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Smelt cost nothing to sneeze at For years, we were able to purchase smelt each spring at all the supermarkets for 15 cents to 20 cents a pound. For the past five years or so, we have been unable to buy smelt anywhere. We were looking to find about 5 pounds last year but they were saltwater smelt that looked and tasted awful. Where are the beautiful silver smelt and why aren't they for sale anymore? -- Donna D., White City The smelt are still out there, Donna, but they're not in your grocer's seafood displays. They're in frozen trays within the bait sections of tackle shops along the Oregon and Washington coast as well as the Columbia River, being bought by sturgeon fishermen for prices that would make even the richest smelt-lover gag. Smelt flood the Columbia each winter and head to tributaries for spawning. A fine-eating little fish, they are intercepted by sport and commercial fishermen. When supermarkets were offering smelt in that 20-cent range, seafood wholesalers were buying 50 pounds of them for a few dollars. But heavy smelt fishing in the early '90s pared down the runs. And the New Year's flood of 1997 virtually wiped out the Columbia's run, which has yet to rebound. The smelt caught now are almost all sold to sport-fishermen who prize them as sturgeon bait. Three weeks ago, for instance, Pacific Seafood Co. buyers checked smelt prices and found they were being sold for $8 per pound as bait. That's darn near caviar prices. The salesman at Pacific Seafood say smelt will remain priced off the supermarket's seafood aisle until either smelt runs bounce back or sturgeon fishermen discover some other critter as the hot bait of choice. (Send your questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; or by fax to (541) 776-4376; or by e-mail to: [email protected] Please include your name, address and phone number for verification.) Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA