I don't fish for Whitefish often, so I usually depend on some tips from other online acquaintances when it comes to these critters.
Last year Mike Binns Pointed me to Sylvan lake. JAN 2023 my father in law and I tried without luck. We saw a few swim by without catching any.
Fast forward almost 365 days to December 2023 and it was a whole different story. I parked the vehicle on the ice and walked out to the spot. Started drilling holes and I was in 14 feet of water... so I drilled toward shore to get into 8 feet of water.
I was marking perch and whites in 9 to 10 feet. So I set up the tent. Saw a few whitefish pass without interest. Caught a 9 inch perch and lots of little ones.
The morning produced no whitefish for me. Fortunately, the afternoon brought on a fantastic bite.
I finally started catching fish on a yellow wire worm above a Northland Tackle Rattl'n Flyer Spoon.
I actually hooked 2 on the wire worm and another 7 on the spoon. They like movement, and small jiggles seemed to do the trick.
Keeping the rig a couple feet off the bottom to half way up the column worked well.
The limit is 5 and they are very nice quality whites. We smoked some and made stuffed jellied fish with the rest. The fish was excellent!
