Kevin Pinkham of Milbridge has been selling smelts for 15 years and as the new season starts up, I had a chance to catch up with him. “People are happy to see them again. They haven’t seen them for three years. The smelts come out in the wintertime and maybe the first days of spring. That’s the only way you can catch them, through the ice. Not in brooks or streams, as they stay in the larger bodies of water,” he said. “When I caught my first smelt of the night, I hollered to my son in his shack.