During the autumn, local outdoor traditions around the peninsula often involved fishing for smelt along the many coves and brooks. People would be along the shore at night with their lanterns and fishing poles. It was a pastime and recreation that carried through through the winter with fishing through the ice and into the spring with dipnetting.
Local residents Randy Elwell and John Melquist spoke to St. George School students and shared stories about smelting when they were kids; but now, smelt are hard to catch since the St.George River doesn’t freeze anymore, and smelt populations have been in decline since the 1980’s. Join us to listen to the local history of smelt fishing around the peninsula, and smelt history in Meadow Brook Preserve in our Science Podcast, “Natural Resource Stories - People and Places."