Question Conger (eel) bites

[Vicko]

Our main dive attraction on Vis was a massive friendly conger that we would feed, not the one on the video. They are very confident and approach slowly, if they do bite it feels like you have been hit by a blunt object. The big ones were really smart, they would remember divemasters and follow them around even when there was no food.
The small ones are a different thing entirely, they are not as confident so they try to get in and out fast, which leads to them accidentally grabbing whatever and doing a roll to rip it off.

Morrey eels are entirely different and I refuse to feed them at all. There was a massive one on the wreck and if it came out of the hole I would get my whole group well off the bottom and move away. The ones we have in the Adriatic don't feed like congers, they shoot out fast and grab whatever looks edible to them and it's simply stupid to feed them.

 

[Thunder Struck]

Last week in Fiji was videoing a lion fish on a night dive when I look up to my right and see a moray but a couple feet from poking out of his hole. As I start to back away he comes further and further out. I'm thinking he's gonna swim off in protest of the video lights when he quickly darts to the right, jams his head in a hole and starts twitching and jerking backwards, but looking like he's stuck in the hole. Of course he wasn't and as he pulls his head back he's got a tasty damselfish clutched in his jaws.

Have yet to pull the footage, hoping I caught it all but he stirred up the sediment quite a bit so it turned into backscatter city. A couple years ago had a spotted eel use my dive light to help hunt and chomp down on a fish. Moray appeared to have taken advantage of my video lights in the same way. So, if you want to see the eels feed, a night dive seems to be where it is at.

 

[Fat old english bloke]

Had one show a little interest in me whilst diving the Laurentic. I was having a little look at an engine type thing, then looked down and noticed a ‘friendly’ conger starting to show an interest in me. I didn’t drop a pebble on it’s head, instead added a touch of gas to my wing and finned back a couple of strokes.

 

[Waterwulf]

I was diving a reef in North Florida one day, just cruising along the edge of it where it curled under. Back then, I carried a Bang Stick but mine did double duty. I found a sturdy pink child's rake that snapped onto the end of my Stick like it was made for it. I used it to drag neat stuff or garbage out from under reef overhangs.

One day, I spotted something that I wanted to look closer at so I reached for it with my nifty neato rake. Wham! It came out of a hole and nailed my rake. He had the end of my Stick in his mouth too. It was some kind of eel and it probably thought the rake was a fish. I have no idea how long he was but he was about four inches in diameter. The rake finally slid off the end and he let go of my Stick so I vacated the area. I bought a new rake and warned all of the local dive shops "If you see a pink rake laying under a reef overhang in this area, it belongs to a big eel. Leave it alone".