Does anyone target smelt through the ice? Where/what time of year do you typically locate them? I’ve heard of a few people that catch them out on Grindstone but it seems most of them come across a school out in deep water looking for lakers. I’ve also heard there are in the St Louis County area mine pits.
The smelt usually school over deep water, but do come more shallow during nightfall. You may see them in over 30 fow covering like a 10′ band.
I have fished them on Lake Sakakawea in ND. BTW, Hopefully it froze this weekend.
I have fished them in 35 to 50 ft of water usually in the bottom 10ft, I have seen them stacked high enough to the point that I could see them down the hole. You will see them on your electronics. I use a panfish jig and a chunk of crappie minnow. They have fairly big mouths for their size so I don’t use the smallest jigs I can find. I just get the jig down with the fish and set the rod down and watch for a jiggle on the tip.
Fresh Smelt is some darn good eating.
I fish Smelt here in southwest Michigan. Gull Lake, Kalamazoo Co. to be exact. The last couple of years the Smelt seem to be hanging out in the deepest water for us. 60′ to 80′. We start at sundown right on bottom and as the night goes on they usually come up to about 20′. We can use lights here, so most people have the high intensity LED green lights they hang just under the ice. Theory being that it glows of off the ice straight down to get the plankton and small creatures active. What I do know for certain is to stay away from the big crowds with too much noise and too many lights. If you want to party get right in the middle of them, you will not be disappointed. We can also have multiple hooks on our lines. The most common is a 3 or 4 hook set up. I use # 14/16 flies tipped with a spike. They’re tied on using 1″ dropper loops about 6″ to a ft. apart. On the bottom most of us tie on a Hali or Sitka jig to help get the line down. Hope this helps others. We are fortunate to have such a good Smelt fishery here SW Mich. Tight lines!
In my experience, best action is away from the lights and away from people. I don’t know who started the lights attract smelt idea, but it doesn’t work here. Just before dark we get about 60 minutes of fast and furious action then it slows down for the rest of the night. Unfortunately, most people seem to show up right when the fishing is hot and start punching holes…
I used to fish smelt all the time on a bay of Lake Superior. Used half a waxie and a small glow tear drop jig with the most sensitive spring bobber you can get. Fished in about 30FOW and when a school moved through they would be thick the entire water column. Wasnt unlikely to pull in 200 hundred in a night between you and a buddy.
I used a 1/8oz red/silver Slender spoon tipped with euros out on Grindstone and the smelt went nuts for it during the day.
Go to the north end of Grindstone late in the ice season and you’ll find them. They can get big, over a foot for sure; I’ve caught them on crappie minnows out there. They are by far the worst fighting fish ever, but a good way to get fresh illegal smelt for bait.
I heard of people hitting grindstone for them I was thinking about going there for a day fishing for trout and smelt
I also fish smelt in SW MI. Predominately Gull Lake. And as others have said, we use lanterns and underwater lights to attract the plankton they feed on. They stack up in the water column and seem to bite well on hali jigs with a spike or two on them. They fight like crazy for the size they are. Some of the best fun to be had while ice fishing. You can bring the kids and enjoy a fun-filled night of catching little vampire fish. I believe they are a salmonoid and were originally brought in from saltwater. I am no biologist so i cannot back that up. Just something i heard and thought was interesting. definitely a cool fish to catch and they make an easy and tasty treat for sure. Good luck!
Thank you everyone one for the tips! I’ll be sure to give them a try!
Just keep in mind that I don’t think using lights to attract fish is legal in MN.
I fish Smelt here in southwest Michigan. Gull Lake, Kalamazoo Co. to be exact. The last couple of years the Smelt seem to be hanging out in the deepest water for us. 60′ to 80′. We start at sundown right on bottom and as the night goes on they usually come up to about 20′. We can use lights here, so most people have the high intensity LED green lights they hang just under the ice. Theory being that it glows of off the ice straight down to get the plankton and small creatures active. What I do know for certain is to stay away from the big crowds with too much noise and too many lights. If you want to party get right in the middle of them, you will not be disappointed. We can also have multiple hooks on our lines. The most common is a 3 or 4 hook set up. I use # 14/16 flies tipped with a spike. They’re tied on using 1″ dropper loops about 6″ to a ft. apart. On the bottom most of us tie on a Hali or Sitka jig to help get the line down. Hope this helps others. We are fortunate to have such a good Smelt fishery here SW Mich. Tight lines!
Some good info there.
When i used to live in upstate NY Smelt fishing and dipping was pretty popular especially when i was young. We fished them in many deep lakes across the Adirondacks, Caroga, Piseco, Pleasant, Indian, Gilmantown, Lewey, Champlain, to name a few and the list goes on. As a kid i remember towns of hard side shanties on the lake with guys hauling pails of them out. They are still plentiful in many bodies of water but it seems people have lost interest in fishing them. I believe its mostly impart to the new baitfish regs and people just not fishing as much in general. Really miss those times with my grampa and his buddies.
As others have said they can be anywhere in the water column. I personally have caught smelt everywhere between 3ft and 120ft of water. We had a spot at one time that lasted for about 3 seasons where you didn’t even need a reel on your rod because right at dark they would pile into about 4 fow. It was pretty common to pick up 10-12 doz in an hour between two guys. As far as rigging we used to tie 2 tiny Aberdeen(just found them easier to unhook with the longer shank you can get ahold of) hooks about 8-10″ apart inline above a small pilkki all hooks tipped with spikes/maggots/eurolarve
Go to the north end of Grindstone late in the ice season and you’ll find them. They can get big, over a foot for sure; I’ve caught them on crappie minnows out there. They are by far the worst fighting fish ever, but a good way to get fresh smelt for bait.
We used to do this quite often in the late season on Grindstone, right before the ice went out. It was kind of fun, sort of a form of deep water panfishing and doubles were common.
We used waxworms or just something small and flashy, they were not difficult to catch, the hardest part was waiting for a light line rig to get back down as sometimes we were in 50+ feet. I recall that some of the other guys would use what they called a “depth charge”, a larger piece of shot 10+ feet up on the line to get the rig down quicker, but not so close that the fish felt the extra weight before they were on.
Smelt were the only fish that I can remember being able to actually see bite on the primitive electronics of the 1980s. Even on the old school LCD graphs, you could clearly see the line and then a cloud would “rise” from the depths. It was pretty amazing back in the day.
My father knew several older Norwegian guys who were too old to fish, but that loved smelt 20 ways from Sunday. Salted, smoked, pickled, canned, fried, dried, cured, etc, so we used to fish. We used to prep the fish and give them away and the old guys would have days of entertainment storing them away and eating them.
Grouse
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
