A friend of mine took me to his favorite cisco lake over the weekend. It required taking a boat across one lake, then poling through a tiny creek to access a second lake that was not so overrun with summer homes and power boats. I managed to add cisco to my lifelist. Tiny jigs in deep water worked well, and the fish were scrappy on our light tackle.

Many lakes in our area have lost cisco populations, probably due to eutrophication and loss of oxygen in deep waters, and perhaps to stocking of competitors and predators like trout and walleye. I understand they are still abundant in many of Minnesota's inland lakes. Has anyone else noted the loss of cisco in heavily stocked lakes, or lakes with recent declines in water quality?


a href="http://s186.photobucket.com/albums/x90/danokeefe_photos/?action=view&current=Cisco.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x90/danokeefe_photos/Cisco.jpg" border="0" alt="cisco"></a>

See if this works...

Last try.

Nice! Ciscos are so cool. How did you locate them? Electronics? or did you fish structure? How deep were they? Are the simple lake herring? or one of the other cisco species? Did you check their stomachs for food items?

I would love to catch a bunch of those to smoke...

How do you fish them in the summer? I have a Cisco lake close to my house and we get them all the time in winter. We wait for the schools to come through this small lake and jig Hali lures and the similar through them and they hit. Theirs actually quite a few Cisco lakes around, but I have never heard of someone catching a Cisco in the summer. That would almost be like catching a Burbot in the summer or a Musky in the winter. How do you guys do it?

I can't take credit for cracking the summer cisco code, but a friend of mine is a cicso-fishing maniac and he liked icing them so much he decided to try the same lakes in summer, fishing below the thermocline (at least 25 feet deep) with Halis and teardrops tipped with waxworms. In the lake we fished, we saw them on the vexilar at every place we stopped, but they were shy and generally followed the jigs without hitting. We caught a few, though, and he says that action is pretty consistent on some summer days.

They are excellent smoked, but also tasty when fresh. Surprisingly, it is one oily fish that seems to taste best when fried. And yes, they are the same species as lake herring or tullibee.

They were full of plankton. I didn't have a 'scope handy, but one was chock full of Chaoborus - a planktonic phantom midge larva about 1/4 to 1/2 inch long.

I may have to squeeze in a evening of summer Ciscoin' and see if it works on my Cisco lake. Makes sense; just deeper in the summer. Their probably 50' down over the 72' hole, just waiting for a veluptuous waxie on a Glow Hali.

In the winter when we get a few they are anywhere from right below the ice to about 25' over deeper water of course. I just figured that they may had gone semi-dormant in the summer; being that they are a cold fish specie.

If I get the time I'll give report!

Here's some we've caught in the winter out there!

Nice!

Chaborus would be a classic food item for them. If only I had a cisco lake nearby I would love to try that out. Thanks for the great tips and report.