Muskellunge (Musky)

The muskellunge is a long, torpedo-shaped predator with a duckbill snout, a mouth full of needle teeth and a tail that is pointed at both lobes (a northern pike's is rounded). Coloration runs from silver to olive-green with dark vertical bars or spots on a light background, the reverse of the pike's light-on-dark pattern. The surest tell is the pores on the underside of the lower jaw: muskies have six to nine per side, pike five or fewer. Clear or barred color phases are common, and the sterile tiger musky hybrid (musky x pike) is stocked widely.

Native range centers on the Great Lakes basin, the upper Mississippi and Ohio drainages and the St. Lawrence system, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario and Quebec, with relict populations in the Tennessee and Ohio river tributaries. Stocking has spread muskies through Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa and West Virginia, and tailwater and reservoir fisheries in the South now produce 50-inch fish. Preferred water is 60 to 72 F (16 to 22 C) with weed beds, rock points and submerged timber; muskies tolerate 46 to 80 F (8 to 27 C) but go deep and sluggish in high summer.

Muskies are ambush predators that sit in cover and rush large prey: suckers, ciscoes, perch, shad, even ducklings and muskrats. They feed in short windows, often at dawn, dusk and around moon rise and set, and will follow a lure to the boat and turn away far more often than they strike. Population density is low, typically one adult fish per acre or less, so every encounter matters. Adults reach 30 inches in about four years and keep growing slowly for 15 to 20 years; the biggest fish are old females.

The musky is the reason thousands of anglers throw 10-ounce baits on 9-foot rods for days without a fish. The payoff is a 50-inch fish beside the boat. Nearly all musky fishing today is catch and release, with a cradle or big net, a quick measure and a careful release, and the fishery has improved dramatically because of it.