And here is the thing: if you carefully match your lure to the exact small size, slim shape and silver colour of the forage fish, you typically do well. But miss or alter any one of these variables and your success rate plummets.

I was thinking about that when I was interviewing Lake Huron charter boat captain, Fred Wondergem for a recent On The Water Online blog about how he successfully rigged up his client last year to win the Blue Water Salmon Derby. Wondergem told me that he is seeing more and more dense schools of smelt these days on his sonar screen, and when he cleans a salmon or trout, the fish’s stomach is crammed with the sweet cucumber-smelling species. It is interesting, too, because the smelt population in Lake Huron is now making a comeback, after crashing some years ago. And the chinook and coho salmon are following the pelagic schools like wolves tracking herds of caribou across the tundra.

Even more revealing is the fact there are other forage fish species, in both my little trout lake and Fred’s massive body of water, including ciscoes, shiners, alewives, yellow perch, sculpins and gobies. But smelt are the cherries atop the sundaes in both systems. So it pays to always match the hatch—or does it?

Indeed, I fish other bodies of water where showing the walleye, bass, trout, black crappies and yellow perch a lure that resembles what they’re accustomed to eating is not always a good, or the best, tactic. One smallmouth bass lake, in particular, where the fish devour crayfish, stands out mightily.