THERE'S A fish, and it inhabits our own waters, mostly estuarine, and it is chiefly remarkable, you might think, in that it smells like - cucumber. And here is the difficult thing to record - none of the people who have had to do with this fish have ever eaten it. That is, none of those who have been contacted by this corner. Things ain't what they were. Nineteenth-century natural scientists used to take great kudos on themselves in that they would eat anything they dissected. Fortunately we don't have skunk here.
Anyway, this all began with a paper written by Dr Declan Quigley, commercial fisheries biologist with the ESB: "First Record of Smelt Osmerus Eperlanus L from the River Suir, together with a Review of Irish Records." Smelt being the name of the fish we are dealing with. It is not unlike the pollan, and used to be abundant, with some lean years in between, around our coasts. A great deal of learning has gone into this account. In general, it mostly is found in estuaries, though sometimes it does penetrate up river. It has mostly, in recent times, been associated with the Shannon, the Fergus, the river Foyle and some in Larne Lough and Belfast Lough. Breeding is known to occur only in the Shannon, Fergus and Foyle, though the other places named could hardly hold the fish if no breeding was done up there.
As to size, the article tells us that as late as 1995 Mr Peter Walsh, while snap-netting for salmon in the Suir near Mooncoin, caught 15 specimens. Their length varied from almost 15 centimetres to over 26. No mean size. Several weighed a hundred grammes and one went to a hundred and ten. These fish are well-known in northern Europe. Declan Quigley thinks there is commercial fishing for it on the Elbe. (In German the fish is a Stint.)
As far as Ireland is concerned, the fish, some people might think, has met an ignominious fate. It is now a very popular bait for pike anglers - imported from Britain. Still smelling, no doubt, of cucumber.
There is another smelt, atherina presbyter the sand smelt, which, we learn, was common around Strangford Lough in the last century, then known locally as Portaferry Chicken. We may hear from somebody about this. The original article appeared in the Bulletin of The Irish Bio-Geographical Society.