Market watch: Smelt a silver lining on a rainy day

It was difficult to discern exactly what was inside the freezer case at Bruce Wry and Bruce Wry Jr.'s stand at the Minneapolis Farmers Market. At least at first. Under the glass doors were clear plastic bags filled with something silvery. But what?

Turns out it was smelt, plucked a week earlier from Lake Superior near Ashland, Wis. Father and son journey north from their New Richmond, Wis., farm, casting 50-foot nets into the cold waters to snare the diminuitive fish as they make their annual springtime spawning sojourn. "We caught 700 pounds in about 90 minutes," said the elder Wry.

Then the arduous and tedious task of cleaning begins; Wry devoted 15 hours on Easter Sunday to the chore, followed by a 12-hour stretch the next day. A large percentage of their catch lands at local smelt fries, but a portion is set aside for alert farmers market shoppers. The only hitch is that supply invariably outstrips demand, and fast. "Whenever we sell out, we sell out," said Wry. "That's it."

Wry is a 32-year farmers market veteran, and his outgoing son has been greeting customers for 19 years, selling at the Lyndale market on weekends and on Nicollet Mall at 6th Street on Thursdays. On Saturday, along with a selection of Wisconsin cheeses -- free sample alert! -- the Wrys were also selling 2-pound bags ($5) of ruby red, racquetball-sized tomatoes, raised hydroponically in their greenhouses, a pesticide-free environment kept warm with wood-burning stoves.

Coming soon: ramps, those assertively fragrant and highly prized wild onions. "We've got a woods that's just carpeted with them," said Wry. But, like smelt, ramps are a blink-and-you'll-miss-them commodity, so don't delay. "They won't last long," said Wry. "As soon as you get the full canopy on the trees, it's almost over."

RICK NELSON