How to locate and catch early-season whitefish through the ice

Since whitefish are very mobile and their diet is so diverse, locating them during the winter can be tough.

Early in the ice-fishing season, search structures and shorelines where the fish spawned in November and December. Whitefish lay their eggs on shallow cobble substrates and often stick around and revisit such areas well after the lake freezes. They’ll then feast on any wayward eggs—nothing in nature is wasted—that haven’t nestled safely between the cracks and crevices.

With this in mind, one of my favourite early-winter whitefish presentations is to tip a Marmooska-style jig with one or two trout eggs and jig it close to bottom. It’s important to use limp six-pound line so the buoyant eggs float naturally above bottom when you delicately move them.