Early morning smelt-dipping a tradition worth passing on

Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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I was up at 2:30 Tuesday morning. When the alarm clock rang, my wife mustered up the energy to say "You're crazy," before rolling over and sighing.

Downstairs, I hear our bird dog, Bailey, whimper and shuffle in her kennel. She's knows something's amiss; she's been out sniffing the alder covers and field edges for woodcock with me for the past two weeks.

"Quiet, Bailey," I tell her, though I know she won't be.

Spring is here. The runs are on. The flights are in. The lakes are opening up.

It was cold when I stepped out the creaking front door of our house, but I could smell the spring moisture in the air. It's a different kind of cold than in the winter.

The sky was dark, with a distant hint of blue, and stars twinkling. At 3 a.m., I was in my truck, headed south, not north, down toward the coast for one of my annual rites of spring.

A friend, Jeff Miller, of Falmouth, had confirmed what I already knew: The smelts were running in a small brook that feeds into Casco Bay.

He'd been out to check the night before, but he didn't need to. We both knew it. Sometimes, in the spring, when the snow melts behind the house and the weather gets warm for a stretch, you just know.

The smelt we dip in the brook are the big, sea-run variety that fishermen catch through the ice on the Kennebec River and Merrymeeting Bay in January and February.

Sure, we've had our share this winter, and even have a scant few leftover in the freezer. Still, we'll eat what we dip later in the morning, but that's not the only reason we're going.

We go because the smelt runs are the first real sign of spring, a reason to sneak out of the house early again, and a sign of what's to come.

When I pull in along the old dirt path that follows the railroad, I see that Jeff has already arrived. Smelt nets dangle from the back of his pick-up truck.

Down the hill from the railroad bed, I hear the rush of the smelt brook below the trestle and culvert. I see Jeff's headlamp bobbing in the dark below.

Though I only visit this place once or twice a year in the spring, I can picture the pool where the smelt gather like I was there yesterday. Like a favorite trout hole on a childhood brook, or that lone apple tree in the far corner that always holds a grouse -- it's not just a memory, it's a part of who you are. You're heart races when you think of it.

I slip on my hip boots, grab my net and begin the walk down the hill.

The bank is eroded and the gravel loose from years of fishermen slipping and sliding their way down in the dark of night. The air is scented with balsam. Small white birches shine in the light of my headlamp. A barred owl hoots in the distance, and I hear a turkey gobble in response.

I make a mental note. I may be back here during turkey season.

Down in the valley, it is cold. Snow lingers beneath bankside hemlocks.

Jeff, has come with his son, Jason, who's just three years old but already insists on going fishing at these ungodly hours of the morning.

We light the pool, and watch as hundreds of dark fish swim en masse towards one side, sending a tremor across the surface. We both laugh. Jason's eyes light up. He starts to wave his butterfly net.

"Got to start him young," Jeff says. He's right.

I think about what Augusta area Game Warden Kevin Anderson told me last week.

"Smelting, things like that -- they've skipped a generation. People don't know where to go anymore. Kids don't go out like they used to," he'd told me. Some brooks that were once the hotspots of the old timers now see no nighttime traffic at all, he says.

The smelt are still there, but the people aren't. Kids have too much else competing for their time: the Internet, television, video games. A smelt run isn't as exciting, or easy as these other things, we figure. But there's still hope.

Jeff picks Jason up, turns him sideways and holds him out over the stream. He runs his net through the water and fills it with smelt on his first sweep. The little silver and greenish-backed fish are so thick that they have nowhere to go but in the net.

"Again, again," Jason says.

Another dip, more smelt. Jeff puts him down, and Jason stands beside the stream, watching and waiting for the school to come close again. He takes a scoop and nets a few more.

We dip our limit, but Jason wants to stay. He nets a few more, then lets them go.

"There's always next year," I say.

The tradition lives on.

Dave Sherwood 621-5648

dsherwood@centralmaine.com