Lake whitefish

Where they live: Lake Superior and many deep, cool, well-oxygenated lakes in northern Minnesota, including a lot of the Boundary Waters and the Upper Mississippi drainage.

When folks chase them: Flies, small spinners, and jigs in the spring hatch. A spoon-and-jig rig under the ice. A fall gill-net season you look up before you buy mesh.

Lake whitefish are the silver fish with the snout that sticks out past the lower jaw. Cisco wear the opposite face. If you remember nothing else from a Lake of the Woods weekend, remember the chin.

I have filed both of them under “herring” because the cooler was full and the Latin was not. The Baudette office has a whole page because people like me keep doing that. Adipose fin, forked tail, olive to greenish-brown back, white fins, a dark edge on the tail. Sometimes called humpback because the head looks small for the body. (MinnAqua — lake whitefish, Baudette fisheries)

What to throw

Spring: flies, small spinners, and jigs during insect hatches. That is the MinnAqua sentence, and it is why a Blue Fox is allowed on this page. Winter: a spoon and a jig together. Tie a flasher so it hangs about 1 to 2 feet below the ice, then another 1 to 2 feet of line, then a white jig or a small minnow. Crappie minnows under a bobber, anywhere in the water column, also get bit. They will swim right under the ice. (MinnAqua — lake whitefish)

The white jig we can point at is the glo-white Northland Flat Fry in the ice tray. The small spinner is the Blue Fox. Both are in the boat kit. The trays are Spinners and cast days and the MN ice tray. We do not have a flasher spoon listed. Use the jig they named, and do not let us sell you a story about a spoon that is not on the card.

There is also a fall gill-net season. Mesh sizes and the lakes that allow it are a DNR lookup, not a paragraph we are going to freelance.

Rod & reel

The lesson describes the rig, not the blank. Light spinning covers the spring spinner and jig. Under the ice you are fishing a short line and a white jig, which is an ice rod’s job. The Meat Stick in that same tray is the ice rod we can point at. We are not going to publish a 7-foot power rating the agency never wrote.

They eat off the bottom as they grow up: amphipods, fingernail clams, snails, opossum shrimp, midge larvae, small fish. Little ones start on zooplankton. (MinnAqua — lake whitefish)

Where in Minnesota

Lake Superior, and many deep, cool lakes in the north that stay oxygenated in summer. A lot of Boundary Waters lakes. Lakes in the Upper Mississippi drainage. Baudette adds Lake of the Woods, where anglers catch cisco often and whitefish only now and then. (MinnAqua — lake whitefish, Baudette fisheries)

The inland state record on that lesson is 12 pounds, 5 ounces, from Leech Lake in Cass County. The largest on their record is 42.67 pounds, from Lake Superior in 1918. Lake of the Woods is the other room we publish where the DNR says both cisco and whitefish live. Our lake essays do not always bother to list them. LakeFinder does.

Early in life, lake trout, salmon, pike, walleye, and burbot eat them. In inland lakes the adult predator the lesson names is us. In Superior, sea lamprey too. The Ojibwe word the lesson prints for the Great Lakes fish is Adikameg. People have been particular about this fish for a long time. The particularity is about food and a life in cold water, not about a leaderboard.

Seasons, including the ice

Spawn is fall, usually mid-October into early December, when the shallows drop below 45°F. Nights, over gravel or rubble near shore or around islands. Eggs sit in the crevices through winter and hatch in early spring. A big female can lay somewhere from 10,000 to 130,000. (MinnAqua — lake whitefish)

Ice is the method above: flasher, white jig or minnow, or a crappie minnow under a bobber, including right under the lid. Baudette’s caution still stands — on a lot of days the silver fish on the ice is a cisco. Check the snout before you announce the species to the truck.

Open-water dates are the inland book unless the lake has a special reg or you are on Superior, which has its own chapter.

The rules

The gill-net season is the one people get casual about. Do not. Lakes and mesh sizes are published for a reason.

• MinnAqua — lake whitefish
• Fishing seasons
• Fishing regulations
• Inland seasons and limits
• Lake Superior seasons and limits
• Special regulations, by water