Don’t believe everything you hear

It’s fair to say that many passionate anglers who’ve seen their rod tip dip, thinking they have a feisty trout on the other end, only to reel in something else, have muttered the words: “Ahh. It’s just a whitefish.”

Blasphemy. 

That whitefish on the end of your line has earned its stripes in Idaho, a fish that has called these waters home for thousands of years. While they might not be as charismatic as the rainbow trout, regarding them as “trash fish” or “bottom feeders” is nothing more than an insult, and could not be further from the truth. 

“Mountain whitefish are a fun species to target, especially in late winter when trout and other mountain stream species feed less,” said Joe Kozfkay, Fish and Game’s State Fisheries Manager. “Anglers have a pretty cool opportunity to catch these fish during this season, a lost tradition that often gets forgotten or overlooked.”

Whitefish tend to hunker down in deeper parts of the river. Their placement in the water, combined with their mouth’s puckered appearance located beneath their face, often earn them the misnomer “sucker fish.”

“Whitefish are actually members of the Salmonid family, which include salmon, trout, char and grayling,” said Kozfkay.