THE SMELTS 
357 
spawn for the first time in the following spring are caught. In late years there has 
been a market for these little fish, but usually they have sold for a comparatively 
very low price. In Boston the tiny smelts are known as “cigarettes,” and to the 
writer one wholesale dealer expressed the wish that the capture and sale of the fish 
of this class could be prohibited. The market for the “cigarettes” is not constant, 
consequently many that are caught are thrown away after culling out the larger 
fish. 
In December, 1924, the writer bought 1 pound of these tiny fish in a retail store 
in Portland, Me., for 30 cents. Forty-one fish made the pound. Amongst the fish 
there were only eight that showed by the condition of the roes and milts that they 
would have spawned the following spring. The 8 comprised 2 females each slightly 
over 5 inches long, 1 female about 6.4 inches long, and 5 males a little over 5M to 
nearly 6 inches long, averaging about inches. The other 33 specimens ranged 
in total length from a little over 4}^ to about 5.7 inches, averaging not quite 5 inches. 
It is almost impossible to avoid taking large quantities of these little fish in 
drag seines, whatever the size of the mesh, if the mesh is small enough for ordinary 
smelts. When the seines is hauled the meshes draw together and the small smelts 
are caught in the jam of larger ones and other fish incidental to the haul. They 
are all killed, and so long as general and unrestricted seining is allowed great num- 
bers of the fish must be killed and it would be an economic waste to prohibit their 
sale. Of the North Atlantic smelt-producing States, Maine alone still provides a 
fishery of considerable commerical importance and value, notwithstanding the long- 
standing and oft-repeated warning that its exhaustion is imminent. The expressions 
of alarm concerning the possibility of a ruined fishery have been based upon some 
notable local or general decline in the fishery, and when the fishery showed marked 
improvement the improvement usually has been attributed to some beneficent human 
action. 
Apparent declines have been ascribed to sundry causes, as previously mentioned. 
As a matter of fact, a small catch or a small breeding run in any year may have been 
or may be, in many instances, due to natural causes. A generally poor breeding sea- 
son in one year, for instance, might be followed by a poor supply of adult fish, as 
manifested both by the fishery and the breeding runs two years hence. 
A phenomenon well known to smelt fisherman is that of a marked scarcity of 
small adults smelts and a comparative plenty of large sizes. Such a condition may 
be occasioned by a poor breeding season two years prior to the occurrence, resulting 
in a small number of 2-year-old fish but with a normal survival of older fish that 
have increased in size. Conversely, another manifestation is that of a great abun- 
dance of small fish and perhaps a scarcity of large fish, which is the outcome of a 
good breeding season two years or so prior thereto with a consequent large number 
of smelt of smaller sizes, the large fish having diminished in number for one reason 
or another. These two examples will suffice to illustrate how the fishery may be 
affected by natural fluctuations. Poor as well as good breeding seasons, however, 
may be influenced both directly and indirectly by the act of man. One of the most 
potent and disastrous adverse influences is that of interference with the fish during 
the breeding season. 
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