Too bad you live so far away, I would give you some fresh frozen smelt for free.
Just a couple of miles away from my home, the smelt fishing is great. I use size 12 hooks and catch as many smelt as I like. Since I can't eat all that I catch, I keep the very small ones for bait and I give away the smelt I can't eat. I use 10 hooks and I often catch 3 to 4 smelt at a time. When I mean small smelt, I mean 3 inches long. However, I do catch smelt up to 10 inches long and sometimes the rare 12 incher. I do keep a few larger smelt for pike fishing.
When fishing for brook trout using dead smelt, I make a small 3-hook harness, about 3 inches long with size 6 octopus hooks. Even though the bait is hooked lightly, the fact that there are 3 hooks allows me to cast and recast the bait when shore fishing during the open water season.
I flash freeze the smelt on plastic trays and when they are hard, I store them in a good plastic zipper sac. They stay loose in the sac and when they thaw, they do not get mushy.
