You may bring up no fish at all or thousands. But let's try to increase those odds in favor of catching dozens, if not thousands, of smelt. But the prime season is basically all of April. Warm evenings and low pressure systems encourage the fish to swim towards shore to spawn, they say. The smelt have tapered off from what they were years ago.
Time of day is also a factor.
The smelt swim towards shore at night to spawn. But there is night and there is late night. A lot of people go after work. They are all up and down the lake from Wisconsin down to Indiana and up to Michigan. Where can also vary within a location.