smelt, any of certain silvery, chiefly marine food fishes, family Osmeridae, closely related to salmon and trout and found in cold northern waters. Smelts, like trout, have a small, adipose (fleshy) fin. They are slender carnivores and spawn short distances upstream, in the surf or in ponds.
The American smelt (Osmerus mordax) has been introduced from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes and supports a sizable commercial fishery. The largest smelt, about 37.5 cm (15 inches) long, spawns in late winter or spring, its sticky eggs adhering to objects they touch. The European smelt (O. eperlanus) is similar.
Among related Pacific species are the rainbow herring (O. dentex), surf smelt (Hypomesus pretiosus), capelin (Mallotus villosus), and eulachon, or candlefish (Thaleichthys pacificus), a fish that at spawning time is so oily that it can be dried and burned as a candle.
The silversides and other unrelated fishes are sometimes also called smelts.