Some other common names for the Rainbow Smelt include frostfish, American Smelt, freshwater Smelt, Ice Fish, and Lee Fish. Rainbow Smelt have an average adult body size of 7 to 9 inches, and weigh around 3 ounces. They can reach sizes of up to 13 inches. These fish have very slender bodies, and prefer dark cool waters. They have a long pointed snout, a mouth full of teeth, an adipose fin, and a deeply forked caudal (tail) fin. When viewed underwater they appear primarily silver with light green backs, and have an abundance of pink, purple, and blue along their incomplete lateral line. The belly of this fish is white. This coloration may explain why bubblegum pink can be a fantastic color for Smallmouths. An interesting fact about Smelt is that they smell like cucumbers when freshly caught. Maybe we should be rubbing cucumber on our jerk baits instead of garlic.

Smelt are an anadroumous fish, meaning they live in fresh and salt water and are a very important commercial fishery on the east coast. They are also found on the pacific coast of Canada and Alaska. Anglers will often catch them on hook and line through the ice in fresh water lakes where they were originally introduced to as a bait fish for the more sought after sport fish such as Salmon Trout, and Walleye. They can be found now throughout the entire Great Lakes region and some parts of the Mississippi River. The St Lawrence sea way can be thanked for the introduction into the Great Lakes. Many anglers do not realize that the Smelt is an exotic species just like the zebra mussels and gobies we hear so much about these days.
They ascend freshwater streams in spring to spawn and are often seen in large schools in rivers during the spawning migrations. Smelt prefer cooler waters during the warm months and tend to move offshore to live in deeper water in summer. They feed primarily on crustaceans and small fish. This predatory nature has even prompted the Wisconsin DNR to do studies on the effect they may have on juvenile Walleye survival.


For some more pics and pretty dry scientific info, Check out zipcodezoo.com.

So what does all this mean to the everyday angler. The basis for this whole series is to encourage anglers to look into the bait fish that live in your area lakes. If you are fishing waters where you know there is a smelt population. Think about throwing baits in the 7-9 inch range. That might seem huge to many Smallmouth  or Walleye anglers but that is the size of the fish they are used to feeding on. As far as color goes, pinks, purples and laminated colors with silver, blue and watermelon may provide you with an edge over everyone else throwing green pumpkin or crayfish colors.

There ya go. I hope you learned a little and check back for the next post in the series as we will cover the Fat Head Minnow.

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