Deep Water Whitefish?

[blindedguru]

I was reading some forums in Ontario and they seem to icefish for whitefish in 25-40ft+ depth, and have good results. Has anybody had luck at that depth before? You'd have to hold the line or use a bober. Im debating on trying that on Sylvan Lake, what are your thoughts?

[Habfan]

Never fished for them deep in Alberta, but constantly caught whites in 50-80 ft of water in Lake Diefenbaker. Depends on food sources in the body of water you are fishing !!!

[Fishin' Fool]

We used to see lots of whites in 23-24 fow at Sylvan. That's about as deep as I've regularly seen them.

[Red Bullets]

I have caught whites in 25 to 30 feet while fishing perch. Castmasters, wetaskiwin specials, 1/64 oz. lead head jigs with tiny yellow tails(or wrapped like a wireworm) or russian hooks all work.

Hand line. On deep water, try different levels. Sometimes the fish are up high or mid level.

[SNAPFisher]

We do not have really any lakes in Central AB that can compete with much from Ontario. A lot of the white fishing tips come from Lake Simcoe...or so it seems to me.

http://www.lakesimcoeoutdoors.com/la..._whitefish.php

Some of the lakes in NB1 would have a good depth to try something similar - Cold Lake, Pinehurst, Wolf.

Try it if you're game.

[crownb]

Years ago in lac st Anne at our perch honey hole we would catch 1 or 2 whites a day in 30 feet of water, I would always hope it was a monster perch!

[Tfng]

Yup. Green and silver Swedish pimple, add a red treble on the top split ring. Lay it down on bottom and then stand it up. Most fish come on the top hook. I've had luck in water as deep as 100.

[BPman]

I grew up fishing whitefish in Lake Simcoe, about 60 miles north of Toronto and through the winter we fished them from about 40 ft to 90 or so. One night I landed 200 lb from a depth of 80 ft - no limit and we could sell them in those days. The standard set up for whitefish at depth was a 2-way or 3-way weighted spreader with #6 bait holder hooks using salted emerald shiner minnows and set right on the bottom. We could also chum the holes with salted minnows and often did below a permanent shack. To register a bite, we used a jigging stick about a foot long rigged to balance on a movable cross-bar in a holder like a balance beam so when the fish picked up the minnow, the stick would tilt back and we would grab it and set the hook then hand line them to the hole. Just before the ice went out in Spring, we would often find them in water shallow enough that we could see them where they searched for mayfly nymphs over a sand bottom - more like we do here and a small copper lure would get them. If I only had Wetaskiwin spoons then...
Out here we tend to fish much shallower year around and the whites seem more focussed on invertebrates like backswimmers and scuds rather than minnows. I have tried a variety of minnow type lures that work in Lake Simcoe without any success here.