Whitefish fry

Imitate this?

Did some bug netting at the Cobblestone fishing access on Montana's Madison River this morning. This is way down low on the river. Not many mayflies. There are quite a few caddis cases. Virtually no Pteronarcys or Skwala stoneflies this far down the river, but vast numbers of golden stoneflies. Mind-boggling numbers of midge larvae. A few scattered cranefly larvae and sculpins galore. Lots (lots) of baby whitefish too. This one is about an inch and a half long. There are so many baby whitefish in March it must be most of them get eaten long before they grow up. Else the river would be bank to bank whitefish. Baby whitefish have a long skinny profile with mottled, sculpin-colored backs and bright bright white bellies. They flash like silver dollars when they move. There are lots of theories about why killer whales are black on top and white below. What about whitefish fry? They are even whiter on the belly than the eventual adults. Whitefish spawn early--or late, depending on how how you look at it. They do their thing in Jan/Feb I think. So these 1-1/2" long whitefish minnows must be yearlings from last winter. Ainoway they grew two inches in a week or two.


http://montana-riverboats.com/fragme...tefish-fry.jpg

Neat pic. JD Miller tied up a nice whitefish Clouser a few years back on rockymtnfly.com but it looks like the fly has been pulled off the board. Seems something like that, on a fairly small hook, would work; lots of white buck or calf tail underneath and olive topped or mixed with black on the upper, plus some flash.

Regards,
Scott

You could try Oliver Edwards' Waggy Tailed Sculpin. Not the easiest of ties but works very well.
Here's a step by step. You should use white dubbing for the underside. Mark it up as you like for the fish you want to imitate.
Cheers,
A.

Looks like something a Scott Sanchez double bunny would imitate nicely. Easy to "match the hatch" colors with that pattern.

Can't recall ever seeing any whitefish under about 5-6", and those were not nearly so brown on top. But coloration on whitefish seems to be highly "system dependent" with a great range of coloration in the adults. On the Big Lost tailwater at Mackay ID, the whitefish have a pinkish tone, which speaks to their isolation, and why they are protected on that piece of water.

John

P.S. Strikes me as curious that there are no salmonfly nymphs in a place where the golden stone nymphs are prolific.

Yes. I've been thinking a squirrel strip Matuka with white marabou belly might do it.
RE> "curious no salmon flies"

This is way way down low, near the Three Forks of the Missouri. The water speed is slower and siltation from irrigation worse than up above. The Pteronarcys nymphs are vegetarian detritus eaters. The Golden stoneflies are carnivorous. I don't in any way know how that explains it. But there just aren't many salmon flies down low. There are a few. But not many. The Goldens may well be thicker than up above.

RE> "never seen white fish smaller than 5-6""
Well this is March. These two inch long guys may well be 5" by June. I don't know. There sure are a lot of them down low in the river. The few browns I've killed down low seem to specialize in sculpins, baby white fish and crayfish. The rainbows eat lots of caddis cases, golden stoneflies and what ever they can find.

Ya know when you post a thread with a name like "Whitefish Fry" some of us Southern boys start looking for our hushpuppy recipe.

Try Jeff Guerin's "Squirrely Tukass",listed on his web site under "Specialty Flies": http://www.littlemissouriflyfishing.com/

It has a white belly, gold rib, and is topped and collared with a matuka wing/collar of pine squirrel.
For about 20 years, it has proven to be a killer pattern on similarly colored sculpins on the White River in Arkansas.

Attachment 10063

This doesn't have anything to do with the fly patterns, but whitefish are actually fall spawners. Late September-October in the Yellowstone, which is why we try our best not to nymph then and if we do we do it with orange or yellow-headed flies (their eggs are about 3/32" and medium yellow). It's real hard getting a nymph to a trout at that time because the whities jump on everything during their spawn. Because water temps are cold, incubation is slow and the eggs don't even hatch for around 10-12 weeks, with the fry not emerging from gravel until February or so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_mountain_whitefish

You are right about whitefish spawning times. I think it must be Jan/Feb when the eggs start to become mobile egg fry. So I still think the 1-1/2" long guys I photographed above must be yearlings from last year. The one serious drawback to catch and release (other than the idle frying pan) is so seldom getting to inspect trout stomachs. Perhaps I should experiment with a turkey baster. If I (or anybody) did that (emptied a stomach and then let the fish go) it also seems only fair to push a few trout-feed-pellets down the gut before letting it go.

The daily bag limit in Montana is 5 fish per person per day. I kill one or two less than that every year. Usually on river camping trips. The morning campfire is a ritual of sorts. I always inspect the stomach. And there's almost always a surprise or two. I'm beginning to wonder how many of the half-digested minnows I've seen were actually whitefish, rather than the sculpins I assumed they were.


...anyway....there was something whitefish special about Jan/Feb/March. I got that much straight from the horse's mouth. From the now retired Dick Vincent, when he told us about an as-yet-unexplained decline in whitefish populations in many Montana river systems. And also about the alarming appearance of big pike in the lower Gallatin, down near Three Forks. The pike escaped from an illegally planted pond, on a rich man's hobby ranch. They're thick at Tosten dam now. Quite a few locals fish there now, just to catch those pike. How far up the Gallatin, Jefferson and Madison they eventually migrate is the big question right now.

Those pike have been there for five years or so now. None of river fishermen catch them--even though they're there--because the few floaters who negotiate the last 5 miles of the Gallatin are still trying to catch trout. To get at those pike you have to toss giant streamers back into the warm, shallow lagoons that are common down through those last few root-entangled bends of the river. The fish shockers have taken pike up to 48". Right from the Gallatin!

I was going to suggest a matuka, with white floss or cheniel body and a brown or furnace hackle. The squirrel strip version suggested by pittendrigh would be good too.

- Jeff