Smelts in Moosehead Lake

@MFEGoingDeep while filming some of the old steamship wrecks at Moosehead Lake recently I noticed quite a few smelts around. After realizing I had a few minutes of footage I thought I’d make a quick video of them. It’s interesting to see how they zip around and as the primary base forage for gamefish in most cold water fisheries throughout the state where they exist it doesn’t hurt to watch what they do and how they move as it could potentially give some insight into how to present your lure or streamer when out fishing and trying to imitate the real thing.
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[@carolsmith6225]

Neat fish. Funny how quick they are. Pretty tricky at the end with your trademark thumbs up! 😄

[@MFEGoingDeep]

Figured I’d give it a shot 😂

[@UnderwaterFishFilms]

nice diving !

[@earlwheelock7844]

Just watched your vidio on smelt, in the late 1960s I fished thru the ice on Lake Champlain for them commercialy, using two lines with two hooks pr line ( all that was leagle at the time) in Shelburn bay thru the ice in about 60' of water using tip-ups the things would hit pearch eyes like CRAZY! Got abut $ 2 a lb for the live weight, would fill a 5 gal bucket in about 2hrs ( about 20lb ) pretty good money then and fun as long as the wind didnt blow, most smelt caught were netted during the smelt run out of the streams running into Lake Bomasine? Strictly regulated tho as smelt spawn in streams and rivers early in the spring

[@MFEGoingDeep]

That’s neat! No commercial taking of smelts here. They want to keep the population as healthy as possible for a good forage base for all the gamefish. I had been out filming some of the sunken steamships nearby and just was seeing a bunch of smelts around and one of the biologists for the region had put out an article discussing how the smelt population had been improving in the lake so thought I would make a quick video of the ones I saw.

[@earlwheelock7844]

@@MFEGoingDeep In my original comment I couldnt find " BOMOSEEN " on the map, its about 1/3 of the way up ( north ) on the west side of the state, My father was a game warden from 1948 to 1988, and I remember him going on the " SMELT RUN " every year in march where for about two weeks the smelt would " run " out of lake Bomoseen, up the small streams to spawn, and fishermen would net them in a VERY regulated way. Smelt in Lake Champlain, in the deep part of the lake, were in a layer about a foot thick so thick you couldnt see thru them!! ( according to my dad watching the on a camera using an under water camera in the 1950s, they were between 30' and 90' down they were the prime food source of the Lake Trout, im sure the Laws governing the taking of smelt have changed a LOT in the last 60 yrs.