Smelting ?

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Swampthing
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Smelting ?

Unread postby Swampthing » Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:24 am

I have never done it b4.But when I was younger .I can remember my Dad leaving for the weekend .And coming home with a pile of old milking cream cans full of smelt .And later the guys would put on a big Smelt Fry up town. I think the guys just strapped on hip waders and had a big net and just stand in a stream ,net'em up and fill them cream cans up.


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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby adrenalin » Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:58 am

The good old days before invasive species like zebra mussels ate up all the plankton.
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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby Spysar » Mon Mar 14, 2011 7:44 am

Around here we go smelting on the ice. There are things called "smelt sticks". The old timers use them. It's a peice of wood with line wrapped around it, and they are used in pairs. The name of the game is to rip as many smelt as you can, and you use one smelt stick to catch and the other to wrap the line up. Kinda hard to describe.. I use a regular jigging pole and catch plenty.
A buck will see you three times, and hear you twice, but he's only gonna smell you once.
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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby Hilts » Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:10 am

I went last year up here in Ashland. It was one of the best years they have had in a long time. It took me and a buddy about 5 pulls to fill a 5 gal bucket and a cooler.

The best part was, my buddy took them all home, cleaned them, and then gave me half :D .
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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby Singing Bridge » Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:24 am

Hilts wrote:The best part was, my buddy took them all home, cleaned them, and then gave me half


snip / snip / scoop, repeat hundreds and possibly thousands of times. :D
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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby U.P. MAN » Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:24 am

When i was a kid,up near escanaba my dad,my buddy and his dad went smelting. We filled up two 30 gallon wash tubs and four 5 gallon buckets in a hour or so. My buddies dad made a swipe and broke the old wooden handle on the net it was so full. You dont see them like that anymore.
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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby Singing Bridge » Tue Mar 15, 2011 1:37 am

U.P. MAN wrote:When i was a kid,up near escanaba my dad,my buddy and his dad went smelting. We filled up two 30 gallon wash tubs and four 5 gallon buckets in a hour or so. My buddies dad made a swipe and broke the old wooden handle on the net it was so full. You dont see them like that anymore.


Now you've got me flashing back... Singing Bridge was Michigan's most popular and advertised smelt dipping destination in the 60's and 70's, and during the heyday people would fill pickup truck beds and garbage cans with smelt. Cars were lined up on both sides of the road for a mile (more than that) on weekends, as hundreds and sometimes thousands of people showed up. The Michigan State Police brought in reserve troopers and other Law Officers to attempt to protect homeowners from the drunken and sometimes destructive crowds. If the crowd tore down your wood fence surrounding your yard they would build a huge bonfire with it and there was nothing anyone could do. If they actually approached a residence homeowners would fire a shot into the air from their rooftop ( 12 gauge shotgun, typically) and the State Troopers would force their way in and try to move back the crowds. Crazy times.
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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby hotterthantiffany » Tue Mar 15, 2011 5:40 am

snip / snip / scoop, repeat hundreds and possibly thousands of times. :D[/quote]

my dad use to go on Lake Michigan, he would bring 5 gallon buckets home and I cleaned them! Sharp scissors and a thumb...all you need!
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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby Spysar » Tue Mar 15, 2011 8:27 am

I never understood why people like smelt so much. Snip, snip, scoop? What is that? And people eat them with the bones and all? Yuck!! Eating minnows? The only thing I like smelt for, is bait. They are the prefered predator fish food wherever they exist. :?

I prefer my nice large flakey white and boneless fillets from cod and haddock. It's nice living in driving distance to the ocean. :D
A buck will see you three times, and hear you twice, but he's only gonna smell you once.
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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby Singing Bridge » Tue Mar 15, 2011 8:44 am

Spysar wrote:I never understood why people like smelt so much. Snip, snip, scoop? What is that? And people eat them with the bones and all? Yuck!! Eating minnows? The only thing I like smelt for, is bait. They are the prefered predator fish food wherever they exist. :?

I prefer my nice large flakey white and boneless fillets from cod and haddock. It's nice living in driving distance to the ocean. :D


Ironically, smelt are an invasive species from the ocean that got into the great lakes like so many other invaders- the ballast of great lakes freighters that came from the ocean.

Snip, snip, scoop is how you clean smelt by the thousands. htt is right on the money with scissors and a thumb. You use the scissors to snip off the head, then stick them in the hole down to the vent (poop hole) and snip again. Finally, you use your thumb to scoop out the guts... snip, snip, scoop and on to the next.

Fried smelt... yummy, cooked bones and all and you eat the tail too! The smelt runs are almost completely gone, but a remnant run still takes place around Singing Bridge. A couple of years ago I stopped by the public access and a group of smelt "wannabe's" were there- people who had heard stories of years past and were trying to dip their own smelt. They told me that they had gotten a few and were frying them up, and offered a sample if I wanted to. My eyes got big when I saw the shiner minnows they had netted and fried (emerald shiners). :lol: I politely refused and moved on.

If you cleaned a thousand smelt and couldn't take it anymore, they made great fertilizer for the rose bushes! :mrgreen:
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Re: Smelting ?

Unread postby Swampthing » Tue Mar 15, 2011 2:29 pm

U.P. MAN wrote:When i was a kid,up near escanaba my dad,my buddy and his dad went smelting. We filled up two 30 gallon wash tubs and four 5 gallon buckets in a hour or so. My buddies dad made a swipe and broke the old wooden handle on the net it was so full. You dont see them like that anymore.

My dad would also tell stories of how there nets would nearly break off in 1 scoop.It sure would,ve been fun to have went at least 1 time.


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