Baby Bomo Smelt?

[BomoBrown]

The past three springs I have seen massive schools of pin sized young smelt in the shallows of Bomoseen.

I haven't any this spring. The adult smelt are still plentiful out deep.

I will post if they turn up but it is looking like they did not spawn and the state did not stock.

Time will tell.

[Lavman]

I remember seeing the schools you mention last spring, have not been over to Bomo since ice out.

Seems odd they would simply disappear.

Are you spending a lot of time on Bomo? 

[legend]

where do the smelt spawn in bomo ? they used to spawn up pencil mill....where now ?

[BomoBrown]

Yes, I spend a lot of time on Bomo.

The rumor is that the stocked smelt do not spawn on Bomo. The theory is the streams need to be dredged.  Don't know.

[Little Brown Dog]

You can't believe everything that you hear.

You wouldn't see pin sized smelt in the shallows in the spring, newly hatched smelt are not big enough to see out in the lake.
Most likely those schools of minnows are one of the shiner species.

The state continued its stocking program this spring.

There is no need to dredge, the water is deeper than a smelt.  Culvert issues are another matter.

[legend]

what do you mean by culvert issues? and has it been brought up to fish and game ? I would hate to loose the smelt because of  something as simple as cleaning out a culvert.....in the late 50s and early 60s we used to have a ball catching them during the spring run up pencil mill...what a ball. my dad and his dad stocked the first smelt in bomo around 1924....i think thats great !!

[BomoBrown]

Glad to hear they stocked it again. The schools I saw were smelt.  My boys caught a couple in their sand buckets.

[legend]

...im not buying the streams need dredging...the recent awful flooding would have cleaned them just fine.

[Light liner]

...im not buying the streams need dredging...the recent awful flooding would have cleaned them just fine.

Wrong, it made most of them worse.
Why do you think the state needs to stock so much every year in the rivers?
It's because the rivers are not deep enough to sustain a healthy fish population.
When aggregate gets so expensive and hard to locate then they will start removing the material from the
Rivers.

[BomoBrown]

I saw my first school of the new smelt.  Stocked or spawned they're there.

[legend]

So, i ask again, do we know where the smelt are spawning ! And are they using brooks like in the 60s?