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There are a lot of whitefish down here. In the warmer months they are offshore, often out in 80-120 feet. If you are ever trolling and mark a bunch of fish on the bottom out there, odds are they are whitefish, especially if you are dragging lures near bottom and not catching any trout

When the nearshore water is 50 degrees or less they'll be in tight feeding nearshore. Like southshore said, in the fall they are gorging on lake trout eggs.

From about late October through early April they can be caught from shore. Not a ton of people do it, but those that know how can do very well. I just wrote an article about it that should be in the upcoming Outdoor Indiana magazine

They aren't really targeted by boaters but are by-catch occasionally, usually by winter perchers or lake trout jiggers. If one wanted to target them via boat I think you could probably do pretty well


And yes, most of the people targeting them are eating them. Myself included

We ate one last year that we caught at portage. Baked it with lemon pepper and butter. Outstanding.

I like whitefish , interested and following.

They sure eat a lot of them up around Door County. They're quite good.

We ice fished for them in Sturgeon Bay for years, what a blast and they taste great, lots of people don't know how to treat them. Very soft meat fish, got to keep them cold or on ice.

Lake trout eggs never worked for me and my brother. We tried them a number of times in Trail Creek. Brown trout eggs are the best, we have been at St Joe in Nov and Dec and hammer the steelhead on Brown trout eggs. When we ran out of Brown trout eggs we switched to cured steelhead spawn, catch rate dropped 80%. Fresh King salmon eggs from the Manistee river taken at end of September and fished on Trail creek are great. The eggs are washed in the river and need to be used with in 10 days. Fresh steelhead head spawn works ok.

Bruce

I could make prime a rib that you wouldn’t feed to your dog, but if you find the right senorita to cook for you tripe can be about the best thing you ever ate. I think species of egg matters less than how its handled. Not saying it doesn’t matter at all just saying treat them right. If I don’t find a hen king here real quick, I’m going to be fishing laker eggs this fall. (if I’m “lucky” enough to catch one)