Smeltdown: Small fish continues Great Lakes vanishing act

[marmar]

(Detroit Free Press) Tom Durecki remembers the glory days for smelt fishing — or smelting — in Michigan in the 1970s.

"The smelt are running!" was a call that sent fisherman scrambling to Michigan rivers and streams to dip nets and catch buckets full of the silvery fish as they moved into tributaries to spawn at the onset of spring — right around this time, every year.

"It was absolutely fantastic," said Durecki, owner of Tom's Bait and Tackle Shop in East Jordan. "Even into the '80s, we'd go up to Carp River in the U.P. and you'd get what you wanted in an hour — five, 10, 15 gallons."

Those days are gone. The smelt population has declined so much, so quickly over the past two decades that most anglers don't even bother trying anymore. .......................(more)

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2015/04/04/great-lakes-smelt-decline-lake-michigan-invasive/25292463/