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Sterile tiger muskies (muskellunge x northern pike) were first introduced into Washington in 1988. Over the past 19 years they have been planted into eleven different Washington waters. Currently, a total of around 5,500 tiger muskie fingerlings are annually planted into seven waters totaling 11,700 surface acres. Though the program is small, it provides a uniquely popular trophy fishery for 16,000 (3% of licensed anglers) Washington anglers. The fishery provides an estimated 56,000 angler days per year (3.5 days/angler/year ) of recreation and an associated economic value of $7,560,000 per year ($135/angler day)to the states economy.

The tiger muskie fishery program has been dependent upon Minnesota Department of Natural Resources production of tiger muskie eggs for 19 years. Annual cost to produce the current tiger muskie program is about $70,000. Tiger muskie eggs are initially hatched and reared at Columbia Basin Hatchery. They are transferred to the Ringold/Meseberg Hatchery in the fall and reared until the following spring. At a minimum length of 12 inches, the yearling tiger muskies are planted into seven waters to maintain the current tiger muskie fisheries program. Those waters are: Mayfield Reservoir (Lewis Co.), Merwin Reservoir (Cowlitz Co.), Tapps Reservoir (Pierce Co.), Evergreen Reservoir (Grant Co.), Silver Lake (Spokane Co.), Newman Lake (Spokane Co.), and Curlew Lake (Ferry Co.).

Tiger muskies foraging preference is round bodied, soft-rayed fish species, although they are less selective in consuming some species of spiny-rayed fish. Four of the seven waters stocked with tiger muskies in Washington have received studies focusing on their foraging habits. In the seven waters that contain tiger muskies, the target forage fish were suckers, northern pikeminnow, tench, carp, and sunfish.

Tiger muskies in Merwin and Mayfield Lakes did not target chinook, coho, or steelhead fry or smolts. Nor did they target kokanee, bull trout, and cutthroat even though these fish species were present in the study waters. Northern pikeminnow and suckers were the targeted forage for tiger muskies in these two waters.

The Curlew Lake diet study found that northern pikeminnow were the most abundantly consumed prey item by tiger muskie and largemouth bass and rainbow trout were consumed at a much lower rate. Tiger muskies in Silver Lake selected small pumpkinseed sunfish and largemouth bass as prey, and to a lesser degree, newly planted trout fingerlings. This difference was likely a result of the relatively small size of the recently stocked tiger muskies (mean size = 28 inches) and their subsequent inability to consume the predominately 12-15 inch target forage population (tench). We now anticipate that the now older and larger tiger muskies will switch their diet to consume more tench as actually seen in the summer of 2007.

While there is some predation on trout by tiger muskies in Washington waters, it is important to note that it is seasonally restricted to the cooler months when tiger muskies are feeding less actively due to lower metabolic demands with the lower water temperatures. The number of trout eaten by tiger muskies is lower in comparison to the target forage species, which either compete directly with trout for food and habitat resources (e.g. northern pikeminnow and pumpkinseed sunfish) or prey on trout themselves (e.g. northern pikeminnow and largemouth bass). Also, these trout populations are artificially increased with hatchery stockings of catchable-sized trout, making them available for trout anglers as well as tiger muskies.

It is also important to make a distinction between hatchery planted trout and salmon. While trout carry out their entire life cycle in freshwater (and are, therefore, exposed to predation from the standpoint of size, for much of their lives), salmon are by comparison, exposed to predation for a much shorter period of time. Adult chinook, coho, and steelhead are too large to be consumed by tiger muskie, while smolts are too small to be an attractive prey selection. Tiger muskies and other esocids target prey that are 20-30% of their own body length. Therefore, during the period when salmon and steelhead are at this preferred prey size and would be most vulnerable to predation from muskies, they are absent from fresh water, returning only after reaching sufficient size to make them invulnerable to esocid predation.

Muskellunge, like tiger muskies, have co-evolved and co-existed in their native range with popular gamefish such as walleye, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, crappie, and sunfish species without negatively impacting those species’ populations. Fisheries managers from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan have since successfully added chinook, coho, steelhead, and brown trout to waters containing muskellunge and tiger muskies and have seen no significant impacts to those introduced species by the native muskies.