Fish Fries

I very rarely get a response from my readers though I know you're out there, all five or six of you! But I actually got two responses to my sardine post. Apparently, sardines stir up something in people. My friend from the East Coast wrote:

I have not eaten a sardine, either. That can of oily slippery silvery fish just does not appeal to any of my senses, though the attached key has always fascinated me.  However, I have eaten freshly caught deep fried smelt, head & tail attached, bones included, like a weird Icelandic version of a French fry.  I spent many weeks  of my early 30's  crewing on "The Gray", our British friends' Dominick and Cecilia's 130' Baltic trader.  One summer evening Dominick rowed us away from the ship into Long Island Sound and we set up seining nets between the ship & dingy.  He said that the smelt were running and they surely were.  We followed his commands and eventually hauled in a squirming mass of smelt.  Cecilia then floured & fried them up and I ate mine with ketchup.  And I even liked them, though I was a bit squeamish at the thought of eating eyeballs and intestines, and fins.  The sea gives a person a unique appetite!