Do you folks in the great lakes use any bait on your lure as you jig for them this time of year ? A few are being caught now at 50 ft . I am told some some pack salt around them and bake and they are better than plain baked .What bait if any do you use ?

Can't help you much but I like my whitefish baked like any other fish, in my mind they are as good if not better than anything out there.

As far as bait, all I ever used was flies, caught lots of whitefish while fishing for Atlantic Salmon in the Soo.

Nobody I know fishes for them in my end of lake Erie. When the lake used to freeze some would be caught through the ice incidentally. Whitefish around here are traditionally smoked

We don't target them, but catch a couple each year going for bass and pike

A buddy from work targets them and swears by a jigging rapala.

Yes.whole kernel corn in a heavy garlic mix like they do in the west for kokany (sp)
Has worked well the past couple of summers on Lake Superior.

Osky

I'm sure that Cohunt can help with all his research on the Greats Lakes that he had.
One thing that I found is some lake whitefish never get past the point of only eating invertebrate life and remain at 1 pound vs the predatory ones that eat minnows = 4-5 pounds in 4 years

Whitefish are a popular fish in my area. Higgins lake, just a few minutes north of my home, used to be loaded with them. The folks usually only target them through the ice. They use all manner of bait......macaroni, wigglers (mayfly larvae), spawn, and canned corn. There are a bunch of folks that swear corn kills the fish that eat it. I don't know how much truth there is in that, but I have only used spawn(salmon/steelhead eggs) or wigglers. As for eating them.....I usually bake them or just fry them like any other fish. I like eating them. They are also smoked by lots of people. We also have Round Whitefish in the Great lakes, as well as in some inland waters. Most here call them Menominee instead of Round Whitefish. They are, as the name implies, more cylindrical in shape than the Lake Whitefish, and average well smaller. Up in places in Ontario I have caught many nice Lake Whitefish on spoons and minnows. never did that here at home.

Everyone that I’ve caught has been on a white jigging rap.

Thank you very much for this information we have some native Rocky Mountains whitefish here that are round and they are not terribly good eating according to my taste they are mainly in the streams I do not like them to eat and I do not target down but I do like the lake whitefish thank you very much for your help

Quite a bit of ice fishing on Green Bay during the winter. Several people from our area do it. Can be tricky on the ice on the bay. As to bait I don't know what they use.

Bryce

Caught round whitefish by the bushel in Alaska
in Bristol bay on the Naknek River at King Salmon.

Watched a school of round whitefish feeding on our
underwater salmon carcass pile on salmon eggs.

Dropped single natural colored plastic eggs down
to them, and pulled them out one after the other
and filled a fish tote in a half an hour.

We baked them and they were delicious.

walleyed

I wonder if they’re the same species walleyed ones here I just in the streams the native Rocky Mountains whitefish nobody seems to really To like to eat them very much The lake whitefish were introduced into a few lakes here from superior Lake superior I think maybe in the 1920s everybody seems to like them some of the old-timers call them Lake superior whitefish

When I liked in Idaho we had what we called "Squaw Fish" and sound similar to what you are describing but that was 25+ years ago. They were not good to eat.

160 they are not squawfish it’s a totally different fish thank heavens the squawfish have now been relegated to oblivion our government will not allow anything with a squall on it

Mountain Whitefish are a separate specie altogether. They were real common in the Snake River when I lived in Idaho in the early 80's. All the locals considered them trash fish.

They run heavy on the piers around here in November. Hook and line

We catch both whitefish and cohos off the big boat on superior running very small spinner/bead combos tipped with the whole kernel garlic corn mentioned above.
We troll them behind a trolling weight out off the boards, we figure they are running 10-20 feet deep depending on conditions.
Plenty good eating. Run 2-4 lines for them, the rest deep for lakers.

Osky

Smoked Em and Baked them. Local fish house makes sausage out of them which is pretty good. Used heads for trapping of coarse.

When I was younger and worked closer to Superior they speared them and herring.in the ice shacks