Is a New State Record Tiger Musky in the Future for Washingt

[Pete Heley]

In a previous post, I mentioned some of the state of Washington’s most vulnerable state fish records. I left off the record of hybrid or tiger muskies. The reason that I did this is because current fishing regulations for Washington only allow tiger muskies to be kept if they measure 50 or more inches in length. According to Bruce Bolding, a fisheries biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the tiger muskies tend to max out at about 48-inches before dying of old age. However, there are a few exceptions and in 2010, a 52-inch tiger musky was pulled from Curlew Lake. Possibly because Washington musky anglers are so used to releasing their jumbo muskies, that fish was also released before it could be certified as a state record.

The only one of several formulas that estimate the weight of muskies based only on their length is the one developed by Doug Hannon who is well known as the bass professor. His formula is: WEIGHT = LENGTH (to the third power or cubed) / 2800. If that released 52-inch tiger musky was of average build, it would have weighed (52 cubed/2800 = 140,608 / 2800) 50 pounds. Since the current state record is a 31 pound four ounce fish pulled from Mayfield Lake way back in 2001 before Washington set the current minimum length limit at 50-inches. Please remember, this formula only gives a rough weight for a musky of average body shape.

The current length limit is generally well received by Washington’s musky anglers, but if the minimum length limitation is ever reduced, there will be a lot of muskies measuring between 45 and 50-inches that may top the current state record. Even if the length limit remained intact, but the state allowed a fish to be retained long enough to be weighed and photographed before being released, the current state record tiger musky would almost be short-lived.

Since the minimum length limit on the tiger muskies is set through 2013, someone is just going to have to catch and officially weigh a musky measuring 50-inches - a extremely unlikely, yet still possible longshot. - and musky anglers in the state of Washington will continue to catch and release more tiger muskies than any state in America.