As a teenager in the late 1940s, I always looked forward to those nights in April when the Smelt were running. Since I grew up in Pigeon, I had already learned the barber shop was a good place to get up-to-date fishing information and to hear the latest fish stores. Some of my high school friends who lived by Saginaw Bay at Mud Creek and Caseville were also a good source on smelt fishing activity, because each night in April they would check to see if the little silvery fish was running. In the Thumb area between Bay Port and Port Austin the last week of April always seemed to be the best time to get in on the smelt run.

On a night, when we thought the fish might run, my friends and I would each get the family wash tub and a few pails. You definitely needed hip boots or waders depending on where you were looking for smelt. If you were "smelting" along the shoreline you needed waders, but if you worked the numerous ditches and large drains, which provided for the run off from farmland, you wore hip boots. If I recall, you had to use a dip net with a diameter of no more than 18 inches. You better not have a seine to do your fishing because a heavy fine was strictly enforced for those caught with the big nets.

Gus Neering was the area conservation officer at the time. He and other officers patrolled M-25 from Rose Island to Port Austin during the smelt runs. I didn't need a fishing license because I wasn't yet 16 and most of my friends were my age. We got around in a car or pickup truck as my friends had older brothers who had a driver's license and also liked to go smelt fishing. One night we decided to go spear fishing first and then try our luck at smelting later in the evening. Since we were walking along the banks of Mud Creek looking for suckers to spear, the high grass along the banks did not make it easy walking. You were not permitted to spear Pike, as that would bring a heavy fine payable by the number of inches of Pike speared. As we young boys walked along the big ditch someone called out, "There is a large Pike laying in the weeds" . Apparently, someone had speared it earlier in the evening. Soon a few more Pike were seen in the grass near the banks of the channel. About this time Gus Neering and another officer pulled along side and asked us what we were catching. As he came down to see our catch of suckers he saw a Pike in the grass. The other officer, with his flashlight, started to walk the banks and found more speared pike. It looked like we were in trouble because we had spears and the evidence was where we had been spearing for suckers. We all denied spearing the Pike they had found. Then Gus, shining his flashlight in some of our faces, remembered some of us from the local Boy Scout troop. He let us off and warned us of the penalty had we speared the Pike in the grass.

After that ordeal, we decided it was time to go smelt fishing at Oak Point, north of Caseville, along the shoreline. When we got there we built a big fire. This was something we always did when we fished on the shore. At Oak Point, on the stony beach, it was easy to find dried driftwood that had washed ashore. About every 15 minutes we went out in waist deep water and dipped for smelt. If we got only one or two we knew the run was not on. That night, it took about an hour and all of a sudden the water was full of smelt. We had pails tied to our waists, which we filled very fast. Then we had to make the many trips to shore to unload and fill the wash tubs. As soon as the smelt had arrived, within 15 minutes they were gone. That was a good night!

The best night smelt fishing was quite by accident. When I was a junior and senior in high school I used to work for Dr. Quinn, the local veterinarian in Pigeon. He later became the State Veterinarian at Lansing. He called me one evening to go out on a calving case, and while at this farm we got another emergency call to go to a pig farm near Port Austin where two sows were having trouble delivering their litters. It must have been about 9 PM when we finally finished delivering a couple dozen baby pigs. We decided to drive back home along M-25 toward Caseville. On the way we saw several cars and trucks parked along the road near the many drainage ditches leading to the Bay. Doc Quinn decided to stop and see what was going on and to see if they were catching any fish. We didn't have any fishing equipment with us. As we walked and got closer to the large ditch which was tunneled under the M-25 roadbed, we saw lots of gas lanterns and 20 or more people dipping smelt. Some fishermen were wearing waders and others, hip boots. Everyone was positioned at intervals of about 25 feet, so their lanterns spread plenty of light for about a city block along the narrow stream. The fishermen had already caught a lot of smelt as there were many tubs full of smelt along the ditch banks. A number of people recognized Doc Quinn and offered him some smelt. I had the job of going back to the car to get a pail and a large wash tub that Doc kept his boots in while traveling from job to job. On my return, walking along the ditch, I could see footprints in the bottom of the ditch…it wasn't just a mud imprint. It was made of fish that had been stepped on and were now compressed in the mud to form a footprint. There were many such footprints as I walked back to meet Doc and load our smelt. That night Doc and I had a lot of smelt to clean…And That's The Way It Was Smelt Fishing in the Thumb.

Al and Dave Eicher provide television production services to corporations, ad agencies, and nonprofit organizations. They also create Michigan town histories and offer lecture services on a variety of Michigan History Events. You may contact them at 248-333-2010; Email: info@program-source.com; Website: www.program-source.com; Address: PSI, P.O. Box 444, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303.