Smelt & Hickory Shad

• A recent notice to fishermen from the Department of Environmental Protection listed Marine Fisheries Regulation Changes for the upcoming year for both recreational and commercial fishermen. The entire list can be obtained from the DEP Web site at www.ct.gov/dep. Below are a selected few of interest to me and probably a number of readers as well.
• Smelt: First on the list was the prohibition of taking smelt in marine and tidal waters. Smelt is a species that has essentially disappeared from the radar screen over the last 30 years. Like river herring, due to a severe population decline smelt have been taken off the fishing menu this year.
• Smelt is a species that was a popular cold weather recreational species that all the old-timers I've ever talked with had fished for (when they were young men or kids). Unfortunately, few anglers much younger than 40 years old have ever gone, or even considered going, fishing for smelt.
• Smelt are an important forage fish in the salmon and trout lakes to the north and are a popular winter sport fish along the northern coast of New England. Smelt are a forage species in a few Connecticut coldwater trout lakes and a common bait species to the north, but unfortunately, they are no longer on our fishing menu in Connecticut.
• Hickory Shad: In this same notice, there was one commercial fisheries related change that really bothers me. The change states: "For bait species: add hickory shad to the list of species that can be sold as bait under a bait dealers license and add bay anchovy, Asian shore crab, sheepshead minnow, mullet and shrimp to the list of species that can be taken as bait."
• Hickory shad are a species that fluctuates in abundance in this region. When I first began actively fishing the coast during the late 1960s and early '70s, they were present but somewhat rare.
• However, possibly due to the severe reduction of menhaden from our waters, due to commercial overharvest during the '70s and '80s, hickory shad experienced a significant population increase that peaked three to five years ago.
• Though still around in fishable numbers, they were not as universally abundant in this region over the past couple of years as they had been for more than a decade.
  In my experience and in my personal opinion, be assured that within five to 10 years with a commercial price tag on their heads, hickory shad will functionally disappear from our waters as a viable recreational species. I sincerely hope I'm totally wrong on this prediction. (Bob Sampson Jr, Norwich Bulletin)