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Written by Administrator
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Friday, 20 November 2009 |
The shortjaw cisco is a small, silvery salmonid fish, much like the Tullibee. It reaches only 2 pounds in weight and perhaps 17 inches in length, although the average shortjaw is less than a pound and 14 inches long. In the past, this tasty little fish thrived in three of the five great lakes of North America (Huron, Michigan, and Superior). It was once an important commercial fish. Between 1894 and 1950 over 24 billion pounds of deepwater cisco (mostly shortjaws) were netted from Lake Superior for food. It has since become extinct in all of the great lakes except Lake Superior, last seen in Lake Michigan in 1975 and in Lake Huron in 1982. Now, a small and declining population of this fish still hangs on in Superior, but it has recently been discovered in a number of smaller lakes in both Canada and the United States. In the United States, Shortjaw Ciscos may be found in Lake Superior, Gunflint Lake, Magnetic Lake, Lake Saganaga, and Basswood Lake. In the Canadian interior, shortjaw ciscos are found in Loonhaunt Lake, Lake Nipigon, Great Slave Lake, Lake Athapapuskow, Clearwater Lake, Lake Winnipeg, Reindeer Lake, Lake Athabaska, George Lake, Barrow Lake, and Lake-of-the-Woods. Due to the remote, wilderness setting, it is possible the fish may be found in many other deep, cold lakes in both Canada and the northernmost regions of the US state of Minnesota. Many of these lakes are so remote and difficult to access that they are seldom fished, much less studied by scientists.
Shortjaw ciscos eat mainly insects and freshwater shrimp, and they travel in large suspended schools. Like most ciscos, they spawn in the fall. They are an important food item for northern deepwater predators, such as Lake Trout and Burbot. Other names for this fish are the Shortjaw Chub and Paleback Tullibee.
To catch a shortjaw cisco, you'll have to find a way to fish very small baits in very deep water. Shortjaws typically are found in water over a hundred and fifty feet deep. In many of the shortjaw lakes in the US, you'll also have to do your fishing without using any kind of motor or wheel, since those mechanical advantages are prohibited in the wilderness area. Trekking into those areas in the winter on snowshoes or skiis, and fishing them through the ice is one way to do it. A portable sonar would be almost essential, and strangely these are still allowed even though low-tech items like bicycles and carts are not! On Gunflint Lake, Lake-of-the-Woods, and many Canadian Lakes you can catch them with downriggers from a boat. Anglers have had success with these and other deepwater ciscos using tiny homemade spoons trailed behind heavily weighted downriggers. Once again, use a sonar to locate the schools, then troll the tiny spoons slowly through the fish until one of them is tempted to bite.
Shortjaw ciscos look very similar to all the other ciscos. The best way to tell them apart is by counting the gill rakers. Shortjaws have 26-40 gill rakers, usually around 32, and many of the upper gill rakers are reduced to small stubs. The lower jaw is almost always shorter than the upper, and all the fins are completely transparent.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 29 November 2009 )
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