Smelt, Distribution find Migration. Ill 



(8) The SMELT (Osmerus eperlanus). The true, or Cucum- 

 ber Smelt or Sparling, is the most important of the marketable 

 salmonoids within our District. Speaking in general terms, it 

 is limited to our eastern border. From Dover westwards it is 

 supplanted by the Sand-smelt or Atherine, a fish of quite a 

 different family, of which more anon. While the Stour (Kent) 

 has borne a good reputation as a smelt river, it nevertheless 

 has been far surpassed by the Medway and the Thames. It 

 likewise inhabits the other rivers, e.g., Blackwater, Colne and 

 Stour (Essex), in less plenitude. 



The opinion of some of the fishermen is that the smelt does 

 not leave the Thames estuarine waters, but for an interval 

 " beds in the muddy holes." This is doubtful ! We can 

 say, though, of a certainty that we have got smelts, few or 

 many, during every month from the end of October to the end 

 of May, i.e., seven to eight months. The intervening months, 

 June to mid-October, we have made no entry of fair-sized 

 ones being taken. Still, we have detected diminutive smelts 

 among catches of whitebait at the turn of midsummer. 



In the Medway fishery the smelt season commences in 

 July and continues till the end of March. When in the 

 eastern seaward portion of the estuary they appear to be 

 irregularly distributed, and only on chance occasions taken in 

 the trawl on stowboat-net. As to their further movements, the 

 adult fish seem to migrate from the lower to the upper portion 

 of the estuary during the late autumn and early winter months. 

 So far as we can learn, they do not frequent much the neighbour- 

 hood of the Maplin sands, apparently preferring muddier ground, 

 but the sand-smelt is found on the Maplins. We first hear of 

 the ascent of good-sized true smelts in the neighbourhood of the 

 Knock Buoy, and from it towards Southend Pier. Some of the 

 smelts evidently strike the opposite Kent shores, and run up the 

 Medway. Others direct their course up the Thames on both 

 south and north margins ; but whichever side they skirt they 

 everywhere penetrate the brackish creeks and guts, where they 



