What does springtime in Tennessee lack? That’s easy. Smelt. A few years ago I found one package in Food City’s frozen foods. I have searched for them every year since, but to no avail.

What does a smelt look like? About three inches of silvery goodness. They run in large groups. The females are full of eggs. Those are good eaten, too. The males and females run together. They don’t appear to be worth the bother of catching. They are, but you need a lot. How do you catch a smelt? Not with a hook and line. Some use a seine, but others use a net. Still others might use a Crisco can with holes punched in it. It’s fisherman’s choice.

My dad and brothers said it helped to be drunk. That didn’t make them easier to catch, but you wouldn’t mind getting soaked to the gills with ice cold Lake Huron water if you were three sheets in the wind. You can’t stand on the shore and net them. It is necessary to go out where they are. Ok, where are they? They are in Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Erie. Why are they there? They are heading up the river they were born in. Why? To spawn, of course. In the spring a young smelt’s fancy turns to thoughts of love up the creek. That’s enough background.

I remember the time my husband, my brother, Russell Stimer, and my cousin, Grove Stimer, decided to go smelt dipping. They had heard that the smelt were running. They prepared for the several hours trip to Alpena on the Lake Huron coast. A couple cases of beer, several rings of bologna and some saltines later, they were ready to go. Of course, they would replenish their supply of beer on the way North.

Arriving at the site and feeling no pain, they proceeded to fill their nets with smelt. Yes, the smelt were running. I don’t have any details about the rest of their trip. I just remember them arriving home, wet, stinky and hung over. Still wet from the lake water, out of beer and stinky. Why stinky? It seemed that cousin Grove had filled his pockets with smelt. In the warm car during the several hours trip, they ripened.

It was now up to me and Grove’s wife Florence to clean the mess of fish and prepare them for freezing. Of course, some were reserved for frying. I cut off the heads of each of mine and removed their entrails. In a bowl covered with cold water, they waited, ready for processing. Ok, that was what I did. Grove had other plans. Someone told him the best and easiest way to clean smelt was to pour the tiny fish into a wringer washing machine, fill it with cold water and turn on the agitator. It would only take a few minutes. Right.
It only took a few minutes to churn that mess into mush. No smelt for Grove. Yes, we shared our smelt.

I have some advice for you. Limit the number of cases of beer you consume on the way North. Store your catch in the car’s trunk to keep them cool. Clean them immediately when you return home. When ready to fry, pat dry, dip into a sack of flour and fry in butter. Eat them whole, scales, bones and all. Delicious.