Rainbow smelt, Osmerus mordax, are an important food for striped bass, Atlantic salmon, Atlantic cod, grey seals, and many birds, as well as being a favorite fried fish for humans. Smelt hatch from eggs in rivers, streams and creeks in our backyards and communities. They spend their winters in estuaries and bays, before returning to freshwater streams and rivers to spawn each spring. Smelt can live as long as 6 years, but more typically they live 3 or 4 years. They remain a recreationally and commercially harvested species in New England. In winter they are a popular target of ice fishing. In spring, they are harvested from brooks and streams with dip nets for human consumption.
It is vitally important that we continue to collect information on these fish so that conservation and restoration efforts can aid their recovery. We need your help to conduct visual surveys to identify the places that smelt are spawning in coastal rivers and streams, and begin to estimate how many fish you are observing.
Project season
This project is only active during the smelt spawning season, which lasts from around March 15 to around June 15, depending on location along the Maine coast. West of Penobscot Bay, most runs last from March to early May. East of Penobscot Bay, runs last from late April until mid-June. The height of the run may last only a few nights and depends on many factors, so it is important to visit the stream regularly until the run is complete.
Project goals
Science goal: Conduct a long-term, scientifically rigorous, coastwide survey to identify smelt spawning presence and absence in Maine.
Participant goal: Connect people to the sea-run smelt in Maine's tidal streams, the science of monitoring smelt spawning, and to each other as essential partners in habitat stewardship.
Participation goal: Engage individuals of all ages, backgrounds and levels of education, across the State of Maine, to contribute Smelt Spawning Survey data annually. Engage 100 individuals and 4 volunteer coordinators to collect data by 2025.
Additional information
Smelt spend most of their adult lives near shore in estuaries and bays, before returning to spring spawning sites in freshwater streams. Smelt can live as long as 6 years, but more typically they live 3 or 4 years. They remain a recreationally and commercially harvested species in New England. In winter they are a popular target of ice fishing. In spring, they are harvested from brooks and streams with dip nets.
The earliest record of smelt harvest in the U.S. was likely by Captain John Smith in 1622. Similar to other accounts of sea-run fish in New England, Smith noted the smelts were so plentiful that the Native Americans would harvest the fish by simply scooping them up in baskets. During the 1800s smelt were exported from New England and the Canadian Maritimes to markets in Boston and New York. One of the first reported commercial smelt harvest records for Maine is from 1884, noting landings exceeding a million pounds in the 1880s. Today, smelt are most commonly recognized in association with the rental ice shack fishery. Known as one of the best-tasting fried fish, the sport remains popular as local and out-of-state anglers are attracted to Maine’s coastal river “smelt camps” to fish for smelt through the ice. In eastern Maine a small commercial fishery is supported in designated rivers.
Links to additional resources and documents
- A Regional Conservation Plan for Anadromous Rainbow Smelt in the U.S. Gulf of Maine
- Rainbow Smelt: An Imperiled Fish in a Changing World, Publication by Maine Department of Marine Resources, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- Sea-Run Rainbow Smelt Regulations 2020, Department of Marine Resources
- Know your catch! - Rainbow Smelt, Department of Marine Resources
