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Duck was setting on the river as I turned to my son Bob."We'd better quit," I said, laying down my rod. Bob agreed, and our C’ree Indian guide turned to start the outboard.
We were on Gods River in Manitoba, fishing for big brook trout for which the river is famous. We had caught a four-pounder and a six-pounder by fishing nymphs deep. It was a short run back to Tom Ruminski's Gods River Lodge, situated on a point jutting into the river where it rushes out of Gods Lake.
Just as our guide yanked the starter cord I saw a ring appear on the water 30 feet away. "Wait," I said. "I think I saw a trout rise."
We all scanned the water intently. Then, closer this time, a fish rose and put out a wide ring. In the failing light we glimpsed a dorsal fin and a broad tail. "That riser ought to slam a dry fly," Bob said.
It was June 1969, and Bob, then 19, was a journalism student at the University of Wisconsin. We'd come to Manitoba from our home in Glenview, Illinois, at the start of his summer vacation period. Bob has fished in a lot of places and caught a lot of fish, but seeing that rise excited him.
By the time Bob had tied a dry fly to his leader, three other fish had risen within casting
range. Bob dropped his fly five feet upstream of a rise. The fly floated down nicely, but nothing happened. He cast a few more times with no luck, and then a fish swirled 20 feet away. Bob quickly put his fly over it. There was a soft sluuup, and the fish was on.
"He's strong," Bob said. The fish rolled on top, then swung downriver on a fast run. Gods River is swift, and any hooked fish that gets a fin hold in its current is no pushover to land. Bob tried to turn the fish.
It surfaced and flipped out in a heavy leap, but in the growing darkness we could tell only that the fish weighed between four and six pounds.
Bob recovered some line, but then the fish ripped upstream for 100feet. It drifted back down grudgingly, got below us, and seesawed over the surface, splashing, twisting, and turning. At last Bob was able to pump the fish to the stern, where our guide netted it. "A whitefish!" I exclaimed. "I should have known."
I recalled all the places in Canada where I'd encountered whitefish, and how they often came up at dusk, and how they had a distinctive rise pattern, and how they rolled on top or sulked deep or made short, strong runs.
I saw another rise, and in seconds I had a dry fly out there. A moment later I was hooked to a whitefish. We stayed on the river for two more hours, fishing in the sub arctic gloaming, occasionally moving a bit upriver or down to wherever we saw rising whitefish. When we quit we had 17 in the boat. They ranged from three to eight pounds the largest whitefish I'd ever caught. Our guide cleaned and froze them. We took them home, had them smoked, and enjoyed smoked whitefish for months.
There are many kinds of whitefish, but only two are important to anglers the lake(or common) whitefish, and the mountain (or Rocky Mountain) whitefish. Both are fine gamefish that take dry flies with abandon, as well as nymphs and other sunken flies, small spoons, spinners, and jigs. Lake whitefish are found in most unpolluted clear cold lakes of the northern U.S. and Canada. They are netted commercially in Canadian and U.S. lakes. The Great Lakes have a vast commercial fishery for whitefish, and in cities such as Chicago fresh and smoked whitefish are considered a delicacy.
I he name lake whitefish is something of a misnomer, for these fish thrive in rivers as well as lakes. Some of the rivers where I've caught lake whitefish include Saskatchewan's Clearwater, Black Birch, Fond du Lac, and Cochrane; Manitoba's Gods, Winnipeg, Hayes, and Wolverine; and Ontario's English and Severn.
Whitefish are rather ovate fish with silvery sides that shade to an olive-brown back. They are not handsome fish, having large coarse scales, bulging eyes, and almost sucker like mouths. Their tails are forked, and, like trout, they have an adipose fin. Because of their coldwater environment, lake whitefish grow slowly. The average whitie weighs under 3 1/2 pounds, though commercial fishermen have netted some that weighed more than 15 pounds.
Mountain whitefish are found in Western rivers and lakes. They average smaller than lake whitefish (under two pounds) but are similar in color and form. Mountain whitefish abound in many of the West's best-known rivers, including Wyoming's Snake, Colorado's Gunnison, and Montana's Madison, Yellowstone, Jefferson, Ruby, and Big Hole. I've had exceptional fly fishing for mountain whitefish on the Big Hole, and many times they provided sport when trout weren't hitting.
Mountain whitefish are insect eaters and will take dry flies, nymphs, and small streamers as readily as trout do. Many Western anglers fish for whitefish in winter, when they are said to be best to eat. But I've fried many mountain whitefish caught in summer while I camped on Western rivers, and my family and I like them
at least as well as trout. Lake whitefish, like the mountain variety, feed primarily on plank tonic Crustacean,nymphs and other insects and small minnows. Taking them on dry flies when they are rising or cruising the surface is the best sport. Nymphing is next best, but whitefish can also be taken by spinning, spin casting, or plug casting with small light lures.
One summer my son Bob and I went to McGavock Lake, Manitoba. With us were Earl Kennedy and George Marsh, old friends from Winnipeg. We were fishing mainly for big pike, but one evening we decided to catch some walleyes for dinner. We out boarded to a rocky point where our Indian guide, Phillip, said we should find walleyes. Bob and I went ashore to fish; Earl and George cast from their boat. I moved away from Bob, fished for a half-hour, and then headed back toward him. When I reached him he was playing a fish. "How ya doing?" I asked. "Great," Bob said. "I've caught six on a jig." "Six walleyes so soon?" "Not walleyes," Bob responded. "Whitefish." I watched as he landed his seventh. He tossed it behind him and then made another cast with his spinning outfit.
He let the quarter-ounce jig settle and began a slow retrieve, occasionally twitching the rod. On his third cast a whitefish hit. The fish came straight to the top, where itrolled and splashed. Then it made a deep-boring run. Line peeled from Bob's reel as he let the fish go against a light drag. "No sense pulling the hook out of that tender mouth," Bob said. Bob had pumped the fish almost to his feet when suddenly it scudded straight away across the surface, gray hounding like a marlin or a sailfish. Everything held, and Bob drew the fish close again. The whitefish made another last-ditch drive across the top,and this time the hook pulled out. "Can't win them all," Bob said, shrugging.
The next day at McGavock Lake was sunny and clear. Around midday I suggested that we try for whitefish, so Bob and I headed for the point where he'd caught them the evening before. Bob again used a small jig, and soon he hooked a whitie. The bottom along that rocky shore dropped off sharply, and 20 feet out it must have been 30 feet deep. Though no fish were rising, I tried a dry fly, hoping I might coax one up. I kept dropping the No. 12 Black Gnat in the same general area over the deep water.On about my fifteenth cast the water bulged as a fish swirled by the fly. I got just a glimpse of the triangular dorsal fin of a whitefish.
On my next cast I let the fly float high and dead-still on the glass-smooth water. After some minutes a silver olive back, followed by a dorsal fin and a forked tail, humped out of the water as a whitefish came up, out, and down on the fly. I set the hook lightly. Moments later I landed a firm-fleshed 3 1/2-pounder. Rises such as I've
described are characteristic of whitefish, though occasionally they will make a sucking, slurping, popping take. Despite the bright midday sun and the lack of a hatch to trigger rises, Bob and I kept right on taking whitefish that day. In fact, we caught them every day during our stay at McGavock Lake. The best fishing was during hatches, especially those that occurred in late afternoon and evening, when the sun was down. On Montana and Wyoming rivers I've taken countless mountain whitefish on nymphs, but McGavock Lake is where I had my most unusual nymphing experience with whitefish. One afternoon Bob and I were dry fly fishing from shoreline rocks and had taken a few whities. Bob called for me to come look at something."Look there," he said, pointing into the water.
Right at our feet, in three feet of water, a whitefish cruised back and forth, swimming close in among the rocks and occasionally tipping down as though snatching something from among the rock edges."He's nymphing!" I said in surprise. "He's grubbing along for nymphs the way a bonefish hunts crabs." I tied on a No. 14 Gray Nymph and pinched a split-shot sinker onto the leader. Then I cast the fly ahead the whitefish as he moved up shore spotted the nymph instantly and darted up and inhaled it. Soon I have flopping on the rocks. Bob switched to nymphs too, a the next two hours we caught a of 34 whitefish weighing three to five pounds apiece.
It's a pity that so few of the fishermen who go north for walleyes,trout, pike, and small mouths are ,aware of lake whitefish. Often when fishing is poor for other species, great sport can be had with whitefish.
On northern lakes it's wise to stay alert for whitefish rises, which often can easily go unnoticed. During big hatches of insects, whitefish might be seen rising everywhere, but there is no hatch, only an occasional dimple may reveal their presence. One morning at McGavock Lake and I were fly fishing for pike over a reef edged with weeds when I saw a dimple and widening ring 100 away. A few minutes later I saw other ring."I think we have some whitefish here," I announced. Bob and I tied on dry flies, and in the next half-hour we caught a dozen whitefish over that reef. We could have missed that fishing if I noticed those few weak rises. Other likely spots for whitefish addition to reefs, rocky shores points are places where rivers into lakes.
Once I was on Saskatchewan's Cochrane River, which rolls into Wollaston Lake. Whenever we tired of catching grayling, we would fish the river and take whitefish.
Whitefish often mix with arcticling. Years ago I fished Saskatchewan's Black Birch River with the late Ferrier of Regina. We caught grayling in the Black Birch's fast runs."Would you like to catch some fish?" Norm asked one day."You bet," I replied. We hiked to where the Black spills into the Clearwater River were rising in a broad shallow at the mouth of the Black Birch."There they are," Norm "Whitefish, and grayling too. splashy rises are grayling. They to a fly fast and take it quickly: dimples are whitefish."
I put a No. 16 Black Gnat over where I'd just seen a soft rise. A fish took, and I landed it. Cast similar rises, I caught five more fish, plus a grayling that apparently beat the whitefish to my fly. The ideal fly outfit for white an eight-foot, four-ounce that takes a DT-6 or DT-5 line. Use a tapered leader at least eight feet long 3X, 4X, or 5X tippet, depending upon the clarity of the water and the shyness of the fish.
Whitefish don't seem very particular about fly patterns, though dry flies should float high. Some Patten had success with include the Gnat, Light Cahill, Dark Cahill Adams, Quill Gordon, Mosquito, and resistible.
The best spinning tackle for whitefish is a 4 1/2-to-five-foot ultra light with two-to-four-pound-test line and a matching lightweight reel. With a very light spinning outfit you can better handle the small light lures that whitefish like. Here are more tips on whitefish: Don't strike fast or hard on a taking whitefish. You'll pull the hook out miss the strike altogether. Just tight the line and raise your rod slowly set the hook. If whitefish rise all around your but refuse it, you can often trigger strikes by skipping your fly over the surface.
As a rule whitefish prefer small flies Seldom is a fly larger than No.10 needed. Best sizes are 12 to 16, but sometimes 18's and 20's work.
Whitefish can be put down by an outboard motor. Take it easy, and a porch rising fish quietly. Rising whitefish cruise just under the surface, looking for naturals. They seldom hold stationary feeding positions, as do trout in streams. So when you see a whitefish rise, try to figure which way he is moving. Then cast 10 to 15 feet ahead of him. Whitefish have provided me with many hours of exciting angling. More fishermen should go after them in earnest. They are super fly-takers an super fighters.
The End
Outdoor Life September 1973