Smelt Update

C

CW

New member
they say that the tributaries need to be 42 degrees to encourage smelt to migrate into them for spawning. Below is some info I got from a Columbia River Advisory friend. C.W.

Smelt Update
Thursday – January 17, 2008
Conditions:
Commercial landings in the Columbia River picked up this week. There appears to be a push of fish approaching the Cowlitz River, with favorable conditions for smelt movement projected through the weekend. Saturday could be a good day for sport dippers to prospect for fish.
The Cowlitz River at Castle Rock is running at 15,300 CFS. The temperature of the lower Columbia River and the Cowlitz River is 42º. Smelt prefer water of at least 40º or warmer.
Catches:
Columbia River:
Commercial:
700 lbs landed Monday, January 14th from around Puget Island.
1,201 lbs cumulative landings since late-December. Preliminary numbers.
Cowlitz River:
Sport:
WDFW test dipping on Wednesday, January 16th, produced no catch. Areas sampled were Gearhart, Carnival Market, and Lexington. There was a reliable report of some successful dipping last Saturday at the Gearhart ramp just upstream from the mouth.

Commercial:
No commercial landings reported for January 13th and 16th.
0 lbs cumulative since January 2nd.

Sport Seasons/Regulations:
Tributaries - Sport dipping is only allowed on the Cowlitz River, from 6 AM to 10 PM Saturdays through March 31st. The daily limit is 10 lbs per person per day. This is equivalent to ¼ of a 5-gallon bucket.
Mainstem Columbia River daily limit is 25 lbs per person per day and the fishery is open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
Commercial Seasons:
Columbia River: 9-hour fishing periods on Mondays and Thursdays.
Cowlitz River: 6-hour fishing periods on Sunday and Wednesday nights.
Fishing Rule updates are also available by calling (360) 696-6211, then press *1010

Here are some web sites that provide daily river data:

Cowlitz River water flow and levels: USGS Web site:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/wa/nwis/uv/?s ... 0060,00065
Columbia River estuary water temperature: CORIE Web site:
http://www.ccalmr.ogi.edu/CORIE/network/woody/
 
I saw a report that dippers had some success at Gearhart Ramp...where IS that?

And if the commercials are gettin zip, where are the ones selling at $6/pound comin from?

Caty
 
just south of Longview//Kelso is the Tennant way exit. Take it, cross the Cowlitz river and the first exit to the right takes you to Gearhart Park. go to the park on the left side. the smelt on the market are from last year. C.W.
 
OK, I'm the newbie -- what are smelt and why and how would I want to eat them? I assume they are something like cisco, which people in Utah would go nuts about. Seemed like a lot of work for very little fish. :disgust I've never tried them, though.
 
Warren, I'm sure there are others here who will have a different use for smelt, but when my wife's uncle came to town and we went Smelting in the Sandy river, several years back, teh best use I could find for them was to plant them in the back yard under the rose bushes. Boy did we have a beautiful rose year. :wink
Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
My understanding, or lack of it, coming from California, is that one of the uses of smelt was for sturgeon bait, although some folks do eat them.

BC, who is a junior college diesel mechanics instructor from Vancouver, Washington, , offered some clandestine brownie points for smelt acquisition to his students about five years ago under the pretense of "research", and had so many brought in that they had to have their own special dedicated freezer!

He was thereafter known as "The Smelt King of the Columbia", and C-Brats for miles around, including one of our our fearless leaders, TyBoo Mike, paid tribute to BC for several years to get a few precious freezer-burned carcasses to bait their sturgeon rigs during the ensuing years with very light smelt runs. He may still have a very few available for very special customers who are willing to trade gold or platinum for them pound-for-pound. Nice to have a corner on the market, any market!

Now BC wants you to think he's courting a retirement job to supplement his income by working as a party boat captain up in Elfin Cove, SE Alaska, but the truth is he has more funds presently stashed away from the adventure above than necessary to fund anyone's retirement short of maybe Bill Gates.

You might want to consider BC's story as a model to emulate yourself, as you could be the next great Smelt King/Queen/Person.

That's his story and I'm sticking' it to him!

Joe. :lol:
 
Eat Smelt? I guess here in Alaska we are spoiled, you see some ethnic groups targeting our Hooligan (smelt of steroids) but for the most part we stick with the good stuff.
I spent a couple years at a remote location on a river with a great Hooligan run. They were thick enough that you could see the 3ft wide swath coming up river for as far as you could see. They were so easy to catch you could kick them out on the bank with your boot and I never saw evidence where an Eagle or Bear ever fished them. That spoke volumes to me.
Mike
 
damn, now I'm going to have F&G knocking on my door Joe...that was a crazy year for smelt & I had a bunch of students that where nuts for smelt dipping but weren't allowed to bring any more home. As a public service, I allowed them to bring the fish in for distribution to poor, needy, bait deprived -Brat brethren.....damn, I had folks dragging big, leaking, garbage bags O' fish into my office.

Some folks, very few, eat them, most are used for sturgeon bait


BTW I hired Bill Gates to dip smelt for me
 
I remember in Minnesota there were also smelt. They were larger and tasted better than the ones here in the PNW. My friend from Wisconsin concurs. I just use them for bait.... and they are very very good bait too. Like any fish, they last much longer if vacuum sealed with the Foodsaver. C.W.
 
Well, Utah is a strange place, we all know that (especially me), but from what I remember seeing on TV, people would go up to Utah Lake (Utah/Idaho border) net cisco and have a fish fry on the shore of the lake. I don't know how much difference there is between cisco and smelt, but a brief look at Wikipedia makes me think they are related.

Warren, who finally escaped from Utah after 50 years of servitude.
 
Ummm - Smelt -- reminds us of our days in Wisconsin. Here's a great recipe we got from a local, sitting on the bank of a river, clad in red and black check shirt and smelling of lutefisk:


"Take a sharp knife, cut off da heads and gut em - offer to the hound, but if e's smart, he pretends he don't see.

make a batter - your favorite, wid lotsa oil, or sizzled onions, or crunch up a two-week ol' lefse for a crust

dip 'em. then deep fry 'em. when dey golden brown - in a jiffy - hook 'em out and drain on an ol' towel

sprinkle wid salt, vinegar, gravlax -- drink a heapa glogg -- sing a song

-- and den toss out da fish. UFFDA!
 
Smelt are also known as Eulachon (sp?). They're abou t 6-8" long, finely scaled. They live in the ocean and come into some of the rivers to spawn and then die, like steelhead or salmon (anadromous). Lewis and Clark traded for some with the Cowlitz Indians back when they came through here in 1805. It was about 4 years ago that we had our last really good run. You dip them with long handled nets from boats or while wearing waders in the Cowlitz river. The limit is about 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket per day (10 lbs.). Because of their relative scarcity since then, they've averaged about a dollar apiece, so one day's limit is really worth something.

The Cowlitz Indians are petitioning to have the smelt listed as "Endangered" because it was traditionally so important to their livelihood and is now so infrequent. When a good run is in, the dead ones line the banks in a grey/silver ribbon 7 ft. across the tide line along each bank. Since they come in February typically, it is like a massive injection of high protein biomass into the environment. Coyotes, eagles, hundreds of seals, increased sturgeon numbers.... cormorants, thousands of terns.... all show to capitalize on this bounty in the middle of our cold, wet, drippy winter. Since no fishing license is required, we get many people from all around the Northwest of modest economic means to likewise, get their smelt. Many Asians show, much like they do when the shad are in (4-5 lb. herring that migrate by the millions up the Columbia each May-June). When the dipping is good, there are smiles all around. C.W.
 
I wonder if smelt are the same thing as hooligan? We have a large run of those oily little guys on Turnagain Arm. People eat them, but I use them for bait and are excellent.
 
We've had a lot of snow lately and water temps are cooling. Let's pray for rain, temps in the mid 40s and maybe the occasional sunny afternoon. C.W.

Smelt Update
Thursday – January 31, 2008
Conditions:
The smelt run appears to have backed down to the estuary in response to the cold river temperatures. No commercial landings were reported this week. WDFW survey crews observed just a couple of seals in the Columbia River near Mill Creek and none in the Cowlitz River.
The flow at Castle Rock is at 14,400 CFS. Water temperatures this past week remained colder than the minimum 40ºF that smelt prefer, with the Cowlitz River at 39ºF and the Columbia River at 38ºF.
Catches:
Columbia River:
Commercial:
0 lbs landed Thursday, January 24th and Monday, January 28th.
2,071 lbs cumulative landings since late-December (preliminary numbers).
Cowlitz River:
Sport:
WDFW test dipping on Wednesday, January 30th, produced no catch.
Commercial:
No commercial landings reported for January 27th and 30th.
0 lbs cumulative since January 2nd.

Sport Seasons/Regulations:
Tributaries - Sport dipping is only allowed on the Cowlitz River, from 6 AM to 10 PM Saturdays through March 31st. The daily limit is 10 lbs per person per day. This is equivalent to ¼ of a 5-gallon bucket.
Mainstem Columbia River daily limit is 25 lbs per person per day and the fishery is open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.

Commercial Seasons:
Columbia River: 9-hour fishing periods on Mondays and Thursdays.
Cowlitz River: 6-hour fishing periods on Sunday and Wednesday nights.
Fishing Rule updates are also available by calling (360) 696-6211, then press *1010

Here are some web sites that provide daily river data:
Cowlitz River water flow and levels: USGS Web site:
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/wa/nwis/uv/?s ... 0060,00065
Columbia River estuary water temperature: CORIE Web site:
http://www.ccalmr.ogi.edu/CORIE/network/woody/
 
As a kid growing up in Portland OR I was always taken fishing to increase the daily limit by having an extra body along. I even caught my share of trout and smelt more than once.

As I recall my grandfather always smoked smelt -- I do remember they tasted pretty good in the early 1970s when I attended law school in Portland but as a perpetually broke student lots of things tasted good! A big night out was the Old Spaghetti Factory and house chianti!

Bill Uffelman
Las Vegas NV
 
Hey guy's, just want to let you know that surf smelt are good eating. But I do think that surf smelt and river smelt are different. Those that are caught on the ocean beaches are called " white bait " by the old Italian fishermen here in Calif, they are caught with dip nets or Hawaiian throw nets and the limit is 25lbs ( that's a lot of smelt)

To prepare for cooking, wash good to get all sand off then you can make a slit in the belly and with your thumb just flick out the guts or the way I prefer just wash well, use your favorite breading, fry whole fish in hot oil in deep fryer or frying pan. Don't over cook maybe 3 to 4 minutes till nice and brown. Cook a few at a time don't over crowd pan.

Now here is the best part, when ready to eat just pinch off the tail and give the head a couple twists and pull, the guts, backbone all come out in a neat little package. All meat, no bones ... just eat and enjoy.

Charlie
 
When you see this, you know the smelt are in. The harbor seals swim up to the mouth of the Cowlitz River (approx. 80 miles upstream from the ocean). Terns cloud the sky. C.W.
seals_gather_for_smelt_1_12_03_Cowlitz_river_mouth.sized.jpg
 
They're here!

Test dipping today confirmed smelt are present in the lower Cowlitz. Bank
dipping near the Longview Bridge produced about 15 fish in a dozen dips. Up to
3 fish per dip. Mixture of size including some large specimens. A more
complete report will follow.

Reminder - WA Tributaries - Sport dipping is only allowed on the Cowlitz River,
from 6 AM to 10 PM Saturdays through March 31st. The daily limit is 10 lbs per
person per day. This is equivalent to ¼ of a 5-gallon bucket.

At least 2 spring chinook were landed in last night's mainstem Columbia
commercial sturgeon fishery. The fish were landed at Skamokawa.
 
B~C Ken....are you conducting evening classes Saturday? If you have more than will fit in your freezer, we can help...I have a freezer that's strictly for bait (gotta edit this, as it now holds elk too) :xnaughty I actually got the freezer when there were no herring available one year...drove to California and bought 6 cases ... so I could help out with the salmon needs :wink

Caty
 
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