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Tullibee
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This species was first described from Pine Island Lake, Cumberland House, British Columbia. It is now known from Lakes Onondaga (New York), Erie, Superior and Michigan; also from Lake of the Woods, Lake Winnipeg, Albany River, Qu' Appelle River, and other waters northward. It has not been reported from Lake Ontario or Lake Huron.
The tullibee attains a length of 18 or 20 inches, and a weight of 3 1/2 pounds. It ranks high as a food-fish, but its commercial importance is as yet limited.
In the Great Lakes it is not at all common, but in Lake of the Woods it is quite abundant, and considerable quantities are shipped to Sandusky. In the provinces of Assiniboia and Manitoba the fish is taken in large numbers for local consumption, in gillnets and in traps made of brush and stones.
Writing of the tullibee in the lakes of the western territories of Canada, Mr. F. C. Gilchrist, of Fort Qu' Appelle, says:
"In September they will again be found gradually nearing the shoal water, feeding heavily, and plump with fat and the now swelling ovaries. Later on they appear to eat little or nothing, and devote all their time to playing until about the 25th of October, when they have settled down to the business of propagation, which they have finished by November 10. They prefer shallow water close to the shore with clean sand to spawn on, and during the day they may be seen in pairs and small schools, poking along the shores, but at night they come in thousands and keep up a constant loud splashing and fluttering, very strange and weird on a calm night. Two years ago I carefully counted the cva from a ripe fish 2 1/2 pounds in weight, and found there were 23,700, closely resembling whitefish eggs in appearance, but somewhat smaller. After spawning the fish are very thin, lank, dull in colour, and quite unfit for human food."
Mr. James Annin, Jr., in speaking of the tullibee of Lake Onondaga, says they generally commence running up on to the shoals about November 15, and the season extends into December.
They come up to the banks or gravelly shoals and spawn in from 3 to 6 and 7 feet of water. They have never been caught with hook in this lake, and an old fisherman told me that he had tried almost every kind of bait, and had used the very finest gut and the smallest hooks baited with Gammarus (freshwater shrimps) and other kinds of natural food--that is he supposed the food was natural to them. At the same time he claims he could see them in large schools lying in the water 8 or 10 feet from the surface.
Head 4 to 4 1/2; depth 3 to 3 3/5; eye 4 to 5; snout about 5; D. 10 to 12; A. 11 or 12; scales 9-68 to 71-8; gillrakers 16 to 18+30 to 34, 1 to 1 1/2 in eye; maxillary 3 1/2; mandible 2 to 2 1/4. Body short and deep, compressed, the dorsal and ventral outlines similarly curved; head small, conic, and compressed; mouth large, lower jaw projecting; middle of upper lip on a level with middle of pupil; maxillary long, moderately broad, reaching anterior edge of pupil, the width about 3 in its length; supplemental maxillary bone well developed, nearly half length of maxillary, its width 2 3/4 in its length; mandible long, reaching posterior edge of pupil; distance from tip of snout to occiput half that from occiput to origin of dorsal fin, which is midway between tip of snout and base of caudal fin; caudal peduncle short, compressed and deep, its least depth about 2 1/4 in head; fins all rather large; height of dorsal 1 1/5 in head, its base 1 2/5 in its longest ray; anal base very oblique, equal to longest ray, which is about equal to base of dorsal fin; pectorals and ventrals long, almost equal to longest dorsal ray; scales firm, considerably enlarged anteriorly; free margins of the scales less convex than in other species, often emarginate, especially on anterior part of body; lateral line straight and in a line with upper rim of orbit; tongue with a patch of fine teeth near the tip; gillrakers numerous, long and slender. Colour, iridescent bluish above, sides and under parts silver; older individuals darker above, and with more golden reflections on sides; fins all more or less evidently black-tipped; upper edge of pectoral margined with black. From all other whitefishes the tullibee is easily distinguished by the short, deep body and the closely imbricated scales whose margins are scarcely convex or even emarginate.