The Foodie File: Candlefish
Have you ever eaten smelts? I love them and they bring back fond memories for me from when I was a child and my grandfather would take us little girls fishing with him. He would take us out right before sundown; he would bait out lines and let us sit on the dock catching sunfish while he and the other fishermen drank homemade Italian wine and waited for the appointed hour when the fish would run.
You fish for smelts at night when they are spawning with big square nets. The fishermen would scoop up brilliantly silvery swarms of them and they would be writhing and jumping in the moonlight.
My grandmother would fry up big batches of them, if they were big enough the bones came out but the smaller ones were fried whole. They are crunchy and so delicious because they are loaded with oil. In fact, smelts have so much oil that back in the day fishermen would dry them out whole, stick them in a candle stick and light their heads for cheap effective lighting – hence their nickname “candlefish”. The oil also makes them very good for you, full of Omega-3.
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I too have fond memories of an elderly family friend taking me to Port Dover for the running of the smelts (I think anyway- Doverite correct me if I got the location wrong). It was just as you described but with the added excitement of assorted anglers and cottager types gathered on the beach in groups. Suddenly a bell rang (school yard type hand bell) and then shouts followed – The smelts are RUNNING! To the pier everyone charged.
My fisher friend used old white plastic pails with nail holes poked through the bottom and sides. Tied to the pail’s handles were strong hemp type rope. All you needed to do was throw the pail into deep dark Lake Erie and up came a pail at least half full of little slippery jumping fishes – water streaming from the bottom.
What time of year do the smelts run? I wonder if this tradition continues and in what parts of Canada?