If you drive in the Nuese Sport Shop in Kinston, NC on Hwy 70 has a great inventory of fishing and hunting equipment and they alway have live eels. Just take a bucket with a lid and put ice in it. Those the eels on ice and they get dormant. Put them back in saltwater within 3-4 hours and they come right back to life. I think the lat time I was there getting some last year tehy were like $1.50 a piece.