Smelt fishing on the Sandy River in Troutdale draws hundreds

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TROUTDALE, Ore. —

At 11:59 a.m. on Thursday, the anticipation was palpable on the banks of the Sandy River in Troutdale.

Hundreds of people lined the river's edge, dip nets at the ready, waiting for the first recreational smelt fishing season in nearly a decade to begin.

Just before the clock struck noon, technically a tad bit early, the first nets went in and emerged with loads of the flopping, silver smelt, who had come to the river to spawn.

Tim Swift had come to the river with his grandson, who was waist deep in the water sporting camouflage waiters. The youngster had plenty of experience fishing for salmon, but Thursday was the first time he had dipped for smelt.

"It's a circus," Swift said, surveying the crowds. "I think 2015 was the last time they came up."

Smelt are anadromous, meaning they hatch in freshwater rivers, spend much of their adult life in the ocean, then return to the same rivers to spawn before they die.

They frequently return to the Columbia, but they haven't been seen on the Sandy in high enough numbers to fish for eight years.

Smelt were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2010 after the Cowlitz Tribe petitioned the federal government to protect the fish as their numbers dropped.

The fish was suffering as climate change changed river flows and depleted their prey base.

Since then, Ben Walczak, a fish biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the agency has been working on conservation efforts on rivers like the Sandy to help the fish.

"So these fish three to five years ago probably came and spawned in the Columbia," he said, noting that it wasn't just conservation efforts alone that led to the smelt's return. "This is a sign that things were right in the ocean for smell to come back."

Still, Walczak took a certain amount of pride in the throngs of families that lined both sides of the river on Thursday.

"This is pretty amazing," he said. "It's like one of those things you work your whole career for."

Smelt are an extremely fatty fish, so much so that, if you dry them and put a wick in them, they can be burned like a candle.

And that high fat content makes for good eating, too, according to Mondie Johnson who was working a bucket on the shore as her husband manned the net in the river.

"It's quite a scene," she said as a group of kids next to her giggled as they peered into their own smelt-filled bucket. Johnson said her own children, who are talented chefs, were planning to fry up their haul when they got home. "It's just a good wholesome activity."

The crowds on Thursday were sizable, but they paled in comparison to the throngs that showed up for the Sandy River smelt runs of years past. From the 1920s to the 1950s, as many as 5,000 people would head to Troutdale, lining the Stark Street bridge to watch the spectacle.

The smelt season this year may just have been the shortest fishing season in Oregon. Only open from noon to 7 p.m. on Thursday, if you missed your chance, you’ll have to bide your time until the next run returns to the Sandy.