Ah, I love late fall - Rivers are blown out, furry dead salmon carcasses stink up the air, and the whitefish start congregating to vacuum up the eggs laid by the chums.
Since the rivers were still pretty blown out this long weekend, I tried one of the few tailwater rivers in the area - the Sultan - it was high, but very fishable. Carefully wading VERY shallow so as not to disturb the existing redds, I drifted orange egg patterns in the slack water behind spawning dogs and picked up quite a few whities. Bonked a few of the bigger ones on the head and brought them home for the smoker. This is the only meat-hunting I do for finny quarry (I'm a staunch C&R guy) so you elitists out there, please don't flame me. Anyway, I'm looking to see if anyone has a good whitefish brine recipe that I could try. I've never smoked these guys, but I hear that's about the only way to eat them (though I have to wonder why they wouldn't taste as good as trout, since they live in the same rivers and eat the same things). Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Sean
