Wow. I did some searching and reading. I’d never seen the show the character you mentioned referred to, but after some reading I think I understand.
I initially thought the name would be a famous chef who does wonderful things with eel.
What do they do about the slime on raw eel?
I couldn’t get past the snot covering. I’ve seen live fresh water eel. They are just nasty looking.
I’m sure it washes off, and the eel doesn’t make more after it’s dead.
You should watch Big Bang Theory. It’s a hoot.
I found some people were just as squeamish about eating cooked eel as they were about eating raw fish, so after getting them to try cooked shrimp and crab stick I try to avoid mentioning eel directly, just say it’s a type of cooked fish called unagi. A lot of people remember the Friends episode and want to try it. The combination of the meat and the eel sauce is rather different for people new to sushi. Once their mental image associated with eel has changed people are more receptive. That probably applies to a lot of foods people don’t grow up with.
I’ve seen elvers for sale in Spain. They are sufficiently popular there that it’s possible to buy fake elvers in a can, made from surimi.
They are pretty realistic but you can generally tell them from the real thing because they don’t have eyes.
I would normally be repulsed by the concept of eel, but I love sushi, and when eel comes up in a round of beautifully prepared and presented omakase in a great sushi bar, I’m all in. Eel sushi is usually seared and served with a rich dark sauce and is absolutely delicious.
Yes indeed! 
I used to buy the little rectangular cans of Chinese braised eel but I can’t be sure of the sourcing. Apparently there is a lot of poaching of eels throughout Europe and they are smuggled off to Asia to supply a demand there. The silver eel is critically endangered here in the UK, partly as a result of illegal overfishing.
https://britishseafishing.co.uk/illegal-trade-in-silver-eels-the-largest-wildlife-crime-on-earth/
As much as I like unagi, I’m not sure I get the answer to the OP. (IANA fisher.)
I’m guessing a ‘box trap’ is like this one? And the window screens are to make a semi-funnel to the open end? Is a ‘Sheldon eel trap’ basically a cheap version of a fyke net?
Follow the link to the 1974 article, there are literally (very dark photocopies of) pictures.
No, it’s literally a wooden box with baffles.
I guess you could say that.
thanks for bringing this back on topic.
I’ve looked over the (very dark) pictures in the report and it looks like a square box where one side has is two screens angled into the box from either edge. The two screens are placed so that side is ‘concave’ and in between the screens there is a 1/4 in wide gap.
I assume (but cannot tell) that the opposite side of this box is also a screen that goes all the way across.
THe box is placed in an appropriate spot of a slow moving stream where the concave side is downstream. The elvers always want to swim upstream, so they encounter the “V” shaped side with the screens going upstream and are funneled through the 1/4 inch gap into the box. While in the box they continue their journey upstream in the box until they hit the upstream side screen and are trapped. The box looks to be about 2 ft across on a side.
I hope that accurately describes how I now understand the configuration.
That’s the basic design of an eel trap. Just a smaller version of the giant ancient eel weirs built on the Susquehanna River.
I saw how dark and grainy were the photocopies of photocopies of photocopies of photocopies, and never got to the picture of the trap (page 18, BTW). In my head, I had the configuration wrong. I thought the screens were external to the box (like wings), and wondered how they kept the eels from swimming out again. Now I see.
The same concept is used in numerous fish trap designs. The V shaped sides of a trap can easily steer fish into their confines but fish tend to stick to the sides of the interior and not find their way back to the opening. Elvers (young adult stage eels) along with other fish like salmon are driven to swim upstream at some point in their life cycle making the concept more widely useful.
Snake traps as well.
Ages ago, I posted a topic asking to ID a mystery basket which turned out to be some kind of eel/fish/seafood trap.