diff --git a/RELEASE.md b/RELEASE.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b8278ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/RELEASE.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Release type: patch
+
+Improve resiliency of `check_fish_version()` function to invisible characters such as tabs.
diff --git a/virtualfish/loader/cli.py b/virtualfish/loader/cli.py
index d292ff2..5582c04 100644
--- a/virtualfish/loader/cli.py
+++ b/virtualfish/loader/cli.py
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ def check_fish_version():
         import subprocess
         from packaging import version
 
-        cmd = ["fish", "-c", "echo $version"]
+        cmd = ["fish", "-N", "-c", "echo $version"]
         fish_version = subprocess.check_output(cmd).decode("utf-8").strip()
         # Remove any extraneous hyphen-suffixed bits
         fish_version = fish_version.partition("-")[0]