How much does the musky program cost?

[Dr Hook]

Tmusky supplied some data where she layed out the cost of stocking musky vs trout.

As far as the criticism of the tiger program being expensive, it may be the least expensive fish program by WDFW per hour of fishing recreation generated. On Mayfield from 1992-1998, assuming that trout cost $3/lb and tigers $10/lb, an average of $23,800 was spent annually planting trout while $1,900 was spent on tigers. Trout generated 3,870 hours of recreation while tigers generated 3,058 hours of recreation. Cost per hour of recreation was $6.15 for trout and $0.62 for tigers, making tigers 10 times a greater return on investment than trout.

Seems with that kind of return on investment, a few other waters should be considered for tiger introduction?

I'm curious if those numbers include the cost of things like:

Man hours for studing diets, travel etc
Tagging
Administration cost

I believe that due to the unknown threat to other fish species like migratory salmon that it is mandatory to study and document their impact in WA waters. Shouldn't the cost for doing that be included in the "Cost per hour of recreation"?

Also, how do you come up with a number for; "Hours of recreation"? If we consider that lakes like Tapps have fewer than 500 hunderd legal fish for over 2000 acres after stocking thousands of fish in the lake, then wouldn't the "Cost per fish" be considerably higher than some other fisheries?

I don't believe that it is really as simple as Tmusky makes it sound, there are many other factors to consider. Like how many actual trout anglers are buying licenses and are on the water fishing compared to musky anglers. I'm sure the angler count must be much higher, therefore it seems to be reasonable to conclude that trout generate more "Income per fish" than a Musky do.

[tmusky]

Hi Dr. Hook:

Here is some math on Lake Tapps tiger muskie costs. A total of 4,673 tigers have been planted since 2000, an average of 584 fish per year. At 3 fish per pound, that makes 194 lbs of fish planted per year. At $10 per pound rearing costs, that makes $1,947 per year. There is no mandate of diet studies or tagging. WDFW did the diet study in those other lakes for good basic information, so the truth could be placed on the table rather than speculation. By the way, for that same $1,947 you could acquire 3,245 legal size trout (5 fish/lb x $3/lb).

So if a creel census was conducted on Tapps and found that from May through August, an average of 5 anglers per day fished 5 hours each for tiger muskies (5 x 5 =25) times the 120 days = 3,000 hrs, then $1,947 worth of muskies generated 3,000 hrs of recreation which is $0.65 per hour. Pretty darn cheap. And you don't have to kill fish to generate fishing recreation. From what I've seen, probably more than 3,000 hrs are expended tiger fishing on the lake, making it an even better value.

I'm not suggesting that Tapps is not a suitable water for kokanee. Kokanee can generate far more recreation effort than tiger muskies, and the two are compatible. Merwin Reservoir is a great example. Prior to tiger muskies being planted in the lake in 1995, Merwin provided by far the worst fishery in the 3 reservoirs on the Lewis River, and was overrun with northern pikeminnows. In 1995-96, tiger muskies and kokanee were both planted in the lake, the pikeminnow population has been hammered by the tigers which allowed the kokanee to survive and now there is a very popular kokanee fishery, and the lake is now by far the best of the 3 reservoirs on the Lewis. Maybe a possible remedy for the demise of Lake Washington sockeye?

Have you contacted the WDFW district biologist regarding kokanee or trout in Tapps?

By the way, how did you figure out my gender so quickly?

[Dr Hook]

Good info thanks for taking the time to post it.

By the way, how did you figure out my gender so quickly?

There's only one person I know who knows that much about Mayfield muskys. *wink*

Who is the WDFW district biologist? I would like to follow up on the Kokanee in Tapps idea. I do know that at one time Kokanee were put in the lake, I'm not sure why they stopped.

[tmusky]

I'm not sure who the district biologist is now, so many musical chairs, you'll have to call Olympia or Mill Creek office to find out.

[reelinanrockin]

I am all for kokes in Tapps as well. ...some of the smallies we caught barfed up a bunch of those insect grub thingy's. I know the kokes would chow down on those for food....Musky in lake wa, Nice idea. I see big squaw fish in the pools of the cedar come up into the cedar and raid the sockey nest and smolts...they could use some control....you know what a great day of fishing it would be 5 smallies and 5 kokes daily limit on Tapps...That should make any fisherman happy.

[Mike Carey]

I don't believe that it is really as simple as Tmusky makes it sound, there are many other factors to consider. Like how many actual trout anglers are buying licenses and are on the water fishing compared to musky anglers. I'm sure the angler count must be much higher, therefore it seems to be reasonable to conclude that trout generate more "Income per fish" than a Musky do.

Various species all have different costs associated with stocking, and as you mentioned there's a lot more to consider than just the cost per fish or income per fish or recreation per fish or whatever. WDFW I'm sure looks at many factors when deciding what and how much to stock. As for me, I like the muskie program if for no other reason than it produces huge, beautiful fish. To me that is worth the cost of the program. Trout planters are well and good but lets face it, they are dinky little fish that hardly produce lifetime memories - except for triploids (although a great day trout fishing is not a bad thing).

As to the great CNR vrs. keep and eat issue, I appreciate the debate and everyone keeping it clean. I wouldn't keep a muskie but that's my personal choice, based on frankly not being that much of a fish eater. Give me a halibut or cod slab anyday. :-)