Strange Mille Lacs Tiger Muskie?

My buddy was up fishing the muskie opener Saturday and saw a few bigger one’s but ended up catching this. Not only does it look kind of odd (girth) it also looks like a tiger. We studied the pic for some time and are both leaning toward it being a tiger. Which then raises the next strange question. As far as we believe, there have never been any hybrid/tiger stocking in Mille Lacs so we agreed that their is a possibility it could have been naturally reproduced. Although rare, it does occur naturally at times. Anyone have any thought/theory or opinion on whether it’s even a tiger musky?

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I am no expert by any means, but it looks like a tiger or tiger hybrid to me.

As far as the deformed part it looks like a really skinny fish that just had a large dinner, like a 15″ walleye

A few years back my son caught one with similar markings. To this day I still wonder what strain…

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I have had around 700 Lake Mille Lacs muskies in my boat ( mostly between 1995 and 2005) and would say it looks pretty typical of most of them. “heavily barred”….

Francis K wrote:

A few years back my son caught one with similar markings. To this day I still wonder what strain…

Looks like a leech lake strain to me!

Francis K wrote:

A few years back my son caught one with similar markings. To this day I still wonder what strain…

Great pic! Looks like all the Lake Mille Lacs “mousekies” I have had in my hands! Leech Lake strain…

http://www.musky.ca/difference-between-muskie-tiger-musky-northern-pike.htm

Francis K wrote:

A few years back my son caught one with similar markings. To this day I still wonder what strain…

OK Francis, care to divulge the lake that your boy caught his fish? No horizon in the background.

Are we then concluding my buddy caught a Leech lake strain? Just looks way different than others we’ve seen.

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Francis K wrote:</div>
A few years back my son caught one with similar markings. To this day I still wonder what strain…

OK Francis, care to divulge the lake that your boy caught his fish? No horizon in the background.

Are we then concluding my buddy caught a Leech lake strain? Just looks way different than others we’ve seen.

Andy…. next time you are in my living room …. look at the one on the wall…then decide.

On a fish like that I t’s virtually impossible to say natural or hybrid for sure without seeing the tail, counting the pores on the jaw, etc., but I vote regular Muskie. But not LL strain — those are spotted like a leopard. I believe there were WI strain fish from the St. Croix drainage (Big McKenzie) put in Mille Lacs back in the day and this fish looks more like them than a LL fish. But who knows. Nice ski!

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Francis K wrote:</div>
A few years back my son caught one with similar markings. To this day I still wonder what strain…

OK Francis, care to divulge the lake that your boy caught his fish? No horizon in the background.

Are we then concluding my buddy caught a Leech lake strain? Just looks way different than others we’ve seen.

That is a Mille Lacs muskie.

john23 wrote:

On a fish like that I t’s virtually impossible to say natural or hybrid for sure without seeing the tail, counting the pores on the jaw, etc., but I vote regular Muskie. But not LL strain — those are spotted like a leopard. I believe there were WI strain fish from the St. Croix drainage (Big McKenzie) put in Mille Lacs back in the day and this fish looks more like them than a LL fish. But who knows. Nice ski!

A little history.
According to Tom Jones from the Department of Natural Resources fisheries department in Aitkin, from 1969 to 1978 there were about 2,000 muskies stocked in Mille Lacs Lake, but the first serious stocking began in 1984. The muskies stocked throughout the ’80s were Wisconsin strain muskies.

“In the early 1990s we began stocking Leech Lake strain (sometimes called Mississippi River strain) muskies in Mille Lacs,” said Jones. “The Leech Lake strain grows faster and bigger than the Wisconsin strain, so that is why we made the decision to switch.”

Is there a strain that doesn’t eat walleye and can dodge nets?

Put that strain in there.

My vote is pure strain. However there are some naturally occurring hybrids in Mille Lacs. My dad caught this 40″ in 2008, would love to meet her again if she’s still swimming.

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That is a pure strain fish not a tiger. Nice markings though it is shaped sorta funny. Possibly was injured early in its life or just gorged itself on a large meal prior to catch.

steve-fellegy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>john23 wrote:</div>
On a fish like that I t’s virtually impossible to say natural or hybrid for sure without seeing the tail, counting the pores on the jaw, etc., but I vote regular Muskie. But not LL strain — those are spotted like a leopard. I believe there were WI strain fish from the St. Croix drainage (Big McKenzie) put in Mille Lacs back in the day and this fish looks more like them than a LL fish. But who knows. Nice ski!

A little history.
According to Tom Jones from the Department of Natural Resources fisheries department in Aitkin, from 1969 to 1978 there were about 2,000 <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>muskies stocked in Mille Lacs Lake, but the first serious stocking began in 1984. The <em class=”ido-tag-em”>muskies stocked throughout the ’80s were Wisconsin strain muskies.

“In the early 1990s we began stocking Leech Lake strain (sometimes called Mississippi River strain) muskies in Mille Lacs,” said Jones. “The Leech Lake strain grows faster and bigger than the Wisconsin strain, so that is why we made the decision to switch.”

Yep – that 1980’s stuff is what I was referring to. Big McKenzie is near Spooner and part of the St. Croix watershed and I believe there was some kind of connection between that lake and the fish that were part of the early stocking efforts on ML.

Maybe it is a crazy looking LL strain fish, but it’s definitely not typical of the strain. The pattern will lighten and darken based on where the fish is spending time, so maybe that has something to do with it. Mille Lacs has some cool looking fish in it either way.

EyeHunter wrote:

They keep telling us Muskies don’t eat walleyes, but then I see a video like this from Mille Lacs and wonder? They claim its a smallmouth, looks like a <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye to me.

<div class=”oembed-wrap”><div class=”fluid-width-video-wrapper” style=”padding-top: 56.2353%;”><iframe src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zz-dFY4eZ5I?feature=oembed&#8221; frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen=”” id=”fitvid128693″></iframe></div></div>

A bait and switch? Looks like it could be a walleye. I’m sure the walleye was already a victim of hooking mortality.

Looks like a tiger to me

After exhaustive and extensive research, I have found this to be the true tiger muskie.

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