| 21. | Jeff and I also discovered that a floating sand eel fly offered in the same manner also worked.
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| 22. | I immediately hooked a heavy fish on my sinking sand eel fly; five minutes later, it broke off.
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| 23. | By consuming zooplankton they act as a link through to the higher trophic level predators that eat sand eels.
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| 24. | The sand eels were so numerous that one rogue wave dumped two dozen of them into Jeff's stripping basket.
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| 25. | This was surprising, because they appeared to be feeding mainly on large sand eels, which the dropper fly resembled.
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| 26. | The Raitt s sand eel survives better in cooler waters and may move North to avoid warming sea temperatures.
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| 27. | But in the water they're deadly, with the tubes dancing in the current like a school of sand eels.
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| 28. | Raitt s sand eel fisheries are difficult to manage due to lack of population size data and regular population fluctuations.
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| 29. | In the sea many larger fish species prey on the Raitt s sand eel including cod, haddock, whiting, saithe and mackerel.
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| 30. | Overfishing of small fish such as sand eels can lead to steep declines in the colonies relying on these prey items.
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