While mackerel, or increasingly bluey, is seen as the number one fish bait, herring is also a good choice and one which appears to be under utilised by anglers. A wide variety of species from dab and whiting to conger eel will take herring.

Check with local tackle shops to see if the herring are running; best times are generally December to February in the San Francisco Bay Area, and winter to spring for north coast piers. In north coast rivers, i.e., the Noyo River, it’s common to see herring enter the waters during the summer months.

The fishing season starts in October in the southern North Sea, and follows the herring through the winter months as they migrate down through the eastern Channel, ending in February or March when the quota has been met.

Cisco are tasty and versatile. You can purchase them fresh, smoked, and frozen. Steam, fry, broil, boil, microwave, or bake them. Cisco eggs (also known as roe) are sold as bluefin caviar.

Besides being a valuable forage fish, tullibee have a small-but-loyal following among ice anglers. But for Minnesota’s prize game fish — especially walleye, muskies and lake trout — tullibees are a favorite meal year-round.

Whitefish is considered one of the best-eating freshwater fish there is. Because the fish lives in icy northern lakes, the meat has a high fat content, making it an excellent candidate for smoking. The mild flavor is more like salmon than trout. The meat is medium-firm with a large flake.

The term cisco is also specifically used of the North American species Coregonus artedi, also known as lake herring….Cisco (fish)

Narrowly defined, Coregonus artedi is known variously with the common names cisco, northern cisco, lake herring, chub or tullibee and its Anishinaabe name Odoonibiins. It is a pelagic fish occurring in the midwater zone of cold water lakes in North America.

Cisco, also called lake herring or tullibee, do not grow as large as lake whitefish. The mouth of lake whitefish is subterminal, meaning the snout overhangs the mouth. By contrast, the mouth of a cisco is located terminally on the head, meaning it extends up to or slightly beyond the tip of the snout.

The Tullibee or Northern Cisco is a streamlined, silvery fish with grayish fins and 36–50 gill rakers (usually 43). The Tullibee is the most common species of whitefish in our area. They occur in many of the deep, cold lakes of the north, as well as in the Great Lakes.

Oily fish like herring, mackerel and anchovies are not considered white fish. Tuna, salmon, SOME mackerel i.e Atlantic, whereas Spanish and Cero are oily but definitely white and flaky, jacks, bonito, opah, herring, sardines, anchovies, trout, scad, char, etc. Mahi and catfish are certainly white fish though.

They taste a bit fishy, never seen parasites.