Ice Fishing Tips -Check your local regulations! > Whitefish
Whitefish advice
viciouscircle:
Little trick i use...micro tube jigs like the ones for crappie on a small 1/8th Oz jig ;)
Gixxer:
For whities that ignore any agressive presentation use a small tear drop or jig, tipped with waxy, maggot or whatever on light line, leader of about 18 inches, max 6 pound fluoro, barrel swivel to BRAIDED line, I use 10lb power pro, no stretchy mono and with split shot above your leader. I use both a camera (marcum 825sd) and a good SONAR (Lowrance x510) and if using sonar it needs to be a good unit with ping turned up and chart speed up. You need to get your bait in front of the fish BUT slightly above his field of view. I watch the fish come in on the graph then look for him on the camera. Once its there I shake the bait, or gently jig but NEVER jig more than 2 inches to get his attention and then the game begins.
Once my bait and the fish leave the screen I go to my sonar and start the lifting game. A slow steady lift with a little shake and you dont stop until the fish does. I will lift as high as I can and then stand up and keep the steady lift and then I start to reel. Playing this game for over 20 feet is extremely common. Keep watching the graph make sure your speed matches the fishes rise. I have hit fish literally at my hole.
blacktrap:
Someone knows how to catch em ;D. How do you keep them from getting tangled in your camera cable? I always end up in a big mess if I leave other lines down when one is hooked up. I have switched over to the newer light braids that are out, 3 lb stuff is great.
cousin eddie:
Let me start by saying I am as far from an expert on whitefish, yesterday was only my first time fishing for them, but this was my experience on what worked on a day my veteran whitefisherman buddy deemed as a "pretty slow day".
Having said that, the bite was good right off the bat in 38' yesterday morning, it really didn't matter how you presented your rap or pimple. But that bite died around 8 then it was the chase and sniff game. Tried the dropper rigs, tried the jig above the spoon rigs, fish were there thick but they just didn't want anything to do with biting. We moved in to 24' where we could sight fish them. This helped a little, we picked off one here and there. It wasn't until I "broke" my jigging rap that I started hammering them. The plastic tail fin cracked while unhooking a fish, and the inverted V of the fin kind of flattened out causing the lure to spiral almost straight down instead of the usual glide. Well, the whitefish went crazy over the spiraling action! My buddy, sitting 20 feet from me, same lure/method still had lookers while there was a frenzy of whitefish under me. Having experienced this, I think the poster who said something about tubes on a regular jig head, they might be on to something! In my experience, tubes tend spiral the same way on the drop. The open water crappie arsenal will be in my sled next trip to Door County!
Now, sorry to kind of hijack the thread, but I have another question I was hoping someone could just help me with real quick. Like I said, first time whitefisherman here, so don't laugh too hard if this is a stupid question! The fish we caught yesterday I plan on taking to a shop to get smoke. Do you have to scale whitefish before bringing them in? I went ahead and scaled them even though I read conflicting advice on the 'net, some say you don't have to, most say you do. And I know it's probably up to the shop, too, they might have their own requirements. But in general does a scaly fish like a whitefish NEED to be scaled for smoking?
blacktrap:
Funny about your experience with the broken jigging rap, my wife had a jigging rap imitation from one of those cheap packages of jigs you see at wally world and that thing caught more whitefish that were stuck in the looking mode than anything else we had till a big laker cleaned it off. It was also broken. Guess I will be taking some old jigging raps along to be modified, I forgot all about that lure. She will get a kick out of this when she reads it later.
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