Rick, Doug, and I went smelt fishing in Maine on Saturday.
I have no idea what Smelt taste like. The name “Smelt” doesn’t seem very appealing. Who picked that name anyway? Rick said “You fry them up.... fabulous!” I guess I will find out!!
We are going to the River Bend Smelt Camp in Bowdoinham, ME. It’s about 2 1/2 hours north of us. The camp supplies a fishing hut, wood/stove in the hut, and bait. We will fish the incoming tide. Saturday low tide is 8 o'clock AM. Our thought was to be up at 4:30AM and on the road by 5:30AM. Doesn’t everyone do that on a Saturday?
Rick called the camp to find out more. They said we don’t need to get on the ice until 11:00AM. It takes that long for the tide to come inland to where we will be fishing. Rick brought venison stew. I brought the coffee pot.
We were in Hut 7 which was a 3 person hut. It was set up well with the stove on one wall and the ice channel on the other. There were 14 lines with a double hook set-up above the channel. We changed many of the hooks, put a piece of worm on each hook and lowered the lines. We started to heat up the venison stew and put the coffee on. The wood stove kept us very warm.
What depth do we drop the lines? How do we know when a fish is on? Do you set the hook or just keep pressure on the line when pulling the fish up? We had no idea. It seemed like we had more luck when the bait was closer to the bottom. When a fish gets hooked the line starts moving in a circle. We lost several fish pulling them up as they shook loose.
Smelt are schooling fish so you would think when one is hooked you would catch a whole bunch. They say that does happen but we were only catching one at a time. The guys in the hut not far away caught 100 fish. They were using jig poles with different set ups.
We fried the smelt we caught right on the wood stove with flour, salt, and pepper in a hot skillet with some oil. So here goes! The name “Smelt” does not sound very appetizing but to my surprise they were excellent (similar to haddock or cod).
It would be a lot of fun with families and kids. Next time we will set up jig poles as well.
SEARCH MY BLOG using KEY WORDS
About My Blog
- ActionshotsNH
- I enjoy doing fun things outdoors. Family adventures, hunting, fishing, hiking, photography, 4 wheeling, etc. Get out there and enjoy ... NOTE: PLEASE CLICK ON MY PHOTOS IN THE BLOG POST SO THEY WILL BECOME LARGER.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Smelt Fishing - What's with the name?
Labels:
fishing,
ice fishing,
ice fishing shack,
maine,
smelt,
smelt fishing
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Translate
POPULAR POSTS FROM MY BLOG.
-
My dad was born in 1929 and grew up in Michigan. As a teen in early the 1940’s, he bought a Springfield 87M .22 rifle from his youth past...
-
My recent firearm purchase was for a conceal/carry gun. What caliber? I was thinking .380. From my .380 research the Kahr P380 was ...
-
Rick, Doug, and I went smelt fishing in Maine on Saturday. I have no idea what Smelt taste like. The name “Smelt” doesn’t seem very appeal...
-
There are many lighthouses up and down the coast. This summer I was on the destination photo kick so I started hunting for lighthouses in ...
-
After years of riding dirt bikes I bought my first street bike in 1977. It was a Yamaha RD400 C. Being a 2 cylinder 2 stroke it was a...
-
Pfc. Matthew A. Bean, was killed in Iraq. His father, Dana, was my roommate at Gordon College. Below are two YouTube videos made by Dan...
-
In the past, I have experimented a bit with time-lapse photography and enjoy it very much. I had a Nikon FE2 film camera for these older ph...
-
Kevin, Seth, Steve, and I headed to Vermonster to watch some racing. We arrived around 10:30AM. It was mostly sunny, dry, and in...
-
Our 2022 Kennebunkport vacation is now in the books. We ended up renting 2 houses again due to the growing family size and schedule. We re...
-
I was up at 4:20AM getting ready to drive north to Vermonster. I woke Kevin up at 6:30AM. One stop at Dunkin' Donuts and away we we...
No comments:
Post a Comment