My smelt fishing secret

Why I think Smelt Fishing is better during a cold snap:
The Temperature out there in the ol’ Atlantic off the coast of Maine right now is somewhere around 40-42 degrees Fahrenheit near the coastline.

A good cold snap cools the shallower brackish waters up in the rivers inland to temps lower than that out there in the bay by quite a bit. River temps raise or lower more quickly than that whole big ocean.

There are schools of Smelts out there in the Atlantic full of eggs and sperm looking for a river to spawn in, it’s why they come up the river.

A cruising school out in the bay would easily notice a temperature drop of even just 1 degree.

I think the fish are out there cruising around, feel a cold water flow and tend to follow it up to find the river spawning eddies. I personally think this MAY be why some of our best catches have been on some of the coldest fishing nights of the season.

The night I talk about the most where we brought in as many as 3,000 smelt was in a snap that was about -20 degrees.

I personally think that cold water flowing into the ocean is like a glaring red flag to the smelts to turn inland toward the river.

(I may be wrong…this is just my own contemplations)

We are heading up to try things out Thursday 1/24, we have shack #7 from 12:30-7:30pm. I will post some results on our facebook page. The projected temp for the evening is -7 degrees.
If you head up to try it, stop by and say hello, hopefully our buckets with be shining with smelts.