It all begins with a bath using pure organic soap made from seaweed to wash off any trace of human scent. Outfitting follows, including rubber waders lined with heat-retaining, space-age felt and custom-designed optics that allow for seeing what lurks underneath the surface of the water. Next comes the gear, lightweight, hand-crafted fishing rods made from rare Chinese bamboo, reels forged out of titanium, and nylon fishing line that can float or sink, hollow or solid-core line optional.

The final piece of gear is an array of lures -- everything from fluorescent orange ‘salmon egg clusters’ to chrome flashers, spoons, cheese bits, #12 barbless hooks, flatheads, rooster tails, caddis flies and nymphs.

Yet there is one ancient method of fishing, and one species of fish, that most seasoned fishermen tend to ignore. Dip-net fishing for smelt.

Smelt are also known in the U.S. as “whitebait,”- a term that originated in England where a variety of small fry (mostly herring and smelt) were fished from the Thames estuary to be used as bait. By the eighteenth century the whitebait itself had become a delicacy, though the dish could include young fish of many kinds – one enterprising diner counted 34 different species in his serving!

“Smelt Eulachon” is the Native American name for the species of smelt that swim up the waters of the Columbia River that borders Oregon and Washington. Smelt, known in scientific circles as ‘Thaleichtys Pacificus,’ is a small fish averaging about 4-6 inches in length.

Like its neighbor the mighty Chinook salmon, smelt are andadromous, meaning that smelt spawn in freshwater but migrate to the ocean for the bulk of their lives. At the age of three or four years, vast schools of smelt begin their journey home from the ocean to the freshwater rivers of their birth. The fish swim out of the deep-river current and congregate in shallow waters on the bank. It is here that the female smelt deposit their eggs over the sandy, silt-filled just beyond the beach.

The male fish fertilize the eggs, and within two weeks, tiny little smelt called “fry” begin a new journey back to the ocean.

Unfortunately for smelt, gathering in huge numbers in water barely two feet deep exposes them to gaggles of awaiting prey -- the aforementioned “dip-netters.” The Native American tribes of the Columbia River Basin were the first to perfect the art of dip-net fishing there, primarily to catch salmon. Tourists from around the world would come to watch the Indians employ their ingenious method of dip-net fishing. Prior to 1957, the most well-known dip-net fishing site was at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River, about 70 miles east of Portland, but in 1957 the flood gates of The Dalles Dam were opened, washing Celilo Falls into memory.

Smelt are not only found scurrying up rivers in the west. Upwards of 250,000 Michigan smelt dippers descend on lakes each spring to dip for the lake variety of smelt. Mid-westerners eat through seas of smelt at Friday night “Fish Fries.”

Dip-net fishing for smelt is easy for even the novice fisherman; requiring few skills other than the ability to dip a net in water, scoop up ten pounds of wriggling smelt and quickly deposit the fish into a plastic bucket. As you might imagine, the equipment is fairly basic: a dip-net is pretty much all you need, though waders are a good idea, especially for warding off the bone-chilling effects of standing in cold water for a few hours. Other than that, one only needs a thirst for beer and an appetite for eating a lot of fresh caught fish.

In his daily recorded voice report, Joe Hymer, regional fish biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife recently reported that “there are still smelt in the Cowlitz and Lewis Rivers and fishers who pick the right spots are getting their 20-pound limits fairly easily.”

State and local laws vary as to the amount of smelt each dip-netter can catch, but in general, the only binding rules are that you must have your own container for lugging the catch back to the car. In a few states, a fishing license must be purchased, but in most areas the state doesn’t charge a penny to let you dip for smelt.

Better yet, cleaning smelt is easy-just one knife cut and a run of the thumb through the body cavity does the trick.

One rule of smelt cooking etiquette is to leave the head, fins and tails on and to cook the smelt whole, including the bones. Smelt are the perfect finger food, you simply pull gently on the head, removing the entire backbone and leaving the tender little filets for dipping into mayonnaise.

Smelt can be prepared in any number of ways; baked, baked in mushroom sauce, stewed, stewed with Italian tomatoes, stewed with pickles, pickled, pickled and creamed, barbecued, grilled or fried. Yet, as is most often the case with fresh fish, the simplest of preparations will produce the tastiest results. One should not tamper with a creature that Mother Nature blessed us with thousands of years ago.

In contrast to their petite size and delicate nature, smelt pack a lot of oily, briny, fishy taste, much like sardines or mackerel, so you want to use a cooking method that will allow the oil to keep the fish moist. For this reason, I choose either smoking or deep-frying smelt.

Remember, you aren’t smoking a ten pound side of salmon, nor are you frying up hefty filets of cod with your chips. Smelt are tiny, delicate fish that take much less time cooking than other types of seafood, only about 15 minutes in the smoker and 2 minutes in the deep-fryer.

Ah, yes…spring is in the air -- and in the water too.