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Rocky Mountain Whitefish
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Two species of whitefish are known from western North America, the species just described and the present one. While Coulter's whitefish is known from but a single locality, the Rocky Mountain whitefish is of very wide distribution, occurring in all suitable waters from the west slope of the Rockies to the Pacific and from Utah to British Columbia. It prefers the cold, clear lakes, such as those of Idaho, Oregon and Washington, but is also found in many streams. Those living in the lakes remain in comparatively deep water except during the spawning season, which occurs in late fall or early winter, when they run out into the tributary streams, in some places in incredible numbers. This is particularly true at Big Payette Lake and in other Idaho lakes.
This species attains a length of a foot or more, and a weight of about 4 pounds, though the average is considerably less.
During the spring and early summer they take the fly freely, as well as the baited hook. Though not as game as the trout of the same region, they are sufficiently so to afford much sport, especially when caught from the swiftly flowing streams. The smallness of the mouth of this fish requires the use of hooks of very small size. When bait is used, very small grasshoppers, salmon eggs and small bits of fresh meat of almost any kind have proved effective.
Among the places where excellent sport with this fish may be had, may be mentioned the headwaters of Salmon River and Big Payette Lake in Idaho, streams near Dillon, Montana, lakes Pend d'Oreille and Coeur d'Alene, and Provo River, Utah.
As a pan-fish it holds very high rank. Examples 7 to 10 inches taken in 20 to 60 feet of water are usually very fat, and most delicious, and cannot be surpassed in sweetness and delicacy of flavour. Among the fishes of the Northwest there is none more richly deserving of preservation than this mountain herring.
Though this species is most widely known as the mountain herring, it is also called Williamson's whitefish, Rocky Mountain herring, Rocky Mountain whitefish, and in some places grayling.
Head 4 1/2 to 5; depth 4 to 5; eye 4 1/2; snout 3 1/2 to 4; D. 10 to 12; A. 10 to 12; scales 9 or 10-78 to 88-7 or 8; gillrakers 11 to 15+7 to 10; pectoral 1 1/5; ventral 1 2/5; maxillary 4; mandible 3; longest dorsal ray 1 1/3. Body oblong, but little compressed; head short, conic, the profile abruptly decurved; snout compressed and somewhat pointed at tip, which is entirely below level of eye; preorbital broad, 2/3 width of eye; maxillary short and very broad, reaching orbit, thus appearing longer than in other species owing to the shortness of the snout; supplemental bone narrow; snout in the males produced and pig-like in the breeding season; adipose fin very large, extending behind the anal; gillrakers short and thick, shorter than the pupil; scales of back and side in breeding season covered with prominent tubercles. Colour, bluish above, silvery on sides, whiter below; breeding males with the under parts white; all the fins tipped with black; caudal and adipose fins steel-blue. The parrmarks persist on the young for a year or more.
The whitefish found in the headwaters of the Missouri River has been described as a subspecies (cismontanus) of the preceding, from which it was supposed to differ in its somewhat more slender body, shorter pectoral and ventral, lower dorsal, and smaller scales. The two are probably not distinct.
The waters of the Missouri Basin from which whitefish have been reported are the Yellowstone, Madison, Redrock, Beaverhead, Gibbon and Gallatin rivers, Horsethief Springs, and Big Goose Creek, a tributary of Tongue River, Wyoming.