Yah... though I remember we got big buckets full of smelt... I don't recall that we had a big smelt-feed afterward. I honestly don't remember what he ever did with it.
But I guess twenty pounds of fish is twenty pounds of fish, whether it comes one at a time, or a thousand at a time. :-)
There's a restaurant know for it's Friday Fish Fry up near my home town, we always make a point to go there whenever we're visiting. They usually have 3 kinds of fish: cod, lake trout, and smelt.