Ciscoes

[bucktail]

Does anyone know the water temperature at which tulibees spawn. I usually fish them in the ottertail river around thanksgiving, but I want to know the temperature so I can target the best time to troll for muskies.

[MedicineMan]

The usually start spawning in the water temp gets down in the low 40's.

[RK]

Hi Bucktail,
Ciscoes generally spawn when water temps are in the very low 40s to high 30s. It seems like on most bodies of water they start staging to spawn (gathering off spawning areas and sort of milling around) when water temps drop into the low 50s. Depending on the lake they may stage well off spawning areas, or they may move in and out of shallow water as they stage.

Ciscoes generally spawn over rocks and gravel in 4-8 feet of water (it can be considerably deeper on some lakes, such as 'trout water' lakes in Ontario), though they can spawn successfully over sand if that's all they have available. There is some evidence that they can also spawn over open water. Eggs overwinter, and hatch in the spring. Most spawning actually occurs at night, and if the moon phase and water temps align, the full moon is a peak spawning period. Ciscoes move in to spawn at night and off during the day. They spawn in the same areas year after year, so if you can identify spawning areas you can really have a consistent fall pattern. Sometimes on clear days you can go cruise likely-looking areas and see mauled ciscoes lying on the bottom. Besides the ciscoes there will often be suckers and perch up in the spawning areas feeding on ciscoe spawn, and the muskies obviously eat them too. Trolling the staging areas off spawning sites obviously works (that's the Lake of the Woods trolling pattern you read about) but casting up on the spawning areas can be awesome. Believe it or not, it can be one of the better topwater bites of the year. You feel like an one-who-thinks-I-am-silly throwing a topwater in 40 degree water at first, but it does work. White spinnerbaits or ciscoe-pattern jerkbaits also work well. Something to keep in mind...

Cheers,
RK