A longer day but got a couple

Out with the family again exploring different waters and also enjoying the amazing colours and the glorious weather this time of year...our favourite time of year (cool but water still warm enough to enjoy the outdoors and most of all no bugs!). Puttered around for a while marking very little and those odd marks here and there didn't seem to be interested in anything so I stopped stopping to try for them. Then we entered a bay and marked lots of bait and then quite a few solid marks in a row so stopped and tried. Some chases and a few missed light bites - went on this way for a while but enough activity to keep us trying at that spot. Then got two WF and a small laker (easy release again so I was happy with that) within about 20min and then all went dead and stopped marking. Clearly, they moved on (or were moving through where we found them so we were lucky to pick up a couple as they moved through). We had no idea where they went and my battery was red-lining so decided to head back ... I still ended up having to paddle a bit for the last 1+ km to help the battery out (it was still turning the motor but barely). Just happy that it was a nice calm day and what wind that was out there was kind of pushing us in the direction of our launch. Now, I am thinking I may need to get another (but smaller) battery that will get me back home once the bigger battery dies. I was monitoring the battery meter but I don't think that thing is too accurate as it jumped from full (green) to red (lowest level) very quickly. There is a yellow and another red level before the lowest red and I never saw the battery at those levels - just went from green to lowest red.
I was surprised there was not a soul on the lake (but there were lots of people on land around the lake) - I guess most have put their boats away already. Another nice few days coming up so hoping to get out as much as I can (maybe at least a couple of hours each day if that is possible).
One WF was about 19" and the other one was 22" (a good size for this lake, I think - it was a chubby one at 3.5lbs)....both were also females with eggs. Smaller one was given to some friends who have never had whitefish and actually thought I was just talking about the colour of the meat of the fish They were impressed with the fish and thought it tasted better than most fish they have bought in stores. Hope everyone is able to get out there over the next few days to take advantage of this great weather.

Nice fish. Lucky you were not miles and miles away, you would have been paddling for hours.

Excellent, I also got into a couple yesterday. One Male one Female in the picture. 45fow consistently suspended about 25ft down. Lots of bubbles coming up from the bottom on the graph saw one bubble come up size of my fist! Decomposition of deep weedbeds maybe, not sure.

Beautiful whitefish John and Nicolas.

I fished my lake in Muskoka today (just posted here), and all I got are laker and laker and laker. And the whitefish all of a sudden are no where to be found.

Wow, those are some large WF. All the ones I have caught are in the 19-22" range and between 2 to 3.5 lbs. I have no complaints of course as these are greater eating size fish (and very different tasting than Simcoe's whitefish - much less fatty than Simcoe's).
Very interesting they were suspended. All of the WF I have caught so far this year have been within the bottom 10' (of course some come rocketing up to get my bait that maybe up high sometimes or on the drop - I always think they may be lakers but many have been WF). I love seeing them come up with so much commitment...that is, if they bite but if they do not, that rejection is such a downer (to see them swim down almost as quickly) because you get yourself ready for that hit .

About "fish rocket up to bait" - guys, remember, it is 2D interpretation of sonar signal at fish entry into the area.

In reality we have a cone of that beam, not straight, kind of washed out on outside edges - 20 degrees cone is approximate estimation of that beam, based on some calculations of probability of returned signal processing. More likely we have almost round bubble

When fish entering this "cone"-"bubble" from side, it is always interpreted by device as coming from bottom up. In realty, fish seeing the bait, normally watching a bit up or down, and coming straight to it, sometime just running along the same depth as bait has, with majority running a little bit up, but without significant angle.

It changes the imagination a bit, right?
But it is what we saw on cameras during some past fishing cases.

Just imagine how big they’d be if his arms were longer !!!

Very nice pair of Whitefish.

Arnie

Just imagine how big they’d be if his arms were longer !!!

Just imagine how big they’d be if his arms were longer !!!

Thanks and tasty too.

I agree with some of that. But there are many times when you can see the fish on bottom and the lure and then you start the slow retrieve up and you see that fish take off bottom and towards your lure with hits happening 5-15' from bottom. And there are times when you drop the lure to bottom and bounce down there and get the hit there. Only difference that I have found with lakers and whitefish when they do the chasing is that the lakers can be a bit faster with the chasing (but then again, I never really know a hooked fish is a laker or WF until I see it clearly). So some WF are coming up quite a distance to hit the bait even if some of that maybe due to the cone angle, etc. So far, the coolest is what I think is the fast chase where I can barely see the sonar signal from the fish (thinking it maybe noise and then last second thinking maybe a fish and then the rod loads up....very exciting to say the least).

Having followed your posts, I'm thinking I have to give this whitefish thing a try. Can you suggest what lures/baits I should be using ? I've got some smaller Vibratos, Pimples, etc. or are you using live bait rigs?

Yes, this what I said, too....
Sometime fish is following the lure when you raise it up, and you see it is the same one which was at the bottom.
However, more frequently I see the shade comes from nowhere, detected only on entrance to the cone of signal and having fast attack to bait.
On screen you see that as coming from the bottom, looks like same way as following fish on slow move up does, but not in reality.

I am playing with sensitivity on my fishfinder, trying to keep combination of sensitivity and contrast ( Hummingbirds Helix 7) to see every distant shade, trained in the past on Lake Simcoe chasing Lakers The best sonar performance, IMXO, is when you see a bit of noise on the screen, but clearly separating objects from that noise. The width of reliable fish detection quite large that on clear screen and just fish shades under the boat.