Its cold. There is simply no other way to explain it. As I step out of my truck I am greeted with a heavy stiff wind coming onto the shore from Lake Michigan. Snow is in the sub freezing air, and waves crashing onto the Pere Marquette break wall create a perpetual wet mist in the air. To the outsider, the idea of standing on a Michigan pier in December may seem a bit perplexing, but the reward for those who brave the cold is whitefish.
Making my way down the channel wall I can see a group of fisherman nearly standing shoulder to shoulder. The concept of spreading out and allowing each other room to cast, is left for those fishing for steelhead and salmon. The name of the game in the whitefish world is staying warm. By standing close, fisherman help block the wind for one another, net fish for each other, and keep close tabs on possible rouge waves that within seconds could sweep an unsuspecting fisherman into the icy cold waters.
“How they biting?” I question as I take my place in line closest to the lake. I receive a few chuckles. The question is comparative to the co-worker who asks if its Friday yet on Monday morning. For decades it was considered a fact that whitefish didn’t bite. Or at least none of us had ever encountered one that had. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) had made claims that they would bite on small spoons, fresh salmon eggs, and wax worms, which after careful pondering I had determined is a sneaky way for them to haze the newbies. Nothing screamed greenhorn like showing up to the pier with a perch rig tipped with spawn. When you saw it, you knew they were in for a long, cold, fishless night.
While catching a brook trout on a dry fly took skills, and hooking into a Muskellunge on open water, involved a lot of luck, whitefish only took grit to withstand the brutal elements. Until the early 2000’s the only thing fisherman equipped themselves with was a jigging spoon and a 4/0 treble hook. With the early winter run, whitefish were stacked so thick into the channels that lowering the weighted hook to the bottom and waiting until a fish bumped into it, and setting the hook was all that was required.
It felt a lot like snagging, it looked a lot like snagging, and the results were quite often an illegal hooked fish in the belly or tail, which by any definition was snagging. The problem with this technique was that it was so heavily used, that local game wardens would only patrol the winter piers just to make sure that any fish that was not hooked between the gill plates were set loose. The intention of fisherman was not enforced. This resulted in thousands of fatally hooked fished being released back into the water. There had been much talk during that time, about the possibilities of lowering the bag limit from 14 to 6 and allowing all foul caught fish to be kept. The MDNR in the end had decided that they didn’t want to promote illegal methods of fishing, but were unable to patrol it effectively, so the practice continued.
Like anything else, as time passed, manufacturing techniques of fishing gear got better. With tungsten weights, fisherman were finally able to get their lures to the bottom of the fast moving channel water, with a lower profile. People became more enthralled by the challenge and the sport of fishing, they began to experiment with different cut baits, shrimp, artificial plastics, and swimbaits that could entice a bite from the highly coveted table fare.
Strangely over time, the regulations of snagging fish are becoming self regulated, and the MDNR has begun conversations to limit the size of hooks to deter those who are still determined to keep their techniques of the past.
Catching whitefish has evolved from, those who brave the cold, to those who brave the cold with skills, making it one of the toughest fish to legally catch in the great lakes region.