I lived in a small town on Georgian Bay of Lake Huron in the 1970's. The smelt runs at that time were huge and it was an annual festival of harvest time. The local Hotel Bar served free Fried Smelt that were brought out on large trays. They always sold lots of beer with or without the smelt. Back then I drank my share along with the locals.
I was Commercial fishing at the time and the nets were strung with smelt. Their teeth would get caught in the netting. There had to be hords of them for so many to get caught in the nets. It gave us lots of feeds.