102 FISHING IN AMERICAN WATERS. 



THE SMELT. 



This is a small, delicate fish, supposed by some to belong 

 to the salmon tribe, though it is not nearly so much like it 

 as is a shiner like a shad. It is almost translucent, and from 

 five to eight inches in length ; its meat is soft, white, and 

 sweet, with no bones but the spine and ribs, which are so 

 small and tender that they are eaten with the precious mor- 

 se,l of a fish when fried hard in olive oil, or rolled in flour and 

 fried in butter so as to be crisp. Its scales are impercepti- 

 ble, but the skin, traced in small diamond lines, is like the 

 canvas skin of the trout of Long Lake. It is ash-colored on 

 the back, with white sides and belly. This is a favorite bait 

 for trout or salmon, and an excellent sample for a spinning 

 bait. As affording sport, the smelt is no mean game. Late 



THE SMELT. Osmerus Eperlanus. Yarrell. 



in the autumn, when ice begins to border the streams, the 

 angler rigs a long perch-rod with a small multiplying reel, 

 and a fine line rigged with half a dozen small trout or min- 

 now hooks on short snells fastened to the main line, six inch- 

 es apart, and baited with pieces of shrimp or bits of clam, 

 and resorts in boat up small tidal streams, anchors and angles 

 for them during the flood tide, when it is not uncommon to 

 take from a fourth to half a dozen of these pearly beauties at 

 a time, as fast as he can bait his hooks and cast them near 

 the boat. There is nothing prettier than these gems dangling 

 and shining at the end of the line, when they emit the odor 

 of fresh cucumbers. On the approach of winter, anglers of 

 all ages are seen on the bridges and along the saline streams 

 of the coast, from Delaware Bay to the eastern boundary of 

 Maine ; and as an article of commerce, thousands are sold in 



