 What is up guys? Joe Holland here. I am out here on my home lake and I'm going to show you guys an age old tradition jigging freshwater smelts out of deep water on the ice. Got a brutal terrible day. It's blowing straight sideways out of the east. Fish bite the least. If the wind blows out of the west, fish fight the best. If the wind blows out of the east, fish bite the least. But I think I can still catch some of these jack smelt is what we call them here in Maine. Freshwater jack smelt which are also rainbow smelt. Same ones that are in the ocean but they don't have the opportunities to eat as much as the ones in the ocean and the river running brackish water river running smelt. What I'm doing is I got a medium white rod. I prefer something with a fast tip so because I'm in 40 foot to 70 foot of water depending on where I find them or where I set up. Usually they're coming in in schools and hopefully we're going to jig some up. I'm using the electronics today. I'm using the Garmin live scope and these fish are anywhere from this big to this big and my jigs that I'm using I got a little Haley jig or a size four Swedish pimple so they're real small so they don't show up great in 40 foot of water so I'll be zoomed way in. It'll be a little pixelated but you'll be able to see how these fish react and how they swirl around the bait and and smelt swimming circles a lot so it's pretty cool. The smelt freshwater smelt are the french fry of the fish world. They taste great they're not really big they're not filling but if you catch enough of them it makes for one heck of a tasty meal. Stay tuned I'll show you how to catch these things what they look like and maybe we'll even show you how to eat them. First one just getting set up. Yes, setting up. Got him. There it is. Popped right off. It's quite ready. Wasn't quite ready for you. It's nail. Nice. Oh, it's a yellow. What the heck is he doing? There's some smelt. He just puked up. Yellow. That's not what we're after. He's eating smelt too. Pretty nasty. He hit. I hope you got a taste of it. It's a light bite when they do hit. He must have felt that hook or something. Usually they'll come back. They're so aggressive. Today they're definitely off. I think we got some water clarity issues going on. I got to check and see if I got a piece of bait on there. That guy's on it. I do not. That's why. You got to give him a little piece of meat to target. That's why he's on it but he's not eating it. This guy's catchable if I can get that piece of meat in front of him. So that's all it is just a little tiny piece of meat below it. They shouldn't take long if I can get that down to him. For bait today guys we're just using cut up little tiny pieces of shiner. Anything fresh and a little bloody seems to work pretty good. Oh, something just that piece of chum I threw down that the perch spit out just drifted on the screen and something is all over it. That's cool. Let's hurry up and get this down. See if we can catch them. Whatever that is is definitely showing these hungry. Come on get down there. There we go. We're on the screen. We are on the screen and there's an active fish there. Hit bottom. Let him know we're here. Lift up. Looks like he's keyed in on that piece of chum but he'll eat something after that I think. It's right under me now. They are finicky today folks. We hired video to shoot today if they're gonna act like that. We'll put it a little closer to bottom. He's on it. He's on it. Got him. Got him. Alright tough bite today. Nice. There's a little jack smelt. A little smaller today than normal. A little rainbow jack smelt right there guys. Not much to them but that's one right there. Get him in the bucket with the other guy. So they're not too lonely. Hard to call them a jack smelt at that size but it's a lot bigger than a regular smelt or a pin smelt. But they're definitely hard to catch at that size. I wish that when we get into the bigger ones it'll be a lot easier. There's one to the side. Got a looker. Got a looker on the side. Can't tell if it's a perch or a smelt right now. See if he swims in circles. Not very aggressive whatever it is. Got him. Might be a smelt. Feels like it. Yep there it is. A little bit better size. Man they are tough to catch today. Normally they're right on fire and it doesn't take much to catch them. Spit that out. Spit out me bait. Got it. Alright guys there's a smelt. They've got pretty sharp teeth in them. But there's one right there. That is a rainbow jack smelt. Get going in the bucket. This is a little Haley jig. It's got pretty good weight to it for its size. It's got a little tiny drop chain hook which I like. I'd go up a size on the hook if I changed anything. Then the one that comes with it. But on that little drop chain hook you want to get some kind of piece of meat whether it's a worm or a piece of a shiner like I'm fishing or you could even put a piece of smelt on there. Because they're probably not going to hit your lure. But they'll hit that. They'll hit that piece of meat. They're really kind of worse. They eat anything they can. They eat each other when they can. Another one there. These circling. We need a second one to get a little competition. But they circle like crazy. Alright that one's fired up. Got him. He came flying off the bottom. We got a little school there now for a change. Another one. You want to keep them fired up when you get them fired up. It's like any kind of school fishing. The meat the hook's so tiny and the meat so small that I'm struggling right now to get that hook through it. Come on get in there. I think I'm on it. Alright there's look like there were about four of there a second ago. Another piece of meat right here. Starting to get them fired up a little bit. Come on get down there. I like to use a heavy jig so it gets down quicker to them. The heavier the jig you give up a little bit of feel. There's one coming. He's on me. Oh he's on it. Bite it. He's on it. There's one coming up. Missed him. Shoot. Did he get my bait? Got him. That was a good hit. There we go. They're getting a little bigger now. When you miss them stay right with them. It's not like a trout or even a bass. They usually stick around and come back. They almost get angry that they miss the eating. So he came back and ate that pretty good. I got him pretty deep. If you don't have electronics and you're trying this it's a good idea just to bounce off the bottom three or four times and pick it up and hold it about two foot off bottom and just watch your rod tip or feel for it. So if I didn't have electronics I would just hit the bottom like that. Lift up about oh two foot off bottom and just hold it there. That seems to drive them pretty nuts and it's visible for them up off the bottom and they'll they'll hug the bottom pretty well unless they're in a big school and they feel safe in a big school and they'll come off the bottom and later in the day and you get low light conditions when the plankton's up higher and the little fish vertebrates or your vertebrae fish little tiny things and real small minnows are up then they'll come up and get off the bottom but for the most part even though they are super aggressive and they eat everything they can they are the prey of everything out here including me and they know that so their safety in the bottom and their safety in numbers usually oh here comes one is he on no I thought he was on I didn't feel him but it looked like he had it usually this is a pretty good numbers game and you can get that first one to bite you can get a whole bunch in here feeding but today they're kind of scattered the weather's been really weird lately we had a crazy warm up uh 65 degrees the other day okay here we go and it warmed up to 65 degrees and we had a bunch of melt off and we had a real good rain storm with a bunch of runoff and then it it got down into the single digits again for the last couple days and then today it's kind of breaking again and snowing so when you get weather patterns like that a lot of times it screws the fishing up in the winter a more stable pattern seems to get them to bite pretty good for most species but normally I would have about 12 to 15 on that screen and they just compete here comes one yeah I must not have a piece of bait on there I'll give it another another look and then I'm going to bring it up and make sure I have a piece of bait on there sometimes when you hit bottom it jars that bait off I like to hit bottom to bring them in you know make noise stir up a little bit of mud and try to get their attention but a lot of times that bait will fall off your hook when you're hitting bottom because it slackens it on the hook let's check and see if we have any any meat on there for them yeah there's a piece of meat on there it doesn't look too white if it gets too white and bleached out I take it off if it's if it's super clean piece of meat they don't seem to like it I think they do smell and they definitely taste a lot a picture hitting the bottom is like ringing that dinner bell because I'm sure they eat a lot off the bottom so I don't mind hitting the bottom especially when nothing's around I'll bounce it off the bottom and hopefully they either feel that or see it or or stirs up enough mud to get their attention and then I'll do the same thing up in the water column try to get somebody's attention get a visual for them we'll hit bottom a couple times ring that dinner bell pick it up there's definitely a couple there on the bottom there's one under me he's on me uh eat it don't we got a looker there he came up hot on that lift straight up off the bottom got him another one down there nice getting a little bit bigger baby tarpon nice there he is guys that was cool that was on a lift that guy came shooting up off the bottom looks like there's a couple down there waiting for me on the bottom let's see if he comes to meet it most of my hits today have been within two foot of the bottom so I'm trying to kind of stay in that area I love being able to get bites you know four five six seven foot up off the bottom usually you'll get a school in in on you there and it's just easy pickings there's two or three on the bottom right now see if I can get one to come up and get aggressive here he comes here he comes here he comes did he eat nope he didn't eat got him pretty far up now if you can keep one there sniffing on it like that see those are the hard ones to catch that are just in there sniffing on it but usually if a second one comes in when there's one sniffing on it it's like a hundred percent catch on that second one they don't mess around they they know that if they wait they're not going to get a meal I got a head on there and I don't know if they'll eat the head or not if it's if it's appetizing for him oh he didn't eat yeah I might have to go back for a piece of side meat it's hard to say because today's just a tough bite anyway we need a whole school over here have a bunch of them that makes a lot of fun today it's it's tough picking you're picking one at a time okay I think there's one on the bottom let's see if he comes up yep there's one there he's coming up right now guys he's really looking it over let's see if I can get him to do something stupid come on come on up they won't pass that 35 mark they will when they're hungry I promise you that oh here's another one coming one way up oh he bit too shoot he bit go bite again bite again what is wrong with you eat it here he comes again oh no 0 for 3 you must be nipping at that meat 0 for 3 on that guy here he is he's still under me I don't know if he stole it or what got him there he is that was tight to the bottom give me that bait so if you're feeling for him I do a lot of sight fishing on the electronics with him and see like try to watch him eat but if you're actually feeling for him it's usually one quick thunk you don't get to feel a pull or anything like that so it's important to use a rod you don't want to use a rod that's actually too soft for this or too too slow you want a nice fast action you know you don't want anything heavy because you got to be able to feel that too but there's a fine line and I've used man I can't even get a hook on that I've used some rods that you think would be perfect for this they're super light and light action I actually prefer a medium heavy like 20 to 24 to 27 inch rod something that's quick because you've got to be quick on that hook set because they don't stay there very long and you're fairly deep comparatively to the size of this fish these things are only like this big and you're in 40 foot of water so that's why I like a little bit of a quick action for a quick tip and then when you're fighting them you don't really need a lot of bend for the fight it's just a matter of getting them up here as quick as you can and keeping here comes one yeah see he bit I watched I watched that one hit on the tip this feels pretty fat like a perch or a really good one yeah it's a bigger one nice there goes my mate come on out of there they're getting a little bit more aggressive now they're starting to participate I'm seeing more on the screen at least tips freezing up where did that piece of bait go come on get down there come on get down there there's more down there all right here we go one to the side coming in pretty hot I haven't been able to get a bite more than two foot off the bottom yet which is fine this one's coming in slow I like them to come in a lot more aggressively now visually with the electronics in the live scope I can clearly see that he's not on and a lot of times a lot of times when I talk about sight fishing these things on the electronics I'm looking for them to be super tight to the jig and then a color change meaning I'm getting even better you know that puts them even tighter the jig and then I just slowly lift and if I feel anything while I'm lifting it's basically the hook set so that's that's what I mean by sight fishing them now if you're not sight fishing them even if you don't have electronics if you just watch the end of that tip and you have a pretty pretty light rod you can watch your tip thunk because that's how they hit it's a quick thunk it's not a steady pull it's not a thunk pull it's just a thunk just a little tiny thunk and I think they're giving all they got but that's all they got especially at that depth but some days they're more aggressive and you just you can do this up and down with your jig like this and then they'll come in and they'll jump on it when you stop today just from watching my screen and how most of the hits have been I've pretty much got most of the hits and the interest by putting it on the bottom and just reeling it about two foot up to right there and if nothing follows you can put it right back down and just go right there and then if one comes straight up vertical at it that's how I've been getting most of the bites today so that electronics tells me that and then I'm going to I'm going to key on that a little bit more today you know I'll still try some other things because I know eventually they'll turn on as a school but for the most part I'm going to be just hitting bottom lifting up see if anything follows if anything follows I've been holding it pretty still and that seems to be get here comes one right there hold it still he sees it should be a bite oh he nipped it I think I missed him he's still there all right now he's looking it over when I move it he is a little interested oh he moved it he might still bite yeah he's he might give me a third let's give him a new piece of meat oh there's two down there now I gotta hurry up get down there come on hurry there's three down there hurry ah there they go hopefully they come back all right I think there's one on me already yeah here comes one man they're fussy today they are hard to catch today guys that's kind of the rule of video on fishing no it's a bad weather day it's we were right in the midst of a pretty serious cold front the water it's definitely marked up and we got a pretty good wind out there it's blowing pretty well straight sideways out there this is about as bad as I've ever seen them hug the bottom which is making them really hard to catch here comes one vertical catch him all right that was the highest one yet nice it feels pretty decent size considering it's hard to say that on these little guys but that's a good one right there nice all right there's a pretty good one there he is fresh water jack's melt that's a rainbow smelt right there that is basically landlocked and be similar to like a salmon and a landlock salmon I missed him he had it that time all right here comes that second one I was telling you guys about so I got one working me right now pretty hard the second one gave up a little too here he comes see that second one oh he rocked me that should have been a catch got him it was a catch he rocked me hard that second one's 100 bite every time nice cool got him up in the water column starting to get a little more active he's sitting there waiting he's going to be a little more active when I drop down to him you watch I got a shot at catching this guy that second one is 100 every time I stop even worrying about that first one when that second one comes in all right he sees it here he comes I'm gonna make him work a little hit it that's crazy high golly can't seem to get on the bike I can get those other ones interested this guy here see how the second ones second and third are coming in they're going to him they might not even see me yet golly don't I hate missing one we got them on the screen though it's a different ballgame right now folks we got them lit up there's one nice all right this is how the screen's supposed to look I got them scattered and I need some bait that's why you cut it up ahead of time give me that piece right there hurry hurry hurry keep them active okay keep active that's where two people really help they're gone all right that's all right they're not going far I promise you that come on get down to them go this is exciting fishing's fishing I don't care what it is I get excited over these guys just as much as a giant trout all right there's a couple still on the screen I'm going to hit bottom and do the lift see if I can get them up in my realm there a lot oh here he comes don't stop I think they're a lot easier to catch the higher up you get them oh shoot I had one on me I didn't even know it yep got him that was a site fish nice you're getting a little bigger they get it deep you can't even see the looks so small pretty good one there guys the bucket's starting to get a little color to it we like to see that oh this is freezing right into my reel every time I should have brought the heater not so much for me but for the gear my gear is not as tough as I am I guess let's go does he see it he sees it here he comes you got a site fished never felt that one hit all right we're jigging smelt now guys we are jigging smelt typical smelt live to be about five years old and these jack smelt that get up as big as 12 to 14 inches will live as long as 10 or 11 years old everything wants to eat them they're like the french fry of the lakes because they taste good oh you got one on me already oh yeah he hit he hit again I need you to bite that hook here he comes straight up did he bite it did not what is going on with this bait yeah you can pretty much tell by watching that electronics what the situation is of the bait on your hook when they come in that hot and aggressive and you don't feel them or they don't bite or they just kind of shy away the pretty good chance you don't have a piece of meat on there it's hard to catch them on just a bear hook you can when they get aggressive in their big schools oh he flew he flew off the bottom what was that all about we're gonna find out I think this is a perch or a bass I don't believe this is a smelt I think that's a perch just by the way you came off the bottom yep that's a yellow little yellow patch yellow perch I did notice a couple times when I set my rod down and it sat there for about 10 seconds I'd have a fish interested so I'm gonna try doing that now I'm gonna try to just leave it still two foot off the bottom and see what that'll work hard to do because as a fisherman you think you can do better just moving it that's what I like about the electronics is you can really key in on how they're reacting you know like so far the best bites have come from hitting the bottom and then just reeling straight up too far looking for a follow if nothing happens drop it right back down do it again cow it's it's getting raw out there fellas you're blowing like a sieve out there he straight seedways on us come on back smelts that's the jig I'm using right there guys little hailey jig a little tiny chain with a drop hook small small hook on it I don't even know what size it is but kind of a natural color I'd be curious trying like a brighter color just to get their attention and then a little tiny piece of meat on that hook that's pretty much the answer I don't know if you need a leader or not this is like I think I have like six pound test flurro coming off like whatever for braid weather today is not good it is blowing straight seedways and it's coming out of the dreaded east blowing some snow in with it and we're at about zero degrees fahrenheit so not pleasant out there I'm some glad I got this shack I wouldn't be able to catch these fish without it the bite is so light I'm sight fishing most of them off the electronics but not all of them probably 30% of them I get by feel or watch on the rod tip and there's no way you'd be able to do that on a if you were outside today very very cold I probably should have brought my little heater I might run back and grab it but only trouble with that is I'd have to unhook this thing and it's blowing hard enough I'd be worried because this doesn't have screwed peg down I'd have to drill a hole maybe throw a bunch of slush on it so it doesn't go anywhere Swedish pimples another good bait for these smell that's pretty good historic bait and I like the single drop hook if they still put them in the package I don't know if they put them in with every size or not let's see yeah there it is okay that's perfect that's pretty good size hook right there it's actually not too big believe it or not this is the size four Swedish pimple and it comes with a treble hook on it which isn't bad but I found I get a lot better hookups and a lot easier to take them off the hook if you change out that hook with the one that comes in the package and it's a longer shank let's see it's right there it's a lot longer shank it's got a decent bend to it so you can get a pretty good chunk of meat on there and it gets it further away from the the steel of the Swedish pimple hope we got one coming in finally let's see if he sees it hope to find out what it is got them whatever it feels like a smelt might not be a smelt oh it is what happened we got all twisted up cool all right another rainbow jack smelt there he is put him in the bucket they you wouldn't believe it but these guys got pretty sharp teeth on a pound for pound let's just say we're lucky that they don't grow more than 12 inches or so because there wouldn't be anything left to grow in the lake they're so aggressive they're big-time cannibals they eat their own they eat a ton of small fish they eat small bugs they'll eat dead stuff live stuff doesn't matter so there's a number four Swedish pimple with that drop hook you can go down one more size and still be in a good range on the size of the Swedish pimple but i do like the length of that hook for the dropper the advantage to that hook is you can put a lot bigger chunk of meat on it and when they're aggressive having the bigger chunk of meat is a really good idea and i don't know about outside of Maine but i don't believe there's anything even combined that has caught more fish in Maine than a Swedish pimple over the years it has been a weapon on just about every species and every size and every color very very popular bait it's kind of like one time i was reading that the 30 30 had killed more deer in Maine than every single caliber combined it's kind of like the 30 30 of ice fishing got him there were two i'm gonna try to get back down to the other guy decent one there uh this is fun doing stuff like this will 100 make me a better fisherman when it comes to jigging tog or jigging cusk or jigging any other types of fish if you catch the little ones and the harder ones to catch like this it makes the bigger ones way easier to catch sometimes i just don't think of the comfort of my equipment when it's cold out hey i got some smelts do you want to eat for dinner tonight i'm out i'm out here right now it's blowing straight sideways you are not i know it it's bad out here yeah it's blowing like a sieve you're crazy i know it barbie do you want any smelts for savorah Joe's out fishing right now i'll let you talk to the bride okay thanks i'm in a shelter i'm in a little tiny pop-up shelter are you are yeah i've been catching smelt for like the last oh i don't know hour or so you've been jigging yeah i'm jigging i got the electronics going i'm just wailing on these smelt oh my are you having fun oh yeah it's a blast it's pretty i wish i brought my heater out because everything's freezing i don't because i can i feel i feel bad for you guys i didn't know if you had groceries or not well i i got like a half bucket full right now i was just seeing if you wanted to cook some up and eat them now oh take me probably good half hour to get off the lake i don't want to go good with smelt sounds good let's do it i'm guessing it'll take me probably oh about a half hour to get over there okay i'll i'll be over as soon as i can all right okay but back in the old days this was a really big deal jigging smelt out here there were a couple guys that were real good at it i heard from an old timer in town and he would always have two buckets with them one they'd be throwing the smelt in and the other bucket would have like two or three smelts in it that was it and if somebody came along by truck or snowmobile or even walked up and he saw him coming out the window of his shack he'd pull out that bucket with only three in it and they'd ask jeez how's it going out here how are you guys catching them he'd say terrible but out here all day all we got these three right here and that other bucket that he was sitting on or that was underneath them would have about 150 in there couldn't even see the bottom of it because if guys saw that he had a bucket full they would set up shop right next to him or autumn or in the hole or the next day in the hole so he did a pretty good job of defending that spot i guess got him on the old lift all right nice leader right there okay that was a pretty good one to end on i think all right for transporting these things i like to put them in a bag like that like a bait bag and then you can fold that over at least once and just wrap a rubber band around them and those they'll actually stay alive people say they're squirrelly but i think those are the ones in the bait shops and like the pins but those bigger ones stay alive really well if you want to use them for pike bait or if you want to eat them but that's how i'm going to transport those i'm going to take this down and head over to donnie and barbie's and see if they want to eat some of these things she is pretty bad oh yeah that was we got to go somewhere that way he's a whole slug of them well a few it was good you've still got them in the water yeah it was a tough yeah oh wow it was a tough bite out there so i wish i caught more but that's all i can do they're all alive how bad size huh oh those are perfect good eaters those are great yeah they're wonderful the only way to cook anything is with cast iron i think you're putting me right to shame buddy because that's what all my viewers tell me i need to start doing yeah i got that and i got my llb trusty kraut knife well i like that that's a reproduction of the original they came out with this on the anniversary good mess of them hey joey what's going on hi i brought you some delicious oh my god joey they're beautiful aren't they look at this one they're they're rainbow smells what they're called you can see why wow they're gorgeous very nice joey thank you i'm pretty excited about them okay i'm pretty excited about having you in my kitchen thank you i wish there were more of them first i'm going to before i start cleaning them i'm going to take some bacon grease oh wow we save our bacon grease to cook with and vegetable oil whoa he saves a lot of bacon grease aren't good right there oh yeah that's my chicken i'm making a homemade chicken soup right there i was uh i was questioning my sanity when i was coming off the lake it is brutal out there yeah joey is crazy i'm telling you the guy is not i want to show you how bad it is outside i'm gonna just open up my door for you doesn't look that bad but it's bad i hope so he's so good do you know what these are these are the french fries of the lake oh i know they're french fries of the lake everything eats them oh my god the poor things are alive though he's they won't be for very long oh jeez no oh this one's got row in it oh donny's gonna eat that look at that look at that you like that nice eggs i like it i really don't need to slip these up no slit them up so you can get them all crispy inside get the guts right out of them ooh that one's got eggs too we got a lot of eggs here huh yeah it's amazing how much color they have to them when i caught them they were really white oh really yeah you couldn't see the color oh no kidding yeah the the lake's got murky since the last couple days why is that joey i think that all that rain we had and then the the melt off we're 65 and then oh yeah right a lot of surface water going in it might have even turned over i don't know i think this one's got row in it too have they all had row yeah three three out of four or two out of three look at that beautiful you remember catching these when you were younger donny oh yeah we we used to go uh saw water smelt in and you'd catch smelts about this size maybe a little smaller yeah about this size and you'd go in the brooks and they'd run up the brooks in the springtime which used to be a lot of fun because used to be a lot of drunks there and they'd be falling down hooting in the hauler and then carrying on something fierce and that was part of the entertainment and then they changed the rules and you had to fish them out you know you could walk in the brooks then but they fishing game thought that that was destroying the you know spawning areas so they made you go use a net mm-hmm stay out of the brooks did you jig for these things yeah they were in 40 38 to 40 foot of water oh my gosh and so would you put your electronics down and yeah yeah and find where they were tell me what you have for an electronics joy a Garmin life scope so you can literally watch them swimming around down there oh wow is that really true i always thought that was just a fake thing no it's for real it is for real it's a weapon i just thought that that was just some kind of fake news no you could go out there and catch them without electronics but it just makes it so much more fun and more efficient if you have electronics it keeps you entertained too you know what's going on down there there's no guessing yeah because i had times when you know i'd go a half hour and they weren't biting yeah if i didn't have the electronics i think well i'm in a bad spot or they're not here anymore but with the electronics you can still see them down there so they just weren't biting right it was tough day really well i would think it would be this is a male yeah he has why because of this white oh this is gross you're not going to eat that are you no i'm not going to eat that okay feel you're just saving it up it has to go with that to make an it i'm making make more smell yeah what if you could use them for a knife donnie this is a l.o.b. where do you keep that knife in a special yeah right i've never seen that knife this will be the only time you do see this knife you don't think i'm going to let you have your paws on it do you yeah i do that's a special fishing that's a special yeah it's special all right he's special all right he is a pretty good little pile of french fries huh yeah it's going to be delicious i can't remember the last time i've had a smelt for you to be honest with you oh my god i love him do yeah oh i love him i love him crispy you know like oh i love him i usually don't slit these up the belly but since babba's here she seems to think that we want to do this yeah you don't got them usually well see when i take the heads off the little gut comes right out with it oh yeah so you know okay now let's rip these off okay now what would they uh i use i use just flour and salt and pepper to roll these things in and sometimes i put in a little just a little bit of cornmeal so depending on what you would like however you do it i like it i'm going to put a little bit of cornmeal roll these in they're fresh they are fresh there's no doubt about that now i'm gonna let that heat up just let me let me check the fire and see how i'm doing oh we got a nice bed of coals all that is stick i think it was boiling that was earlier i roll them i roll those eggs and flour don't it you did what i roll the eggs and flour that seems pretty hot see that now these are so fresh that they may jump out of the frying look at that look at them curl wow you can't keep them flat they're so fresh oh my god jillie these women jillie those are amazing right they really are we are lucky that lucky lucky wow they only have to cook these like a couple minutes or three minutes but it's going to be hard to keep them flat no don't keep them flat no no so you don't even tell them we just eat the tail right yeah we eat the whole thing except i don't need to tell them oh you know you know you can you can almost leave in the tail on you can just peel the meat right off the backbone oh yeah jillie what do you want i got ginger ale oh man you have any hot chocolate yes you did we're coffee yes i do we're hot coffee you do i do i want us to go how do you like that request huh oh my god i do look sorry right out of nowhere with that request or coffee no anything hot anything hot what mocha sure that'd be great thank you well these are hot these are so fresh that you know normally they don't curl like this that's the freshest i've ever seen them i'm i'm just gonna have water i think it's tremendous actually you know if you put a little salt on this row you can eat it raw caviar delicious you put it on crackers oh man you think you died and gone to heaven really yeah well yeah do know will you eat those on crackers and you just eat that I'll eat it just for the pork they come well they're kind of like in a little sack you know you see how they're falling off yeah now fresh water smells which uh i call needle smells you can eat those whole yeah head and all head and all i mean we used to fry them up in a frying pan don't even clean them you know because there's very little gut in them and eat them like french fries just the smaller version of these yeah but they're fresh you know well these were fresh water right these are fresh water too but i mean these are like the little needle smells i call them oh yeah you're gonna try some of that i'll try i'll definitely try some of it doesn't look like it was cooked long but it's probably cooked enough oh my god yeah i'm just eating a car oh really yeah okay i cannot wait i'm gonna go you just peel the meat right off okay there's the back bone tail and bone come right out in fact the bones are so small that you probably could eat them with no tell me these are delicious are they edible they're so sweet from that one thank you joey oh it's my pleasure thank you for cooking them and having me over oh thanks for being here looks good darling that is oh my god that is so good yeah drink one of these i want to film you doing it joey taking one of those uh huh i've never eaten these before joey a real outdoors than how they have it's kind of like eating corn meal yeah you know kind of that texture not much taste other than fish do you like it joey it was worth eating yeah yeah that one nope it was worth it was worth eating but i'll let donnie follow so yeah i'm gonna let go ahead go ahead i'm letting donnie paul so not tell what do you think of that joey i could eat that every day oh i could tell him french fries yeah i have to eat these with your fingers oh yeah don't eat them with your finger do you eat them with a fork no okay good you can throw the fork away yeah this is medieval eaten boy i sure wish stevie would eat them eat you like it my thing i think you would yep yeah joey oh those are coming out nice and clean for you these are so good no you're doing a good job on those oh yeah i'm a oh she's an expert i'm an expert eater but you don't eat you do eat the tail or you don't eat the tail i don't eat the tail are you gonna eat the tail yeah it's kind of you know i usually i usually do like on a brook trout i eat the whole the tail depends this one i got some row in there with it but a lot of times when i'm eating brook trout i just if they're small i'll just eat the tail yeah i'll eat the next tail but it's like a potato yeah it's like yeah i love the skin that's good i think delicious my grandfather who lived in rhod Island would come up to me and in port smith new Hampshire there was this restaurant called yokans why okay and apostrophe yes yeah and he would always order fried smelts i mean that's what i remember about it because you know i think i do very few places have them moody moody's yeah moody's have them at certain times oh i didn't know that yeah oh you know when they're running yeah yeah so uh but he would he would stop at yokans and he would order them and i was like a little kid and i'm like oh gross that's disgusting i see why now he loved them