Whitefish

[antlercarver]

Before commercial fishing was closed province wide several years ago, I used to net about 20 lakes in the north-east part of the province. We always caught whites 8 lb. and a few even bigger at Amisk by Boyle. Since it has not been netted for about 20 years I would not be surprised by 10-12 lb.whites. It is a very deep lake so we added extra floats and floated the net on the surface even in 60-120 ft of water. Only time we went shallow was around end of October. I helped shut this lake down for 4 inch mesh which was supposed to be used for tulibee, but was actually a bootleg market for walleye.
I do not fish any more, but if I liked catching big whites, Amisk is where I would
try. The whites there were very fat, so must have a lot of food and may be
hard to convince to bite. Hope this helps

[curtz]

I use to buy whites from Calling Lake, there was some beautiful whites come out of there also. There has to be a lot of whites in these lakes, trick is catching them. I really enjoy smoking and giving away whites.

[pikeman06]

Boy if a guy could ever figure those big ones out in lakes like that....they got to bite something, somewhere, sometime in there. Old moose lake we fished religiously in the late 80's early 90's for big perch and lots of them. One day fishing with the old standby smallest five of diamonds and a gob of fresh maggots, in comes a few monster whites into our area and I nailed one followed by my lifelong fishing buddy. One of the most memorable experience we shared together. We sight fished that point and got the odd tullibee which were huge for tullibee as well as perch but that one day the big whites were on the prowl and we nailed a pair of 8lbers. No pattern at all.

[buckmaster]

Over 20yrs ago we used to catch very large whites at hanmore lake. The lake has gone downhill in the last 7-8yrs now.

[SNAPFisher]

Any NB1 lake and I would be concerned with wormy whites. Never got any from Amisk, Hanmore or Moose for that matter. How did you guys find them for worms?

So far for me Siebert, Marie and WhiteFish. All had wormy buggers.

[antlercarver]

When I commercial fished Amisk and N. Buck the fish were export grade, Skelton lake whites are razor backed because they are wormy.

[The Spank]

Big whites were very common on the waters I fished in Ontario though few targeted them, myself included. Most I caught were incidental when fishing lakers or walleye. Of those I did catch most were on a williams whitefish 50/50 gold/silver 2 1/2” jigged plain or a shiner minnow on a tip up. The few guys who did target them used pinhead shiners(1”-2” shiners) on a weighted spreader rig which had a hook attached to each end via a wire or mono lead. They would put a pinhead shiner on each end and lower it to about 1” from bottom. Line was on a tip up type rig that balanced on a stand. When the fish picked the minnow off bottom the rig tipped upward generally from being set so close to bottom and the fisherman simply lifted the stick off the stand and swept upward setting the hook in one motion then brought the fish in by handlining.
This was the traditional Ontario method of catching whitefish. I think this rig originated with the old Finlanders who settled in Ontario at the start of the 20th century?

[SNAPFisher]

When I commercial fished Amisk and N. Buck the fish were export grade, Skelton lake whites are razor backed because they are wormy.

Thanks!
Coincidentally, that is one of the new lakes I was interesting in learning. Not really interested in more whites this year so I might check it out for other species or for whites next year. So much to explore, so little time... :)

[pikeman06]

Marie they were disgustingly wormy. Elinor too. Agreed. Ironwood had big whites at one time and Pinehurst up by the rock island too. Good luck trying to catch them I hope somebody figures them out. Untapped treasure right there.

[antlercarver]

Can not remember which lakes it was from, when cleaning fish some were full of small
pea sized clam shells in their gut. Don`t know where those tiny clams live, mud, sand ??