Creature Feature: Surf Smelt

Creature Feature: Surf Smelt Hypomesus pretiosus

Surf smelt temporarily captured for checking on fish health in Fidalgo Bay by the Samish Indian Nation Department of Natural Resources. Surf smelt are a rich food source and important food for salmon and other sea life. Photo by Samish Dept. of Natural Resources

Junior SeaDoctor: “I was down at the beach and something smelt fishy.”

Smelt: “It was me! I can’t help it, I am a smelt fishy!”

Surf smelt, Hypomesus pretiosus, are gold-topped silver fish that swim in schools and live for about five years near shorelines of the Salish Sea. Surf smelt are also found all the way south to Long Beach, California and north to Chignik, Alaska. They look like herring, but are more closely related to eulachon (hooligan) and several other types of smelt. Groups of people all around the sea are working hard to study and protect these little fish and their habitat.

What’s all the fuss about one little fish? Well, they taste good. Like herring and eulachon and other forage fish (or bait fish, if you’re a fisher), these fish are eaten by nearly everything bigger than they are, from salmon to sea birds to porpoises. They are another “Snickers bar of the sea!” They serve as an important meal for endangered Chinook salmon and tufted puffins, and countless other critters, including human critters.

See surf smelt wriggling in a smelt rake in the video clip by Joe Gaydos above.

Smelt fishers raking for smelt as they mill about near the shore, preparing to spawn. Photo by Joe Gaydos

Yes, even people love to catch surf smelt for food. Some folks even fry and eat them whole! Smelt fishers often use jig lines, fishing poles with several baited hooks hung over the side of docks, giving a little tug every few seconds to entice the fish. Other fishers use smelt “rakes,” baskets on the end of long poles, like a dip net, that are scooped through the water when the smelt come to shore in droves to spawn. They are ready to spawn which they do each year once they reach one to two years old.

Just how do you protect surf smelt? Habitat! Like most every living thing, if it has a healthy habitat, including clean water, enough food, shelter, and a place for its young, it will live long and prosper (well, at least until it gets eaten). Something a bit weird about surf smelt habitat is that it includes the beach.

Their spawning habitat is the high tide line on a sand and gravel beach. They swim close to shore at high tide on a romantic, moonlit night to deposit their eggs and milt. Then their eggs get very sticky and stick to the grains of sand and gravel. When the tide goes out, the eggs are left high and dry during all low-tide hours.

Surf smelt spawning habitat is high on the beach! Here is a perfect mix of sand, gravel, shade trees, and a hill above to replenish the sand and gravel naturally when it gets washed away by waves.

Lucky ones will stick on the underside of gravel or in between sand grains. Even luckier ones will be in the shade of overhanging shrubs and trees. Unlucky ones may end up on the tops of bigger rocks and without any shade. These eggs can end up baking in the sun. As you can see, not all eggs will survive to hatching.

Super sleuth Nature Detectives may spot the salt grain-sized eggs in patches on the beach between late April and October in the lower Salish Sea, and year-round in many places in the central and northern Salish Sea, but it takes eagle eyes to find them. You might want to bring a magnifying glass if you look for them. If you catch them at the right time, you may see the “eyed egg” stage, when their two dark eyeballs are peering out from their miniature world.

If you’re curious about surf smelt, there is still a lot we don’t know about them and we can use some good fish biologists to solve some of their mysteries, like how far do they travel? How many times do they spawn? Do they spawn at the same beach where they began their lives? And many more questions that perhaps a future scientist has yet to ask-maybe even you!

One thing we do know is they need healthy beaches to survive until hatching. What does this take? Sand, gravel, a source of more sand and gravel uphill to replace what gets washed away, and shade from shrubs and trees. Salish Sea Heroes around the sea are helping to restore beaches to ensure these things for surf smelt and many of their forage fish friends. Sometimes this involves blasting out a concrete bulkhead, excavating out huge rip-rap (old asphalt and concrete piled up), and replacing it with sand and gravel for a fresh start. Often citizen scientists help with these important projects, spreading sand, planting trees, and monitoring to see if it all worked. You can join in on one and be a citizen scientist and a Salish Sea Hero at the same time!