Sloooow day, ..and windier than the forecast

Out for a longer day (5-6hrs) and it didn't help. Thought it was going to be a decent day when the first hole I punched had marks every 10-15min. and I had some decent chases but no takers....so this time it was my presentation.
Moved around 3 more times and marked fewer and more "lazy" fish. On the way home, I drilled a hole in an area that always seem to have bait fish (winter or soft-water) and it had bait. Lots of smelt and I got two on the smallest vibrado (1/8 oz)...one of them chased it up about 10' before it committed. After mucking around with the smelt for an hour, I am starting to wonder if some of the large lazy blobs I have seen may actually be larger smelt because the two that I got kind of behaved like some of what I assumed was WF....including chases and one chaser I can confirm to be a smelt because I got it. The fish on the bottom were pretty solid looking on the sonar and I was hoping that there was a WF in there somewhere. The smelt were pretty active and if I had the right hooks, I could have caught a bunch but I was interesting that I was able to get a couple on the same vibrado that I had caught a laker on a couple of weeks ago.
So, if I can fit two smelt into a pan, are they considered panfish for the derby?
Or do I have to make a trip to catch perch, gills, crappie, etc.?

They get big 10+ inches

That smelt is so big, it looks like a completely different species of fish

Was that also on a vibrado?? Cool. I know!! I once told people I caught 10" smelt in Simcoe (there are a couple of shallow shoals with deep water nearby that I would target smelt on if I wasn't getting any lakers or WF) and they would not believe me. I caught enough that I didn't bother photographing them with a measuring tape. But for sure they can get alot bigger than most people think....and with the bigger ones, sometimes the spines need to be removed when you eat them (they don't fry up to a crisp as easily). Also, most people who net them in the spring said the smelt population has decline alot (probably true as well) but I think the ones that are doing well in Simcoe are not the ones that spawn in creeks or along the shoreline beaches - alot of those have been overfished. I think there is a decent population of shoal spawners that are doing quite well still and will continue unless people find a way to net them on the shoals in the spring....I share this because I am okay with people taking down the number of invasive species if they use them well. Whoever figures how to net smelt on shoals will be amazed at the size and numbers (at least for the first few years until more people do it).

I don’t remember exactly but the pic sure looks like a vibrato. It was 3-4 years ago just around the corner from where you were catching your two.

Oh cool. So they also get that big here. Good to know...and maybe that's why some of those blobs looked pretty large on the bottom. I didn't know they can chase a lure up like lakers and WF (although at a slower speed and when they start chasing, their echos are much smaller than the lakers and WF too....but the echos kind of look like when lakers are at high speed and only a small streak shows up. The smelt's streak is similar but when that happens, it's slower...if that made sense.