Mountain Whitefish - wont' bite?

[westbranch]

I saw some big schools of mountain whitefish this past fall when trout fishing and tried to get them to bite on a few different things and had no responses. Even a small jig tipped with maggots. It sounds like they bite better in the winter, so hopefully get out in the next couple weekends to try again. I am thinking I will try some of the baited jigs again and maybe buy a couple nymphs to rig up on my spinning rod to float through some of the holes I found them in. Hoping to get some for the smoker.

I see articles that talk about catching a couple whitefish for every trout caught, which has not been my experience at all. I was trying to keep those cutthroats off my hook Any tips from someone with more experience?

 

[belly-deep]

I used to catch a lot of whitefish on a jighead tipped with green Berkley 1” crawfish.

 

[jerm8352]

Worm dragged on the bottom catches them.

 

[rtraverdavis]

Where I fish a lot in Oregon, it’s hard to keep the whiteys off a size 16 or 18 bead head prince nymph.

 

[Cheater]

A bead head anything in size 16-20 is deadly for whiteys.

 

[Nameless Range]

Caught and smoked hundreds when I lived in Missoula. My experience targeting whitefish is really limited to a few stretches of one river and was primarily a summer/fall thing but this was my methodology:

Find a hole
Sink a worm to the bottom
Put beer on hand
Repeat

If I recall, after Dec 1 the river became artificial lure/maggots only and it was more difficult, but I’d load a hook up with maggots and sink those and have success.

Hope ya catch a pile. They are under appreciated.

 

[LMD423]

We use to fish for them in the winter use a little fly made out of peacock hearl with a couple maggots on it . Would use a slip bobber setup and try and drift through holes setting the depth so was just bouncing bottom with a sinker a couple inches below the fly.

 

[Scarey]

Caught and smoked hundreds when I lived in Missoula. My experience targeting whitefish is really limited to a few stretches of one river and was primarily a summer/fall thing but this was my methodology:

Find a hole
Sink a worm to the bottom
Put beer on hand
Repeat

If I recall, after Dec 1 the river became artificial lure/maggots only and it was more difficult, but I’d load a hook up with maggots and sink those and have success.

Hope ya catch a pile. They are under appreciated.

Sounds like my kind of fishin.

 

[westbranch]

Thanks for the tips! Fishing plans were put on hold due to injury. But I might try to limp out to the riverbank on a Sunday afternoon in March. I swear the one hole I was looking at last October had 100+ fish in it.