anyone fishing tulibees??

[dairyman]

Has the bite started yet???I've been out numerous times and have yet to get a "good" bite. they'll come in and then just leave. Anyone have any favorite jig or colors??

[JBMasterAngler]

Supposedly you can't keep them off the hook on lake of the woods. I was just up there, and we only caught 4. However, we were only in 27 to 29 ft, 32 to 34 I guess was the magic depth.

[Bullwinkled]

I agree with 32 to 34 foot. Were on LOW late January and kept only 20 and threw back another 10 to 20. Smoked them and man there is nothing better. Next year we are going to focus on getting 40 to fill smoker, walleyes secondary. The tullibee hit all kinds of walleye spoons. I always kept Eurolarvae on treble along with minnow head. They are not a trash fish very good eating.

[Bullwinkled]

I forgot to mention three years ago got into tulibee off 8 mile in about 28 foot of water. Caught them all day long threw all back as I did not realize how good they were smoked. Will never happen again.

[Bullwinkled]

8 mile on Mille Lacs.

[th64]

Had one sautéed up on the north shore and that was delicious-I guess they do not freeze well and yep they smell fishy when they come up (get tired of people complaining that a FISH smells fishy!)

[th64]

I am going to a 200 hundred acre lake where the Dnr got 12 per net in '08-worth fishing for them?

The lake has a big 48' basin and a 58' basin where do you even start to look for them?

[James_R]

I've seen people catch them during the mayfly hatches in summer using fly fishing gear but it's usually a lot easier to just net them in the fall. In my neck of the woods we call them whitefish but maybe these tulibees you speak of are a little different than what we have in the arrowhead.

[loadmaster]

Tullies are different than whitefish. They are just Cisco. I have never had a problem freezing them I liked them smoked so I catch quite a few if I can, but not able to smoke all at once. Once smoked, you can freeze them and rhey last for awhile. Remember there is a limit on somebody of lakes

[JBMasterAngler]

Mille Lacs tullibee limit is 10 I believe. Any lakes within the leech lake indian reservation the limit is 50, whitefish limit is 25. Otherwise, no limit on either fish everywhere else.

[th64]

Can you catch them in the middle of the day? Can small lakes be good? Depth?

[loadmaster]

Daytime is the only time I fish. you have make sure the lake has them. Last week we were in 30ft with fish anywhere from bottom up to 15ft. It was cool to see a fish move from the bottom up 10ft and slam your jig on the graph. They are schooling fish. so the action will be fast and then a lull until the school comes thru again. I find it hard to chase them because they move so fast out of an area.

[WalleyeVision]

I can confirm the point on Lake of the Woods. A couple weeks ago we caught 30 of them 3 days in a row. Every one of them came in at around 4 feet off the bottom and would show up as a big mark on the Vexlar. All you had to do is raise up just above them with a jigging spoon and they would pounce. I had never seen so many tulibee - we must have been in the middle of a school of them. That being said it seems like we catch at least one or two every time out targeting walleye. Seems like they are most prevalent in a bit deeper water near rock structure.

[James_R]

Tullies are different than whitefish. They are just Cisco. I have never had a problem freezing them I liked them smoked so I catch quite a few if I can, but not able to smoke all at once. Once smoked, you can freeze them and rhey last for awhile. Remember there is a limit on somebody of lakes

I net both cisco (herring) and whitefish and there's a night and day difference between the two. Not even close. I can't really eat a 100lbs of smoked fish so I usually just make sure to remove the mud vein in the whitefish, freeze the fillets and fry them up later. If you're serious about smoking them in bulk they really need to be canned in order to preserve them properly. I suppose the DNR just lumps these species all together in their regs but looking at some of the pictures on this site it really had me wondering if these species vary from lake to lake or if we sportsmen just have our own names for them depending on where we live.

[fisherman-andy]

I tend to avoid small bodies of water, there are only but a handful of lakes where I may keep Ciscos (Tullibee, Lake herring etc all the same). Whitefish however is a different fish.

Some folks dont have an issue but I find that Ciscos from alot of the MN inland lakes are very wormy. Especially LOTW. Triaenophorous crassus or Whitefish tapeworm as its called can be found all over the meat when you filet the fish.

[fivebucks]

Those worms are why I freeze my tullibee before smoking them 100% of the time.

[MidCoast]

Can those worms survive in humans if uncooked well?

[fivebucks]

I'm not a doc but I seem to remember hearing something about the worms from Whitefish are the only freshwater ones that can hurt people. I don't know if that is referring to the tapeworm or a different worm. I believe tapeworms can pass from a fish to a person.

[th64]

So where exactly on a lake would you target them? Would you cut a bunch of holes or have them find you? Are you looking for soft or hard bottom?

[loadmaster]

Its hard to say for depth. Yesterday we fished in depths 40-20 feet deep. All fish were were caught 4-10 feet off the bottom. I like to look for 28-30ft. After drilling I like to drop a small Swedish pimple tipped with waxes and jig for a couple of minutes and see what shows up. You should see them just show up either above you or come shooting up from the bottom. One thing sometimes they will swim away if jigged and you need to dead stick it. Since they like to roam in a certain area a lot of holes are not needed. besides there is a lot of ice Good Luck. One thing look for a mucky/sand bottom. Some of the fish we caught were throwing up larvae of the dragon fly. So what I think they go looking for the emerging larvae

[BuckSutherland]

Tried Winni last Friday. 3 of us got 7 in about 5 hours of fishing. It was tough.

I like to fish them when the snow is all melted and ran into the cracks. They are ballistic then.

[loadmaster]

Hey Buck PM Sent

[dirt292lv]

Anybody been on leech these last few days just wondering how things are holding up

[Meat-Run]

TTT

[th64]

Caught about 5 on a small lake in Park Rapids. The last day they would look at my spoon and then go up and stare at my swivel-that probably meant they wanted something small like a fly or a dropper-I was too lazy to switch though. Did get some on a slow falling plastic jig head-always be ready for when fish are in a negative mood no matter what the species no matter where you are fishing-Just my POV

Tullies, the Rodney Dangerfield of the trout(yes they are a trout!)world!

[JBMasterAngler]

If you want to be technical, they are a salmonid, as are trout. But tullibee and trout are not the same, just distant cousins if you will.