"I was pretty chill but everyone else is getting a real buzz out of it. It's crazy. Overwhelming," he said.
He and his uncle Heta Kerehi returned the five eels, two of which were about a metre long, to the Kuripuni Stream on Monday - and a video has been posted of the catch and release - despite his grandmother Hiona "Noni" Kerehi wanting to make a meal of the eels instead.
"She's hard old school - fully down for a feed of eel. But we couldn't bring ourselves to kill them and I'm the whitest Maori out there."
Mr Kerehi said his narration for the video was spontaneous and sincere - and he didn't generally use profanity.
His family had lived at the address for decades, he said, and eels had never been seen washed into the gutter before.
One of the several versions of the video on YouTube had been viewed more than 40,000 times yesterday.
The video also sparked calls from news organisations in the US, UK, Japan, Finland and Australia, with websites across the globe asking for permission to use the clip.
Mr Kerehi had also struck a royalty deal with Auckland-based T-shirt makers Mr Vintage, who produced two designs based on the video, and yesterday spoke with a lawyer about copyrighting his colourful catchphrase.
Mr Vintage director Rob Ewan said the video was the "new Nek Minnit" - an internet-coined phrase now at the centre of a copyright dispute.
Wairarapa eel expert Joseph Potangaroa said the eels included at least one native short-fin eel and could have included longfin species and larger eels up to 20 years old.
Mr Potangaroa said eels also surfaced in River Rd during the weekend rain and along a stream near Surrey St. "Eels have been known to head up underground water sources like pipes and springs as well as following them down. You'd have to guess the eels in the footage were flushed down and up due to the heavy rain."
