Dialing in on whitefishes

[MuskieBait]

Hey Eli, Michael and I are discussing Round Whitefish.

Lake Whitefish are source of frustration. It is difficult to pattern them. The best that people can do, a lot of times, are leave negative or neutral mood fish and search for active ones. We're marked them on Simcoe before...sometimes all day and consistently waves of them moving through, only to receive zero hits from them. We're not exactly new to the game either. Some of my friends had been fishing them for many, many years. That's just their nature.

Personally, I've caught them as shallow as 30 feet and as deep as 80 feet. I've caught them on flats, shelves, humps, drop offs, slopes, main basin...name one structure and I've likely caught them on it. I've had them hit on very active jigging, deadstick, twitching, vibrating, etc. I've caught them on Jigging Rap, tube jigs, Williams, Bad Boyz, lipless cranks, and even small 1/64oz Marmooska jigs. I've thrown the kitchen sink at them many days and yet came home without even a hit.

Funny thing, I was just speaking with MA today while he was out there...and was getting play-by-play about what funny creatures they are.

We've also noticed a phenomenon. They sometimes appear to be in a negative mood. What I mean by this is that when you have any kind of lure or bait down the hole, you will not even see a fish on the sonar. The moment you reel your line up, fish miraculous appears. Then you are in a frenzy to drop something down the hole, but as your lure/bait is dropping down, the fish would swim away. If you think I'm crazy and it's just a coincidence, a few of us had seen this happen before...not single cases either. Often times, we're having a really slow day and we're constantly changing lures to try to find something to attract fish. Of course, while we're tying on a new lure, which may take a couple of minutes while digging through the tackle trays and decided which lure to wash next, a fish would show up. The excitement and rush to get something down the hole often slows the process of trying the line to the lure, which is why it takes some time. I've even watch a fish just sat there for 5 minutes as I tie on a new swivel, a longer length of thinner diameter fluorocarbon leader and rig up a very light and delicate live bait rig...only to see the fish disappear when my bait finally hit bottom over 80 feet of water. Frustrating, you bet!

Round Whitefish...don't even know where to begin. Michael and I are working on it LOL. They are difficult for many reasons. Lack of information (even to MNR scientists), somewhat nomadic lifestyle, tricky diet (in some lakes they only feed on zooplankton), and a wide variety of habitats. I was just saying to Michael the other day...even if you marks a school of fish that appeared to be Round Whitefish, how could you be certain that you really are fishing for them if you don't ever catch any of them? Some of these lakes have Lake Whitefish and Round Whitefish as you said...plus they may also have White Sucker or even Longnose Sucker. You could very well be fishing over a school of suckers assuming they are Round Whitefish.

With some lakes that are deeper than 100 feet, some underwater camera may not even have long enough cable to lower down for a verification. The fact that you are limited to one spot (unless you intend on turning the ice into swiss cheese as we say) further limits your ability to find their location. The fact that they roam around prevents you from chasing them on the ice.

Open water doesn't make it easy either. Say even if we find them, verified with the camera, in 60 feet of water, you're affected with wind and waves from holding position over the school. Chasing them is still difficult. Presenting anything small enough to entice them over that deep water, is also very challenging.

From what I've seen, most Round Whitefish are caught in stream when they follow other spawning fish to feed on the drifting eggs. In Maine, they often follow spawning Shad and Herring around, earning them the name "shad waiters".