Please note: During the COVID-19 crisis, it is critical that any fishing or surveying activity be conducted in accordance with state regulations and public health guidance, including physical distancing. Be sure to follow these basic guidelines to be safe and responsible when getting outdoors.

This project involves visiting tidal rivers, streams, creeks, and brooks where smelt are known or suspected to spawn and recording your observations of fish, eggs, and habitat, and taking pictures. Smelt spawn in shallow water (less than 3 feet deep) in streams with gravel or cobble bottoms. It is best to look for spawning smelt at night near the time of high tide. Smelt eggs can be seen during the day. We are as interested in where you don’t see fish and eggs as we are in knowing where you do, so please share your data no matter what.

Season: late winter and early spring 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. Ideally, this should be done several nights a week, from about March 15th to June 15th, depending on your location along the coast – west of Penobscot Bay, most runs last from March – early May, while east of Penobscot Bay, runs last from late April until mid-June.

For your safety, please work in teams of two or more people. This will facilitate better decision making in challenging situations, more rigorous and thorough data, and add an important measure of safety to nighttime, cold-weather field work.

Dress warmly and be safe!

Required training

Volunteers must complete a Sea-run Smelt Citizen Science survey training prior to participation, or have prior professional experience to be excused from training by regional coordinators. Contact sarah at mainesalmonrivers.org for more information.

Printable Resources to take into the field:

Required materials:

A way to record data (printed sheets or smartphone)
Digital camera (a cell phone camera is fine; an underwater camera is excellent)
Flashlight or headlamp (with spare batteries)
A ruler or tape measure (inches/feet)
A thermometer to measure water temperature in Celsius

Suggested materials

Visibility gear like a brightly colored or reflective vest
Insect repellent
First Aid Kit

Safety guidelines

Your safety is your responsibility and our chief concern.

Collect data seriously and carefully, but make estimates if necessary for your safety. When you do, please make a note of this in your field notes. Use common sense precautions around dark roads and on stream banks.

Do your field work with a partner.
Choose sites that are easily accessible. Discuss with your regional coordinator if you have questions.
Expect slippery, uneven, mucky footing. Stay low. Wear boots or shoes with aggressive traction.
Do not walk in streams (fishing regulations prohibit this).
Be prepared for biting insects. Check for ticks after each field day.
Watch out for poison ivy, which is common on roadsides and upland salt marsh edges.

Tips for completing the smelt spawning data sheet

Overall instructions

Do not step into the stream at any point during your survey data collection, this disturbs the habitat, wildlife, and could alter your survey results.
Only observe what you can see standing on the bank of the stream looking upstream and downstream. There is no need to walk up and down the stream bank recording data.
Smelt and smelt eggs can be found above the head of tide.
Most smelt can be found during high tide. It is best to visit streams close to the nighttime high tide, when the smelt run up the streams to spawn.
Recreational harvest of sea-run smelt is managed by the Maine Department of Marine Resources. Familiarize yourself with the most up-to-date regulations for your area.

Finding Adult Smelt:

Walk down to streambed with buddy and flashlight after sunset
While standing on the bank facing across the river, periodically shine your flashlight over the water and look for smelt. Note: smelt will swim away from light, so do not shine your flashlight continuously.
To estimate the number of smelt seen: let smelt travel upstream in your field of vision for approximately 5 minutes without shining your light on the river and remaining quiet/still. After the 5 minutes watch for approximately one minute and estimate how many smelt are present and traveling upstream during that time. i.e. if in 1 minute you saw 10 smelt, estimate smelt numbers in the 10s. If in 1 minute you saw 95 smelt, estimated smelt numbers in the 100s, 1000s, or 10,000s.

Finding smelt eggs:

Smelt eggs are tiny (the size of sesame seeds), translucent when alive, and white when dead (see pictures on datasheet with instructions).
During daylight hours walk down to the streambed. It is sometimes easier to find eggs during mid or lower tide. Smelt eggs can be found near the head of tide.
If there are smelt eggs present, estimate the size of the egg bed (how long is it? And how wide?).

Glossary of Terms

Canopy Cover – the percent of the sky covered by vegetation or topography.

(Stream bottom) Substrate – the organic on inorganic material on the stream bottom. Tips for identifying substrate types:

Boulder (> 10.1 in; Bigger than a basketball)
Cobble (2.5 - 10.1 in; Tennis ball to basketball)
Gravel (0.08 - 2.5 in; Peppercorn to tennis ball)
Sand (0.002 - 0.08 in; Salt to peppercorn)
Silt & Clay (< 0.002 in; Finer than salt)
Aquatic Vegetation

Culvert – A structure that allows water to flow under a road, railroad, trail, or similar obstruction from one side to the other side. Culverts are commonly used both as cross-drains to relieve drainage of ditches at the roadside, and to pass water under a road at natural drainage and stream crossings.

Dam – A structure built across a stream, a river, or an estuary to retain water. Dams are built for a variety of reasons like to provide electricity, water for human consumption, irrigation or for use in industrial processes.

Upstream – refers to the direction towards the source of the river, i.e. against the direction of flow.

Downstream – describes the direction towards the mouth of the river, in which the current flows.

Please see our project Data Management Plan to learn more about our approach to helping participants provide useful data, ensuring data quality, and the methods we will use to analyze those data.

Smelt Spawning

Why this matters

Partners

Season

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