Northwest Fishing Reports

OK, probably been answered here before but can't find it. Are the tiger muskies planted in Washington waters (particularly, Lake Tapps) sterile or are they reproducing? Thanks

Sterile

"Life finds a way"

While it is possible for tigers to reproduce, the chances are extremely thin. So technically it is possible, but highly unlikely. WDFW does regular surveys on these waters, and if there was any reproduction, they should pick it up. The way to prove it, would be to find young of the year. All tiger plants are generally larger than 10" when planted each May. By fall, most should be between 12-20" long. Only way I would buy that there is reproduction going on would be if tigers less than the planted size were found in the fall to winter of any given year. Generally the tigers are in the 16 to 22" range when fall hits.

Also, one more way to add evidence of reproduction, would be to find tigers in the smaller year classes (i.e., 0-2 years old) which DO NOT have coded wire tags. Every fish is implanted with coded wire tags at the hatchery, before being stocked. Tags are occasionally lost, but due to the nature of how they are placed inside the body of the fish they have a very high retention rate. I don't specifically remember what the percentage is, but if I remember correctly it is upper 90% for retention. It approaches 100% for the first year to two years of life. Don't quote me on that. Better yet if you want those numbers, I can search for them. Or better yet, you may search for them on the supplier's website. The coded wire tags are proprietary, by a company called Northwest Marine Technology.

Hey look at that. Doug Wood surfaces on the site! Haven't heard from you in a while. Nice to see you're still out there.

Yes I am still alive. Been extremely busy with work, with home stuff and any spare time has been on the lake.

I guess I don't feel as bad now since I was tiger fishing at Pineview and got completely skunked....didn't even see a muskie!!!

whooaaa! Dougie, you are defiantely pushing the reproduction of tigers theory ideology..good luck trying to dig your self out of that one..the only way it would be possible is if you had muskies and northerns in the same body of water. Unless Osborne, Divens and Boulding made a new line of hybrids that spawn. Again good luck with that.

And just to finish, in my nearly 40 years of musky fishing, chasing, reading or talking to any other muskie guy about tiger or true muskies, I have never, ever, heard of any one single person ever catching a tiger and saying that tiger, girl she was full of eggs or he was filled with that white stuff getting ready to fertilize some eggggs, never..so,if you know someone that said they did..someone's got some REALLY good Leiney's they've been drinkin there pallie, guy..