In the Western U.S. & Canada that pesky, much maligned Whitefish is spawning for the next several months. Trout will feed on the drifting pale eggs. So, as long as they are there in those cool streams, you might as well include pale, yellowish eggs in your Winter arsenal for the next several months. Weather yarn eggs or beads, the pale yellow/peach, the size of a pea, is an option for fish holding below the spawning Whitefish.
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- Whitefish Eggs (FlyfishUSA-Welches, Or)
Whitefish, both Lake Superior and Mountain are loaded up with eggs now. I’ve been smoking a few-tasty! The Superior’s are running in the Flathead now and the fishermen are on them. I guess I never really thought about an egg pattern- good idea!
You can also find “pegging” eggs or just plain plastic gel ones if you don’t want to fool with yarn. I think I also have seen color glue sticks or something somewhere that you can blob onto hooks.
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So, there are several varieties? I wondered about that because I saw Hudson Bay area as well. Very interesting.
“Any of several silvery food fishes (family Salmonidae, or Coregonidae), inhabiting cold northern lakes of Europe, Asia, and North America. Whitefish weigh about 2 – 5 lbs (1 – 2 kg); they eat insect larvae and other small animals. The Lake Superior whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis), also called whiting or shad, is the largest of the lake whitefishes. Ciscoes, or lake herring (Coregonus artedi), are herringlike food and sport fishes. The best sport fishes of the family are the Rocky Mountain whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) and other round whitefishes.” Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:whitefish
I also noted that the Superior WF is sometimes called a shad. But, it appears this is a different shad to our intro’d American Shad in the Columbia R. and elsewhere: “American Shad were introduced into the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento River system in California in the 1800s. Shad have spread throughout many river systems on the West Coast of North America. There is currently a very large shad population in the Columbia River. In recent years shad counts at Bonneville and The Dalles Dams have ranged from over two million to over five million fish per year. Shad return to the Columbia in May and June. Shad migrate upstream as far as above Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River and above Priest Rapids Dam on the Upper Columbia. Unlike many exotic/introduced species, it has not been confirmed that American Shad have serious negative effects on the environment or other native fish species in the Columbia.” All interesting and in some cases tasty.
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