Looking for a smelt fishing guide, I’ve been searching for years

Hey all,

I’ve heard stories of how good smelt fishing can be, how it’s fun and they are one of my favourite fish to eat.

I’ve googled and asked many people, to try and find a fishing guide that specializes in smelt, to no avail.

I’m not looking to steal anyone’s spots, I know it’s very seasonal, but me and 1-2 friends would be willing to pay, for any smelt fishing guide services.

pM is welcome. Thank you

Do the smelt still "run" on Simcoe. I used to go with my Dad in the spring and dip net them at night. It was something to see, millions of smelt coming in clouds. We would stand with the flashlight on the net and then wait for the run and then pull. we would leave with buckets. Do people still do this on Simcoe? We used to do this from public docks, bridges and beaches.

MC

The net looked like this

If I had better eyesight, I would say they are not smelt but minnows, especially the one at the top. I remember a bunch of years ago, there were a group of guys from Markham dipping at the creek by Minets point. They thought they had hit the gold mine of smelt until someone told them, they are emerald shiners.

Good old days of building a fire on the beach and wait till they came in. we sometimes used a 15ft net with a guy on each end then end up with 2 or 3 guys on an end to get it to shore. One pass and had more than any 10 people could eat in a year.

my eyes are the same lol.......those look like a variety of minnows and maybe sunfish......no smelt though

these days there are some great locations, but they are not freely shared anymore cause if they were , hundreds of people would show up


in the old days it didn't matter, you could literally walk over smelt they were that thick

I wish you good luck nonetheless

we used to go to simcoe at jacksons point and fish them off the rocks but i dont thing there is any smelts left in simcoe too many lake trout walleye an pike an bass an people

For clarification guys, I know what smelt look like. I was adding a picture of the net for demonstration purposes.

MC

Wow, that's incredible. The runs used to be millions if not billions. would predators really wipe them out or spawning habitat maybe?

MC

Wow, that's incredible. The runs used to be millions if not billions. would predators really wipe them out or spawning habitat maybe?

MC

Emphasis on “people” I think people over harvesting caused the crash in population unfortunately

there were people filling the back of thier pickup truck with smelts back in the day, and they didnt even eat them, they used them for garden compost. Then there ware the piles of dead smelts left to rot on the beach, the early night run were males and the big fat females would show up later. so many would dump the skinny males on the beach and start filling buckets with fat females. Over harvest and greed, killed them all. now no more smelts. if you find a place were you can get a few then shut the hell up and dont tell anyone cuz they will be gone in a flash. thats how you do it these days.

That pretty much sums up any fishing spot for me these days.
I'm old enough to remember those days even though I never took part in it.
I was raised to only take what you needed and never waste.
But then again I was also raised to never litter but more and more I find myself picking up after
the people who weren't raised right.
I think the decline in smelt population anywhere in Ontario is a direct result of the hundreds of stories just like that one. Unfortunately.

When I was a kid my dad would take me to the channel where the three sisters used to be and yes we caught about two pails in a very short time and my dad would say thats enough.....then home we went to clean them.....now that was one hell of a job and you couldn't wait to get to the bottom of those pails.

Arnie