Hamilton Reef
02-27-2005, 09:44 AM
Smelt fishing stays strong during winter
Sunday, February 27, 2005, by Bob Gwizdz
http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/statewide/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/110911380324030.xml
HIGGINS LAKE -- We were in the shack and set up by sunset, ready for the night shift. But the fish finder told us what we were looking for had already arrived.
The flasher showed a lot of fish in the bottom five feet of the water column and all it took was to bait up and drop to the bottom to prove they were what we were looking for: smelt.
By dark, Steve Sendek and I both had a small handful of smelt bouncing around our bucket bottoms. And as night progressed, the depth finder lit up like a Christmas tree; there were fish from bottom to just below the ice.
So what to do? Drop your bait all the way to the bottom? Dangle it just below the surface?
"Just keep trying different depths," advised Sendek, a Department of Natural Resources biologist from Grayling. "Sometimes they'll all bite. Sometimes nothing will bite."
We seemed to be in the middle of that continuum. I generally lowered my rig to the bottom in 45 feet of water and ever so s-l-o-w-l-y worked it up. Sendek typically fished so that he could see his bait. Both of us caught fish, but it was neither fast nor furious.
"It's rather slow for the number of fish we have under us," Sendek said.
That, of course, is fishing. And what's true for fishing in general is equally so for smelt.
A long-time tradition on Higgins and a handful of other, mostly northern Michigan lakes, smelt fishing is a blast
"It's gotten large in the last few years, a very popular fishery," Sendek said. "It's like dipping smelt in the springtime. It's a social event. Guys get together for an evening and have some fun.
"Almost every night you get some fish. Some nights you do real well. Some nights you just do fair. A fair night is, oh, 30 or 40 fish. A good night is a couple of hundred."
We did doubly fair, I guess. When we quit at 10 p.m., we each had about 40 smelt in our pails.
The drill was simple. We used light rods with 2-pound test mono, with a small Hali spoon tied to the bottom and a couple of tear drops a foot or so above it. We tipped the tiny tear drops -- baits Sendek made with No. 14 hooks and diamond bead heads and finished with glow-in-the-dark paint -- with spikes, which are about as small a bait as you can use, but are huge compared to the tiny weebeasties the smelt feed upon.
But that much work is unnecessary. You can take them on just about any conventional panfish rig. Store-bought tear drops or ice flies are just fine. You can use heavier line if you please, but the lighter you go, the more you get out of the fish, which are more appropriately weighed in grams than ounces.
You can see the rod tip twitch when they bite and even feel it. Smelt have attitude. If they grew to the size of muskies, I don't think many of us would go swimming where they live.
Although we were in 45 feet of water, we were within casting distance of 100.
"It seems the fish are associated with a drop-off in deep water, but it seems like more and more fish are moving shallow, too," he said. "It's not uncommon to see fish in 10 to 15 feet of water."
Native to salt water, smelt are elongated, silvery creatures that were planted in the Great Lakes at the turn of the last century in anticipation that they'd serve as a forage base of salmon (which weren't successfully transplanted until decades later). Smelt, however, have been moved around into numerous inland lakes, typically ones that are known as "two-story lakes" -- those that can support both warm-water and cold-water fish communities.
"There's a tremendous year-class of smelt coming on here, judging by the lake trout we've been catching." Sendek said. "The lakers are jammed full of them. Stuffed. Couldn't get any more in them.
"We expect a couple more years of good fishing off this year-class."
Most of the fish we caught were about a year away from being the fish that anglers target; they were just four or five inches long. But the small ones are especially tender and sweet, which, of course, is what smelt are all about: They are an exceptional food fish. Because of their delicate bones, they are generally fried whole; just head and gut them, swish them in a batter and drop them in hot oil. They're superb.
One nice attribute to smelt fishing is that, unlike many other ice angling opportunities, it doesn't seem to slow down as winter progresses. If anything, it seems to get better as the fish gang up in shallower water to begin staging for the annual spawn, when the majority of smelters get after them.
But if you wait until spring, you've missed a good time all winter.
Sunday, February 27, 2005, by Bob Gwizdz
http://www.mlive.com/outdoors/statewide/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/110911380324030.xml
HIGGINS LAKE -- We were in the shack and set up by sunset, ready for the night shift. But the fish finder told us what we were looking for had already arrived.
The flasher showed a lot of fish in the bottom five feet of the water column and all it took was to bait up and drop to the bottom to prove they were what we were looking for: smelt.
By dark, Steve Sendek and I both had a small handful of smelt bouncing around our bucket bottoms. And as night progressed, the depth finder lit up like a Christmas tree; there were fish from bottom to just below the ice.
So what to do? Drop your bait all the way to the bottom? Dangle it just below the surface?
"Just keep trying different depths," advised Sendek, a Department of Natural Resources biologist from Grayling. "Sometimes they'll all bite. Sometimes nothing will bite."
We seemed to be in the middle of that continuum. I generally lowered my rig to the bottom in 45 feet of water and ever so s-l-o-w-l-y worked it up. Sendek typically fished so that he could see his bait. Both of us caught fish, but it was neither fast nor furious.
"It's rather slow for the number of fish we have under us," Sendek said.
That, of course, is fishing. And what's true for fishing in general is equally so for smelt.
A long-time tradition on Higgins and a handful of other, mostly northern Michigan lakes, smelt fishing is a blast
"It's gotten large in the last few years, a very popular fishery," Sendek said. "It's like dipping smelt in the springtime. It's a social event. Guys get together for an evening and have some fun.
"Almost every night you get some fish. Some nights you do real well. Some nights you just do fair. A fair night is, oh, 30 or 40 fish. A good night is a couple of hundred."
We did doubly fair, I guess. When we quit at 10 p.m., we each had about 40 smelt in our pails.
The drill was simple. We used light rods with 2-pound test mono, with a small Hali spoon tied to the bottom and a couple of tear drops a foot or so above it. We tipped the tiny tear drops -- baits Sendek made with No. 14 hooks and diamond bead heads and finished with glow-in-the-dark paint -- with spikes, which are about as small a bait as you can use, but are huge compared to the tiny weebeasties the smelt feed upon.
But that much work is unnecessary. You can take them on just about any conventional panfish rig. Store-bought tear drops or ice flies are just fine. You can use heavier line if you please, but the lighter you go, the more you get out of the fish, which are more appropriately weighed in grams than ounces.
You can see the rod tip twitch when they bite and even feel it. Smelt have attitude. If they grew to the size of muskies, I don't think many of us would go swimming where they live.
Although we were in 45 feet of water, we were within casting distance of 100.
"It seems the fish are associated with a drop-off in deep water, but it seems like more and more fish are moving shallow, too," he said. "It's not uncommon to see fish in 10 to 15 feet of water."
Native to salt water, smelt are elongated, silvery creatures that were planted in the Great Lakes at the turn of the last century in anticipation that they'd serve as a forage base of salmon (which weren't successfully transplanted until decades later). Smelt, however, have been moved around into numerous inland lakes, typically ones that are known as "two-story lakes" -- those that can support both warm-water and cold-water fish communities.
"There's a tremendous year-class of smelt coming on here, judging by the lake trout we've been catching." Sendek said. "The lakers are jammed full of them. Stuffed. Couldn't get any more in them.
"We expect a couple more years of good fishing off this year-class."
Most of the fish we caught were about a year away from being the fish that anglers target; they were just four or five inches long. But the small ones are especially tender and sweet, which, of course, is what smelt are all about: They are an exceptional food fish. Because of their delicate bones, they are generally fried whole; just head and gut them, swish them in a batter and drop them in hot oil. They're superb.
One nice attribute to smelt fishing is that, unlike many other ice angling opportunities, it doesn't seem to slow down as winter progresses. If anything, it seems to get better as the fish gang up in shallower water to begin staging for the annual spawn, when the majority of smelters get after them.
But if you wait until spring, you've missed a good time all winter.