Fish, the mystery was solved. They were fishing for what are commonly called “slime eels.” They are the only animals that have a skull but not a vertebral column and are a mere 18-inches long. Although called “slime eels,” they are not eels at all.

Their unusual feeding habits and slime-producing capacities have led members of the scientific and popular media community to dub the hagfish as the most disgusting of all sea creatures. Hagfish enter both living and dead fish and marine mammals, feeding on the insides. They often enter through natural openings such as the mouth, gills or anus and consume their prey from the inside out.

They are found locally, off the Oregon and Washington coasts and feed on the bottom. They can be a great nuisance to fishermen, as they are known to infiltrate and devour a netted catch before it can be pulled to the surface. Like leeches they have a sluggish metabolism and can survive for months between feedings. Hagfish have elongated eel-like bodies and paddle like tails. A single fossil of hagfish shows that there has been little evolutionary change for the last 300 million years.

The mucus excreted by the hagfish is unique in that it includes strong, threadlike fibers similar to spider silk. Some possibilities for its use include space-filling gels, or a means of stopping blood flow in accident victims and surgery patients. An adult hagfish can secrete enough slime to turn a 5-gallon bucket of water into slime in a matter of minutes.

So the question arises, why were they fishing for them out of Ilwaco? According to Lance, the three commercial boats were fishing for a buyer out of Westport, with a final destination of South Korea. They also had to be delivered alive, no small task in itself. But Ilwaco landing found out that the process was just too nasty, the unloading and handling into special totes was just too much trouble. End of that fishing venture.

Closing of pheasant hunting in ChinookThe pheasant release site just outside Chinook closed Nov. 30 for the 2008 hunting season. It had its bright spots but unfortunately during the last release on Wednesday a strong north wind carried most of the birds across the road and into posted private property. Nevertheless, my son, grandson and myself had a prosperous Thanksgiving weekend, bagging five roosters and one hen for the table. It’s a great site and look forward to hunting it next year thanks to Ducks Unlimited.

Ron Malast is a charter boat captain during the summer months and can be reached at 665-3573 or 360-244-0570.