The smelt run is on in lakes Michigan and Superior. My wife and I have taken advantage of it and have two fish fry's under our belt.

Another fish fry coming up tomorrow night.

Anyone else enjoy Smelt?

I'd like to try it.
How would you describe the taste?

One year a couple of us went up to Two Rivers to try our hand at catching some.

Lack of proper equipment relegated us to the bar for the weekend....

Love em. We used to fill up a 5 gallon bucket. Fun to dip but a pain to clean.

Wabigon, tastes like Lake Michigan water. Seriously, they have a mild fishy taste. Have only known a couple of people who did not care for them.

$9.99 for all you can eat. Coleslaw, rye bread and tartar sauce.

Wouldn't know a Smelt from a Mullet...

pics are required...

Damn, I miss it! Nothing like freshly melted ice over the top of the waders to wake a feller up. Phillips Blue 100 antifreeze helps with the cold.

A seine at the mouths of the Brule River, Reefer Crick, Fish Crick, etc. would yield a lot of buckets full. Deep fried Beer Batter smelt, or even just dredged in seasoned flour & pan fried was some good eating, for sure.

We used to catch "Hooligan" (Eulachon) in Alaska, which are a close cousin to smelt.
Cut the head off, slit the belly open and remove the guts, soak in a mild brine for about an hour, then hot smoke on racks (~200F) with alder for an hour.

You stick the tine of a fork under the skin just above the spine, slide it back towards the tail, unzipping the skin. he whole filet will then slip right off of the bones, flip it over and lift the other filet off.

The "Hooligan" we used to catch ran 8" to 10" long and about 1.25" deep, and about an inch thick.

I love it on buttered toast with a green salad and a good white wine.

Ed

Opening fishing there usually is a big Smelt fry in Crivitz.Them suckers are like eating popcorn.They are easy to clean.just slit the belly and pull the guts out with a finger.Don`t need to take the head off.A bucket of those fried up and a pitcher of beer to wash them down with its better than your first orgasm!!!

And schitt like a goose tomorrow.....

Dang straight - and there's very few things better IMHO. The local American Legion holds one every year - usually about a week or 10 days from now.. Last time, IIRC, they went through more than 5-600# of fish....Not bad for a teeny burg of under 3K..

I have about 5 pounds of smelt left from 25 lbs that i got this time a year ago ...I love them... I will have to buy some more here in a bit. http://www.lakesuperiorfish.com/order_smelt.html

When we lived in the U.P., dad used to get them by the bucket full on the Escanaba near the dam. Literally one dip would fill a bucket when the run was on. He and his buddy filled the back of a pick- up with buckets one night. He was up cleaning fish all night until he had to go to work in the am. Used Ma's sewing shears. We ate what we could and he gave the rest away. It was the last time we had smelt - don't know if it was his or her idea to quit or both, but it ended right there.

I used to dip the Cedar River at the mouth.Same deal for catching them.I would aways freeze a bunch whole as they are a dynamite Northern bait for tip up fishing!!!

Hundreds of different species/subspecies of smelt around NA... Like Ed said Hooligan are the standard here, but the surf smelt spawning on fine gravel beaches with clear, clean water around Kodiak in the dark of the moon in October really get the connoisseurs out.

From long distances you can hear the Kodiak bears eating them, along with the gravel sticking to them... It is not uncommon to see dozens of bears on a single beach just digging them up like clams.

Actually, I find filleting them is easier to clean them for deep-frying. Two very quick strips with a very sharp knife and a twist at the end of the second is all it takes. The bones disappear when cooked.

I would love to attend one of those

FWIW, methinks the quality of a smelt fry is 99% positively correlated to beer consumption.

And the brand of beer doesn't matter...

I LOVE SMELT!!!!

They ice fish smelt here all winter on the Kennebecasis & St. John rivers where the salt water tides mix with the fresh. These fish are very good eating. Huge villages of fishing huts out there every winter full of retired guys, families, kids, wives, husbands etc. One spot has a patch of ice cleared for skaters & playing hockey. Always lots of people out there.

Try cooking your smelt on a cookie sheet after coating in shake and bake or similar coating. 425deg oven for only about 12 min. Make sure your fish are all about the same size so they cook the same. Way less greasy and just slide off the pan. I'll never fry smelt again.

May 2nd in Lewiston NY the Niagara River Anglers puts on a BIG feed of smelt, gratis. Pay for your beer/pop and enjoy some smelt and good tunes. It's a blast!

I have only had the surf smelt that are rather small. I think that they are excellent cleaned and pan fried, but I could never come to terms with them left whole as some prefer them.

That larger, hooligan, variety smoked reads like it would be very good.

So is this how you guys do it....typically..?

the "tail chips " are dam good eats!!

...that's the way it was in the 60's ....!! yum!

That's a slick way to end up with a fillet. Good vid. Looks scrumptious.

I haven't had any since I was a kid.

never had smelt. Maybe one of these days I'll get a chance to try some.

Good eats!!

Deerwacker - Yep! You nailed it! You can see how fast it is to fill up a 5 gal bucket? You can fill a pick-up with buckets in no time at all. Nighttime runs are much stronger. Spring in da U.P. is cold running creeks, hiss of a Coleman lantern, pop-top of an ice cold beer fished out of said creek, and dipping!

The guy in the first vid is Fred Trost. Sadly, he passed about 5 years ago. He took over Michigan Outdoors show from the late great Mort Neff. Now the guy who has the most recent incarnation of the show lives down the street from me.

We didn't take the time to clean those things like that. Just too damn many. Steal ma's scissors, cut the head, cut the belly, run your thumb through the belly cut...next. Bread em, fry em, serve with beer. Maybe some tartar sauce or lemon. Coleslaw if you're a fitness freak. Good eats!

Used to do a lot of smelting after HS. Was an excuse to get drunk. Big bonfires on the beach, ladies in tow.

Great time.

One night me and a part smelt fished till midnight, 1/2 blitzed went to [REDACTED] Bar in Luxembourg WI as we typically did the smelt thing up in Door County. Musta been a slow night because it was me, Curt, the bartender and a bachelorette party which was just as blitzed as we were.

230 hit and the bartender goes "I'm calling this a private party - stay" and we did till about 5am. I woke up on a couch in some random 3 season room/porch. NO CLUE how I got there. Found Curt inside on the floor and we split.

I loved smelt fishing.....

Met Fred a few times - good guy to converse with.

Love them.

You're pretty close to the beach, do they ever swim up the creek the beaver were nibbling in..?

Just downed a couple dozen of Washington States Cowlitz River Smelt last weekend.

Love smelt but haven't had any fresh caught in many, many years. I still can sometimes find them, though not fresh caught, at Walmart in their frozen seafood section.

I remember when I was a kid about this time of the year the piers in Lake Michigan around Chicago used to be loaded at night with fishermen during the smelt runs. Most used gill nets on trolley rigs. Wasn't nothing to see galvanized washtubs overflowing with smelt.

Love Smelt!!

I'll have some soon!!

I do too, the small ones we got at Ashland WI were the best. Had some in the freezer for spring northern pike fishing for a couple years. The last year when they thawed they were pretty ripe, I never smelt a smelt that smelt like that smelt smelt.

We eat them and my dog gets one a day for a healthy coat!

Very common dish in Spain. One of my favorite.


Also like fried Mullet in Florida. Mullet are plentiful, travel in bunches and even jump out of the water to let you know where they are. They�re good to eat smoked or fried. And they can live anywhere from the saltiest ocean to the freshest springs.

As a result, mullet have always been the fish of choice for anyone who has to feed a large crowd. In fact, I�m not sure it�s possible to run for office in Northwest Florida without holding at least one mullet fish fry.

Dam fine eating! dip in a egg or beer batter roll in cornmeal. we go every year over to Pt Pele in Ca. My dad had a little french men buddie, he had a 40ft swein net, set up wait till dark and fill steel garage cans full! then give fish to who ever wanted them, we be cleaning fish all day long . in the afternoon mom and Gram start frying fish, Dam fine!

I used scissors to snip the head off and up the belly. Ran my thumb through to push out the guts and done.

Used to dip for them near Tawas at the singing bridge. Only really got into them one time out of years of trying. The runs of yesteryear are largely gone now due to over harvesting and other factors.

Leaky waders, Coleman lanterns and sick days are old smelt dipping tradition. Biting the head off the first smelt of the season is as old a tradition as is rinsing the taste out your mouth with a lake temperature beer.

Funny you should post this right now. A friend who lives in iowa who I talk to every few weeks calls me yesterday and asked me if I had ever had smelt. A friend of his who I have met, hell of a guy by the way a southern gentleman whom was born in Wisconsin by accident lol, fryed a butt load of smelt and served it with rye bread and onion. My buddy knobby said it was kinda fishy tasting but with the rye bread and onion it was great. I gotta say I would like to try it. I tried pickled herring when visiting up there and lets just say I will stick to southern style deep fried crappie with fried taters and corn bread.

so you don't want to try lutefisk the I take it?

We dipped out of the St Clair river. If the run was early we dodged ice flows. I never see anyone dipping anymore.

Many times I have seen hooligan here so thick you could just stick a hand into the river and grab a bunch of them. It has not gotten any worse... A net will produce a 5-gallon bucket with every pass when the run is strong. And they run at least twice the size of the MI smelt I remember

Smelt numbers have plummetet on the bay of Green Bay, and shore dipping and seining on the shores of Lake Michigan is nothing like its hay days.
Smelt are not native to the Great Lakes(and neither are alewife) but both have up and down cycles and both are greatly affected by our salmon populations.
That said, smelt are still taken in the deeper waters commercially , they still taste great and are cheap. Back in the day....what a party! Seining at Sugar Creek and Stoney Creek on the lake side were great times, roaring fires, tons of beer, girls loved to come and share the fire, beer, ahem ,snuggling.
Turkey fryers in concept hadn t reached these parts back then, but we deep fried them in beer batter(eggs-beer-Heni Penny peppered flour), awesome.

I started smelt fishing in 1967. Put a galvanized stock tank in back of 1/2 ton pick-up--fill it up with grain-belt beer and ice. Drive up to University of Minn pick-up a bunch of guys and head to the north shore of Lake Superior between Duluth and Two Harbors.
Almost made enough money to pay for the beer.

1990--price hit 60 cents a pound--dipped 45,000 lbs
2002--took 66,000 lbs--price was 20 cents lb

We still get a good run here on Lake Nipigon but an ice cream pail is enough for a feed and a 5 gallon pail for pike bait.
If it warms up they may run in a month or so.

Yep, just like that.

When I was a little kid I remember sitting at the table, the whole family with little knives just going to town quickly cleaning bushels of smelt for the fire hall smelt fry, and also to put up in the freezer for ourselves.

It's way too early for us here in MN.

Hell, I'm not so sure we're done MAKING ice yet, not sure if the thaw will ever come.

Used to dip for them on Nuns creek in da up. Eating out every meal, staying up all night dippin' for the smelt, playin' in the creek by day, sleeping under the stars with no tent, good times.

I remember a trip to Door County Wi. back in the 70's. A bunch of us were going to near the tip of the Peninsula hoping for trout or salmon. Our nets were huge; capable of handling 20-30 pound salmon. Crossed a bridge and needed a pee break. Someone shined a flashlight into the creek and all we saw were black backs and silvery flashes. Think we did 3 or 4 dips with the nets we had and filled a couple 50-55 quart coolers. Slept under cedar trees that night, fished the lake and bays in the morning. No trout or salmon, but a buttload of smelt. Stopped at a couple bars when back home to round up cleaners and cleaned and partied all night long and had smelt for breakfast and many meals to come.

I have not eaten Smelt's since the mid 1960's my father loved to eat them. This makes me think I should make a trip out to WI just for it. The older I get the more I wish to relive my youth. Opening day of fishing season saw me on the same rock in the same pool were I caught my very first trout, Some 53 years ago, The pool and river had not changed much, In many ways I am still that little boy at heart. I even fished with an Old Fenwick Glass Fly rod, with a Pflugger Medalist reel - Not the rod I had for the first one, but I got this one three years latter.

We did real well on the Cowlitz this year

It had been a few years for me and I had forgot how much I like these little guys.

I love those fishy little morsels...dippin off shore is long gone, but they are widely available in Great Lakes area restaurants this time of year, and fish markets...deep fried in a dusting of seasoned flour, they are crispy on the outside and mushy on the inside with a distinct fishy flavor, drench in lemon juice and slather in tartar...

I know guys used to dip the Rapid River up in Little Bay De Noc. Smelting is a big social event. Good eats, and a few cold adult beverages. What more could a man ask for?

nuthin