Smelt Run 

 Rendezvous 



by James B. Hendryx . . 

 painting by Bill Moss 



DRIVING upstate, one spring night, we passed through a suc- 

 cession of little towns, stores dark and the inhabitants 

 asleep. Then, about eleven o'clock, we rolled into Beulah, a 

 village located at the end of Crystal Lake. No dark houses here. 

 The street lights were all on, cars parked bumper to bumper, 

 and laughing, jostling crowds filling the sidewalks. We parked 

 the car and joined the crowd, which we quickly noted was shod, 

 almost to the last man and woman, in hip boots. 



We soon learned that the annual smelt run was on. People 

 were beginning to crowd the banks of the shallow creek that 

 bisects the village, each armed with a net of some sort. There 

 were long-handled landing nets, short fly fishing nets, and wire 

 wastebaskets. Two enterprising gents held a contraption made 



