Both pikes and muskies have pores on the underside of their lower jaws that allow them to detect vibrations in nearby water, but muskies always have more. If you flip your catch over (carefully!) and count five or fewer pores on each side of the jaw, it’s a pike. If there are six or more on either side, it’s a muskie.
Is Musky a good eating fish?
Some lakes and other bodies of water have advisories in place that recommend against eating your catch from their waters. As long as muskies are not threatened here you are fishing and the waters are clear, this fish is an absolutely delicious treat.
What is the difference between a muskie and a northern pike?
Tail Fork. Perhaps the easiest way to distinguish a Muskie from a Pike is to identify the tail. Both species have forked tails, however, a Muskie’s tail has a predominate pointed fork. Whereas, a Northern Pike will have more rounded tips.
What is the difference between a muskie and a tiger muskie?
The striped pattern is the most distinguishing feature. Tiger muskies can be identified by their over-the-top colour pattern that is similar to a muskie in that they have a light background with dark vertical markings, but an exceptionally coloured barred variation of true muskie can also confuse anglers.
How can you tell the difference between Pike and musky? – Related Questions
Has a muskie ever attacked a person?
However, a Wikipedia description of the species includes this passage: “Although very rare, muskellunge attacks on humans do occur on occasion.”
What is the best bait to catch a muskie?
Bucktails – Bucktails are arguably the most popular bait used by musky anglers. Bucktails produce vibrations in the water that are easily felt by a musky’s lateral line. Bucktails can be retrieved at any speed, depending on the conditions. The most popular bucktails are double 9 blades and double 10 blades.
Whats bigger muskie or tiger muskie?
Size. Since the muskie is the largest in its family, tigers also have the ability to grow to impressive lengths. Tigers actually grow at a faster pace (studies showing that they grow 1.5 times faster than a purebred muskie).
What two fish make a tiger muskie?
The tiger muskie is the hybrid offspring of the muskellunge and northern pike. Tiger muskies are very rare in nature because they’re sterile and can’t reproduce on their own but due to their stout genetics, they grow larger faster than either of their parent species.
What are the different types of muskies?
There are four types of muskellunge fish-barred muskies, spotted muskie, tiger muskellunge, and clear muskies. Muskies especially thrive in and around the Great Lakes, including all five lakes and their surrounding rivers.
How old is a 50 pound muskie?
Using a formula based on length, the muskie could have been 14 to 20 years old, Younk said. Kiritschenko is like many muskie anglers in that he believes in releasing his catches so they can grow bigger, but his 50 pounder was hooked deep and couldn’t be revived. “It was belly up,” Kiritschenko said.
What was the biggest muskie ever caught?
For muskies, the world records for length and weight are held by two different fish. The maximum documented length is 72.04 inches (183 cm), and the heaviest documented weight is 70.10 pounds (31.8 kg), according to FishBase.
What month is best for muskie fishing?
Early summer – September for numbers of Muskies and length. Late Oct – Dec 15th for your heavy giants. I do pull the big trolling boat around the second week of November so it doesn’t get frozen in.
What is the life expectancy of a muskie?
Adult muskies have no aquatic predators, but may fall victim to disease, large birds of prey, or people. Muskellunge can live to about 18 years old, but fish up to 30 years of age have been documented.
Do muskies bite swimmers?
Obviously the muskie is not out to bite humans and likely just see the flailing hands or feet as some sort of wounded fish in the water. They are aggressive predator fish and are generally tricked into biting anglers’ large, loud moving lures. Gervais hasn’t let the incident deter him from swimming in St. Clair.
What do muskie fish eat?
In shallower areas of a lake system, muskies might gorge on yellow perch or crappie, while they will mainly feed on ciscoes, herring, and other deeper water species out in the main lake areas. Occasionally, musky will eat much bigger prey fish, such as walleye, northern pike, or lake trout.
Do muskie have teeth?
Musky have very large mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth. They have both bigger canines and smaller needle-like teeth. An adult muskie can have between 500 and 700 teeth in its mouth. The biggest of these can be up to 1 inch in length.
What is a muskies favorite food?
Given the opportunity to choose, Muskies prefer soft rayed, high protein based fish such as Suckers, Tullibee, Ciscoes, Bullheads, Carp, and minnows. In fact, the food sources Muskies prefer most are usually fish species that most people would desire to not have in their lake.