Muskies Inc Chapter 57, NW Tiger Pac's First Tourney

[Deadeyemark]

Mayfield Lake.
Thanx to everyone that participated and thanx to everyone that helped out. It was a great '1st' event. 8 fisherpersons in 4 boats with "4","Four" muskies caught/released alive to be enjoyed by someone another day.
I managed the smallest fish of the day - 38.25". Bad esox did a very quick release of a 40"? beauty. Jon started us off in the morning with a fat 42"er but Miles came through with the win on a beautiful 43"er on his Lk Mayfield secret bait. Cash prize for the largest fish plus some of Charlie's leaders in the raffle brought a great day to an end.
Hope to see all of you and more at the Lk Tapps event in Aug.
Remember, it's members only so come to the next meeting and join us.

[Don Wittenberger]

Four boats, 4 fish, has got to be an all-time record for Mayfield! I participated in several informal tiger musky tourneys on Mayfield back in the '90s, and typically there'd be 15 or 20 boats catching 1 or 2 fish. As I recall, at last year's tourney on Mayfield, there were 20 boats and two fish caught. So you guys did really well. Congrats!

I penciled this event into my calendar, but it didn't work out. I planned to fish Merwin after attending a Bar Association meeting in Vancouver, and catch the club tourney at Mayfield on the way back to Seattle. But I had a crippled boat on my hands down at Merwin, and came home early. Another reason was that I normally babysit my wife's dog when she works on Saturdays. My trolling motor was unusable, and at Merwin last week I had to use the outboard for boat control, which not only is hard on the outboard, but doesn't leave any hands free for fishing. Since I didn't have a partner for Mayfield, I would've spent all my time on boat positioning, and wouldn't have been able to fish.

It's frustrating to have boat problems in the middle of the fishing season. You try to take care of these things before the season starts. When I took the boat down to Mayfield in June, everything was OK. It started when I was at Curlew Lake earlier this month. Probably water is getting into the motor through damaged shaft seals caused by fishing line wrapping up in the prop. It did get fouled with fishing line up at Curlew. The motor would completely drain the batteries after only an hour or two of use, and the cord and plug got hot, indicating a very heavy current drain when the motor was running. I didn't have time to get it fixed before leaving for Vancouver as I was in town only a couple days after returning from eastern Washington.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear you guys had fun and caught some fish.

[Deadeyemark]

Don,
Sorry to hear about having boat problems. Never any fun during fishing season to have problems. Wish you could have been there but I definitely understand. Hope you get it taken care of for the Tapps tourney. Hope to see ya there.

[KUP]

What a hoot that was!
Great day on the water; good weather, good company and the bite was on!
Must be all that good "release" karma coming back 'round. o:)

What excitement to see Bad Esox get his FIRST Washington Muskie!
Man, this fish makes the adrenaline pump!!!
I was too slow with the camera (ok, so I was shaking) and
he escaped out of the cradle as soon as the hook was out.
But such a thrill to see him swim away sleek and fat and shiny.... and strong!

It was the first time I have ever been that close to the esox and I am in awe.
What a magnificent creature. And I thought I was addicted before!
This is gonna be bad!

So, I never asked .. is it 10,000 casts per fish? Or 10,000 casts per day? LOL

I'll post some pix on the lake reports for Mayfield.

[KUP]

And Congratulation, Miles!! Nice fish, nice release and nice $$$ prize!

[YellowBear]

I have a question to the Musky guys and please don't take it wrong.

With so few anglers chaising this species,how can we justify introducing this new preditor to Washington waters?

I have been told that they keep the rough fish populations in check but they feed on everything.
When they put them in Newman they said it was to cut down on the small panfish.
Newman is still loaded with small Panfish. At Curlew they were suposed to eat the Northern Pike Minnow but they are still there. Is there any water that the WDFW has stocked with Tigers where they have done the job they were intended for?

[Don Wittenberger]

Every state from here to Maine that does not already have a native muskie population has introduced tiger muskies to selected waters to control unwanted fish species. Here in Washington, the target species are primarily northern pikeminnow (aka squawfish) and suckers. Tiger muskies are used as a substitute for rotenone treatment, and have several advantages over rotenone:

1) They cost much less than chemical treatment;
2) They provide a means to control undesirable species without killing everything else in the lake;
3) Unlike walleyes or other predator species, you can control their population by manipulating how many you stock, because they are sterile and can't reproduce after being introduced, and if you don't want them anymore you can eliminate them by discontinuing stocking;
4) You get a sport fishery as a bonus.

WDFW has conducted stomach content studies to determine what the tiger muskies are eating. The fish are captured by electroshocking and their stomachs are emptied by injecting water with a device that looks like a garden sprayer. This does not harm the fish, and the fish are released back into the lake after biologists remove the stomach contents. The result of these studies is that the tiger muskies' diet varies by lake, but in general they are not feeding on sport species. At Mayfield Lake, for example, they are mostly eating squawfish and suckers. The one major exception among the currently stocked lakes is Curlew Lake, where rainbow treat comprise a significant percentage of the tiger muskies' diet during the winter and spring months. Also, a one-time stocking of 150 tiger muskies at Seattle's Green Lake didn't work as planned; WDFW hoped they would eat the carp, but they ate rainbow trout instead.

Yes, they are doing the job they were intended for. Where tiger muskies have been stocked, they have substantially reduced populations of target species. For example, in Merwin Reservoir tiger muskies have reduced the squawfish population by 90%. But they don't completely eliminate them, and squawfish are very prolific reproducers, and the squawfish population would come back if the tiger muskies died out and weren't replace. At the same time, the diet studies show tiger muskie predation on Merwin's kokanee population is minimal, the kokane comprising less than 3% of the tiger muskies' diet.

According to WDFW angler surveys, about 16,000 anglers are targeting tiger muskies for sport. The sport of muskie fishing is still relatively unknown to Washington anglers, and this number undoubtedly will grow as this fishery gets more publicity and more anglers are attracted to it. The seven lakes currently stocked with tiger muskies probably have a total population of 3,000 to 5,000 adult tiger muskies, so we do not have a shortage of angling pressure in relation to the number of fish available. In other parts of the country, where muskies are native and the sport of muskie fishing is far more popular, this gamefish species is economically valuable. For example, Wisconsin has over 700 Class A muskie lakes, and the sport of muskie fishing generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year of revenue for that state's tourism industry.

WDFW has not managed, and does not propose to manage, tiger muskies in a way that would displace native species. No one is suggesting that tiger muskies should replace our native salmon and trout fisheries. Bass, walleye, and panfish of course are all introduced, non-native species. Bass and walleye, which have spread throughout the Columbia River system, prey on salmon smolts and trout fry. The tiger muskies are confined to waters not connected to the Columbia system, and while a few of them get into the lower Lewis and Cowlitz rivers by escaping from Mayfield and Merwin lakes over the dams, their impact on the salmon and steelhead in those rivers is insignificant.

Some people perceive tiger muskies as a threat to native species. It's possible a few tiger muskies could get into lakes or rivers where they are not wanted as a result of hatchery escapement or illegal relocation by anglers. For example, one was caught from the Willamette River in Portland a couple years ago, and one was caught in Potholes Reservoir. However, because they can't reproduce, they can't become established in waters where stocking is not maintained, and the number of individuals that get into other waters will be too small to have a significant adverse impact. A few individual tiger muskies can't possibly eat all the salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River! In addition, they don't live very long (6 to 8 years), so the amount of damage the occasional escapee or illegal replant can inflict on native fisheries is, practically speaking, very slight. The real issue is whether they should be stocked in a given water body, and what impact they will have on the existing fishery in that water body. This has to be evaluated on a lake by lake basis, and WDFW is required to prepare an environmental impact statement with opportunity for public input before stocking tiger muskies in new waters. The only lake not already being stocked that is currently proposed for possible future stocking is Sprague Lake.

[Mike Carey]

Thanks Don, a very detailed response.

[YellowBear]

Thanks Don,
Do you know how they make the Tigers sterile?

[bad esox]

Don,

Thanks for the information. Great job!!!!
What makes a "Tiger" sterile is the fact that it is a cross between a male northern pike and a female musky. Don can probably elaborate more on this topic. This is just the short answer:)

[Don Wittenberger]

Nature made them sterile. That works great for biologists, because it means their population can't get out of control, as the number of tiger muskies in the wild will never exceed the fish they stocked.

A biologist can tell you this better than I can, but I'm under the impression that hybridization always results in sterility throughout the animal kingdom, i.e., that hybrids are incapable of self-reproduction.

A familiar example of a hybrid animal is the mule, which is a cross between a male donkey and a female horse. According to Wikipedia, mules are "almost always" sterile. The qualifier comes from a handful of known cases where a mule that mated with a horse or ass produced offspring. But there do not seem to be any known cases of two mules mating successfully.