Smelts Provide Key to Early-Season Success

SMELTS ARE RUNNING!!!  Those three magic words are the key to unlocking some of the best fishing that Maine has to offer.  After a long winter, hungry trout and salmon congregate in places where they can find food, and smelts represent their favorite meal.  Smelts spawn in the early spring, and just about every lake with a fishable population of salmon has a smelt run.  So, anglers willing to put in some time exploring where and when the smelts run on a given body of water, will forever be rewarded for their efforts.

Fishing for salmon and trout during a smelt run can be done in a couple of ways.  Probably the most popular method is to troll a smelt imitating streamer fly or lure around the lake in the vicinity of where a smelt brook dumps into it.  Sometimes amazing numbers of fish are congregated in these places.  On several lakes, I don’t even bother with a boat.  I just stand on a rock and cast into the pool where the brook dumps into the lake.

Many larger streams and rivers also have good smelt runs that can be fished either by wading or from a boat.  These waters are the perfect place to make an early season ‘shakeout’ trip, where you can test out all the new flies and gear that you accumulated over the winter, in an environment with a very high likelyhood of catching fish.

The Grey Ghost, Black Ghost, Nine-Three, Joe’s Smelt and Governor Aiken are all traditional Maine streamer flies that were developed for use during the smelt run.  Tandem (double-hooked) versions are often trolled from boats, while single-hooked (casting) versions of the same flies are used by wading anglers.

Smelt run fishing is available from ice-out in April through early June.  The exact timing of a given run is keyed into the conditions on each lake.  Generally they occur earlier in the southern part of the state.  Because of the unseasonably warm spring that we are having, I’m finding that ice out and smelt runs are occurring significantly earlier this year than usual.

Please feel free to call or email me to discuss the smelt run fishing options that  are available.

Kevin Tracewski, (Tracewski Fishing Adventures), info@fishguideme.com, (207) 827-3110

Posted on Friday, April 16th, 2010
Filed under Fishing.