That’s no fish! It’s an American eel — in the Kiski River

“What the hell is that?” three anglers asked as an official with the Roaring Run Watershed Association reeled in a creature swirling around in the Kiski River.

It turned out to be an American eel.

It’s a rare find in the river, said Gary Smith, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s Area 8 fisheries manager.

The elongated fish with small fins likely swam from the Allegheny River to the Kiski.

“We’ve been hearing more reports of them in the last five to 10 years from anglers,” Smith said.

Eels are rare in the region. In Smith’s 25 years of surveying streams, he has seen only one.

The eels travel thousands of miles from the Atlantic Ocean to fresh water to live for several decades until they journey back to the Atlantic to spawn.

This eel’s course likely took it from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River to the Ohio River, the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh then onward to the Kiski River — clearing the hurdles of many locks and dams along the way.

“It’s an exciting catch when you think about the distance and all the obstacles to get here,” Smith said. “It is truly amazing.”

In Pennsylvania, the largest populations of American eels are found in the Delaware River watershed in the eastern part of the state.

However, Southwestern Pennsylvania is part of the eel’s historical range, Smith said.

About two weeks ago, Ken Kaminski, president of the Roaring Run Watershed Association, and two friends from the Avonmore area went fishing for bass, catfish or anything else in the Kiski River above Apollo, Kaminski said.

Kaminiski pulled in the eel, which gave him only a mild fight, just after sunset. Eels are nocturnal, feeding on fish, crawfish and aquatic insects, Smith said. These eels are not electric and they don’t bite people.

One of the anglers shined a high-powered flashlight on the creature as they were ready to net it before the line broke. They all got a good look at it, Kaminski said.

“It looked just like an eel you see at the zoo or on TV,” he said. “It has just two little fins in the front.”

The dark green-brown creature was almost 2 feet long with a white belly.

“It was an honor seeing something like that in the Kiski, knowing that river was orange when I grew up,” said Kaminski, 63, a Parks Township native.

Decades ago, the Kiski River was sullied with acid mine drainage. As a kid, Kaminski and his friends liked to play in the river.

“I was orange when I came home, and my parents weren’t happy,” he said.

The possibility of catching an eel in the Kiski has increased over the years because of the improved water quality, Smith said.

The recent discovery of freshwater mussels in the Kiski “tells you something there,” Smith said.

“Since mussels are intolerant to pollutants, things are improving and are only going to get better,” he said.

Abandoned mine discharge projects along Blacklick Creek and the Little Conemaugh River will make a big difference in boosting water quality in the future, he said.