One man’s solitary life of trapping, smoking and selling eels on the Delaware River

HANCOCK, N.Y. -- Ray Turner said he had just finished repairing his gutters on his house, adding he had also “made a trip into town, which is rare, to pick up my logical necessities to prepare for the winter.”

“You’re lucky you got me,” said the owner of the Delaware Delicacies Smoke House, which sells smoked eel along with smoked salmon, trout, shrimp, duck, cheese and hens (seasonal) and other products. The spawning eel are trapped each fall in the river by Turner, who has a commercial fishing license. He captures them in a nearby weir (fish trap) he maintains on a picturesque stretch of the East Branch of the Delaware River that flows by his house.

Repeated calls by this reporter went unanswered. Turner, 73, lives by himself and proudly related he doesn’t own a cell phone, a computer, an iPad, a fax machine or a microwave.

He explained: “I don’t answer the phone anymore. There’s always someone who wants something. I don’t care. If you want something, you have to walk through the door and get lucky. That’s it.”

And be forewarned, Turner isn’t taking any chances with the Covid-19 virus. He adamantly demands that customers be vaccinated for the Covid-19 virus, wear a mask and keep a social distance .

“Otherwise, you’re going to run into (expletive deleted) Godzilla,” he said.

The small store/smoke shop is located at 420 Rhodes Road, down a dirt road a short distance from downtown Hancock. A couple of aged, wooden signs nailed to trees point the way.

Ray Turner — Aging, peeling wood signs nailed to trees point the way to the Delaware Delicacies Smoke House in Hancock, N.Y. David Figura photo.

There’s no need to advertise, he said. He’s been doing well for years, noting lately he’s considering retiring.

“I’ve noticed some elements (of this existence) that I’ve identified that I’m not a spring chicken anymore. I don’t need to do anything. I’m really quite well off. “I’m right where I want to be. What would I want to do? Travel?” Turner said.

The shop, which at one time advertised with a billboard off Route 17, is a popular spot with tourists to the Catskills – particularly since it was profiled in National Geographic’s “Filthy Riches” TV series in 2015. Turner said more than a dozen episodes were filmed about him, including setting up the eel weir, and catching and preparing for sale the eels he caught, among other activities.

“Last week, people came here from Belarus, Venezuela, Indonesia, Eastern Europe – and some Irish men, too. I’ve had customers from Australia. That’s the kind of element that occurs here. I do very little local business. Maybe they don’t like me. I don’t know,” he said.

Turner, born in nearby Middletown, N.Y., grew up in Hancock with his parents and twin brother. He went off to college to study civil engineering and enlisted in the Army during the Vietnam War and ended up in Panama. After being honorably discharged he moved back to the Catskills and worked a variety of jobs, from construction to designing and running wastewater treatment plants.

Following the death of his brother, he decided to build a house on family property along the river, reviving an eel weir downstream from the house.

Turner’s focus and knowledge about trapping and smoking eels, he said, comes from the fact that his father used to assist a man named Charlie Howard, a recluse who up until his death in 1948 lived along the river trapping and eating eels for sustenance, maintaining the same weir that Turner now uses .

The weir consists of two stone walls, each about 300 feet long that form a V in the river, funneling the river’s flow into a wooden trap at its vortex. Turner builds it up each year with the goal of having it completed by September, before the arrival of eels moving down the river to the Atlantic Ocean to spawn. And each year afterward, the river’s rising waters washes a lot of it away.

“Imagine building a two-car garage in the middle of the river and having to take it apart every year,” he said. “I (get in the water and) put down 300-400 feet of two rock walls leading to it. The wooden trap part. How long does it take to build it? It’s never done. It’s a Zen thing.”

During his interview in early August, Turner conceded he was “way behind” building it for this fall due to the high-water level of the river from the constant rains.

“You have to understand. We’re not in charge. The river is in charge. Plus, I’m contemplating retiring. It’s an awful lot of hard work,” he said.

Turner stressed the eel weir, located at Peas Eddy, has been there for “beaucoup …a long time.”

“I like to tell people to understand that some researchers used radiocarbon dating (to determine) an eel weir in the Massachusetts area was there more than 5,000 years ago,” he said. “Many people don’t realize that during the first Thanksgiving folks ate more eel than turkey. That’s a fact.”

He noted “this stretch of the Delaware River was inhabited by many, many native Americans before we came here and killed them. I’m sure this site, because of its topography, was very likely an operation center for them to harvest some high-quality protein.”

Turner was a little fuzzy on many dates in the start and evolution of the store. “A lot of things are hard to categorize,” he said. “A lot of things kind of roll into each other.”

He said he’s had several women in is life since moving to the river – but nothing has ever worked out. His sole female companion during the past 15 years was in a cage out back. It’s an emu, a tall ostrich-like bird.

“I call her Tweetie, Duck, Rodent -- she’ll answer to anything. Two friends of mine who were state troopers came here with her in the back of their police cruiser,” he said. “I’ve seen some funny things in my life, but to see her hog-tied in the back of a State Police cruiser. Having been there once or twice myself, I took her in. I’ve been feeding her dog food and bread ever since. She’s had a pretty good life.”

Has he ever had any celebrities as customers?

“Yeah, actress Julia Stiles, that’s her autograph on the wall. I just saw her in the “Silver Lining Playbook” with Jennifer Lawrence,” he said.

Back in the store, Turner leans over the counter and proudly points out the wide variety of products he sells. In addition to the smoked goods, items on his shelves include locally produced honey, sauerkraut, sweet pickled relish, pickled beets, peaches, brandied cherries and a gourmet brand of mustard from California.

“You can’t make a living out of an empty wagon. That’s why I have all this stuff,” he said.