Iam confused " Smelts"

So my buddy yesterday morning was driving by the Holland river in Bradford and he could not believe what he saw. There were 6 or 7 groups of guys with generators and dip nets packing up at 9am in the morning. Are these guys commercial minnow guys or can it be possible that smelt come up the Holland . Iam confused I love trying to find those tasty little buggers but I have never heard of them even going into cooks bay let alone travel up the Holland. Water temp at Willow beach on Sat night was only 42F still a bit cold for smelts I think

Hey Sparky! TEMP of the water is still pretty low. We talked about these smelts for a few years on another board if you recall. Nice to see you on here. Good group of people on here. There was some people fishing the river for shiners a a few weeks ago in the Holland river, I personally did not see any smelts while they were there. But I can tell you once upon a time people were catching smelt in there. Pm me if you want to talk smelt again...

Ken

Tough to say if they are smelt guys... I've been up a few times this year and there are lots of shiners in, I would assume some smelts may have accompanied the shiners up there...

You are right! Shiners and suckers....

Iam thinking the same thing shiners but there's a lot of people that don't know the difference between a smelt and shiner and there are a few guys maybe as we speak have eggs and minnows for breakfast. Trust me have heard of quite a few people eating shiners and saying that they were delicious. Leave our bait alone try eating gobies instead .
I think we are still a week or so away from seeing any smelt. Iam hopefully going to try this weekend and if I don't find any that's okay. At least I will enjoy a nice coffee and some time with my brother. Ken thank you for the greeting to the board good to see you on this forum.

You don't have to be a commercial fisherman to use dipnets for smelt. It is ok for anyone holding a fishing license in zone 16 to use dipnets for certain species as long as the dipnets are within size limits (Page 11 of the fish regs).

I drove by the river in Bradford yesterday at approx. 7:45AM and didn't see anyone with generators (below the bridge). There were only two guys launching a small boat. Unless they were above the bridge maybe or arrived after? What would the generators be used for anyway?

I've also noticed the giant flock of cormorants are gone, so I would imagine most of the fish they were feeding on are too.