I'm keeping hold of that one^
<°)))>{
As you can surmise...theres a story behind that one that you may appreciate, being a Lake Erie boy and all...Anyway Ice, you remember the big Smelt runs at Pt Pelee back in the 70's? All of us Michiganders would drive across the bridge to Canada (without a passport) and do a big seine riff through there?? Then,, we would come on back to the States and clean smelt all night?
As everyone knows, running a 50'seine theres gonna be some bycatch, suckers and alewives and fatheads and whatnot...but a fellow just dont have the time to weed them all out at the beach site dispersal, and its left to the discretion of the 'cleaners' to figure out a Smelt from a creek chub, sucker, baby carp etc....easy as pie you would think right?.
So it was about 1978...I took a load of Ohio farmboys up for my traditional Smelt run, and Yeah, we hauled in a barrel full!...got home and started in on the "All Night cleaning, cooking, eating, freezing, drinking Smelt festival"...I never thought a guy would have to explain the details of fish Identification and the weeding out process of the bycatch...
Looking back, a guy should have known better! Ohio farmboys who had never been Smelting in Canada cant be expected to be Icthyologists...so the bycatch weed out program was pretty much disregarded... by 4am, who really cares anyway?
So we gobbled up carp fry, fatheads, alewives, sucker minnows, along with the smelt! And you know what? I never said a thing! Actually...after all night seineing and drinking, a guy cant tell a carp baby from a fathead minnow anyway...Unless you have a discriminating palate like a Michigander...Definitely not a turd hearse Buckeye or a hayseed hogfarm Hoosier!..."tomatoe, tomato" kind of deal I reckon...I will say, regarding fish frys... the right Tartar Sauce can make all the difference!
I dont think those massive Pt Pelee smelt runs are gong on anymore? Even if they were, a guy would have to have a passport just to go across the bridge, big time expensive license too I bet!...Easier and way much cheaper to seine a local Ohio creek for fatheads!...like I said..tartar sauce is the key to the taste, and just know, in the end, by about 5:30am...it really doesnt matter, you are gonna be puking anyway!
Smelt are very rare now a days, its too damn much trouble to drive across the bridge for them...And the border guards royally suck, especially the Canadians!.."Like pop the trunk eh?" "Got a boot full of fish eh?" "Drunker than a fiddlers bicth tonight are ya you yankee smelt dipping btard??"...The hell? Screw this!
Ohio is full of fatheads! Indiana is loaded with suckers!...Get some decent tartar sauce! Meats back on the menu boys!
I sure miss that though...those smelt seining runs...Border guards aside, most Canadians are pretty much OK.....those days were really something though...perfect freedom..
Imagine, just driving across an International bridge crossing at night into a foreign Country and catching a 55gal barrel full of fish on a few drags? Drunker than hell the whole time? No passport or nothing? Everybody yelling and screaming like @ssholes? Where can a guy do something like that now a days? Iowa?
