In this month’s article I spoke of using baits for most fish with whitefish being the exception. Whitefish have keen eyesight allowing them to feed on the tiny prey they prefer. They eat a whole assortment of small invertebrates from tiny snails to various amphipods and numerous insect nymphs. This makes it very difficult to duplicate their diet with the standard baits we would normally use. Even if we did try fishing baits of this size it would require the use of tiny hooks making positive hooksets very difficult.
To handle this challenge, I break out the flies and wireworms. The flies should be smallish, size 10’s or smaller and similar sizes for wireworms. I like to locate weedbeds and fish the edges, however, if the weeds are more than four feet deep, I’ll fish right on top of them. Everything is done by sight. I drop it down to near the bottom and don’t really jig the fly; rather, I slowly raise it and slowly twist it side to side. This slow action brings in lots of whites. Sometimes they’ll hit it as is, but if they show interest, then refuse I’ll bring my fly to a complete stop when the next whitefish shows. Quite often they’ll cruise in and hit.
When it comes to whites, respect their eyesight. Those large eyes are great at detecting small things so you can bet they see thicker lines. I use four pound mono for winter whites and it seems to be the best combination of line strength and diameter, meaning fewer refusals and more fish caught.