Thursday into Friday had cold, high winds and several inches of snow come down, followed by sleet and freezing rain. Not unheard of to get snow in these parts in early spring, but definitely uncommon halfway into April. What does one often do on a cold, wet, snowy day in our household? Put together some fish for a nice hot meal, of course. And since we happened to still have plenty of smelt left, well, that's what he did.
In early March I loaded the girls (Mrs. KG and Pepper and Onions, our two female labs) into the truck and headed north. Our destination would be the James Eddy smelt camp on the Eastern river in Dresden, Maine. The Eastern flows into, and is one of many tributaries of the mighty Kennebec river, which itself flows into the Atlantic a bit north of Portland. Every year, many species of anadromous fish run up from the ocean and up these tidal rivers to spawn. Our target species for the day would be the rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax). This species has been introduced to and thrives in many other locations around the country, many landlocked, but for me, fishing for the sea run little beauties in their native environment makes me happy. A little more on the target species and ranges can be found here:
https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=796 There is a tradition steeped in rich culture involving the fishing for smelt in Maine going back more than a hundred years. Said tradition often involves a bunch of guys getting together and spending some quality time away from their screeching, toothless wives and squealing, dirty-faced, mouth-breathing offspring with naught but years of misery and suffering to look forward to from their drafty, pathetic hovels. But enough about them; this is a fisherman's tale. Sort of.
As a general rule, the idea is to get set up in a shack with no floor that was dragged out onto the ice. Once in place, large slits are cut into either side of the edge of the shack's 'floor'. There is a heat source (wood or kerosene, usually) inside, and some of today's 'fancy' ones have electricity. And that is the basic stage set. Those who brave the frozen river and enter these shacks then tell lies, eat man food and get fall-down drunk (not necessarily in that order), all the while pretending to be trying to catch 'sumptin' fer th' family'. Hoping not to bust through the ice, get swept under by the current and not found until spring thaw is also part of it. Tradition is what it is and must be respected. We'd be doing things a little differently, but definitely with as much gusto and determination as any of those who intrepid smelters who proceeded us out onto the frozen river in decades past.
Rather than use the provided 'tackle', which is comical and largely ineffective, a contraption often made from bed springs, a series of repurposed 2x2 wood rails, a few nails, twine and oversized hooks, I brought a couple of cheap, light jigging setups for the ice. I also had some half ounce weights and several flashy Sabiki rigs. Same exact rigs we catch baits for tuna with, actually... Anyway, that stuff, a bucket and some sea worms is really all that is needed to catch these little beauties. Slow jigged with a tiny piece of worm flesh on each of 4-6 hooks, if the smelt are running, you'll catch some. Sometimes, you can catch a LOT of them. Being tidal, one has to make a choice as to whether to fish an incoming vs. outgoing tide, and choose day or night tide. I've always had my best luck on a falling tide that starts moving out just as daylight is being lost. As luck would have it, I was able to make a reservation for us that was just what I wanted.
We did really well and we had a lot of fun and caught a bunch of beauties Or, I should say I was a real bait-rigging and unhooking madman. Mrs. KG was doing most of the catching. Our girls also enjoyed it. Our next shack neighbors took a liking to our dogs and especially my encouraging words to the old lady overheard: "For the last time get that fugking fish out from over the water before losing another you damned dingbat! How many more of these things are you going to set free? I didn't drive 2 hours to sit here with a busted heater and watch you lose all our fish!"
They came over to say hello and when they saw Mrs. KG not sporting a fat lip or Irish sunglasses they offered us up some moose steak, whitetail deer sausage and a few snorts of what I assume was some clear spirit made in a bathtub. It was all marvelous and we all enjoyed the hell out of it and our new freinds. Onions later showed her thanks to the neighbors by licking clean a giant iron skillet filled with grease for them. Funny thing: the last name of the matron in the group is the same as my first name.
I think we ended up with maybe six dozen in about 3 hours, which is enough for three meals for two, or six appetizers for two. Enough words.
The shacks.
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Is anyone still using Photobucket that can offer advice on embedding? I've been fooling around with this GD site for an hour and can't get images to properly embed...
