Was out yesterday from 8:30 to 2:30. 6 hours of fishing and only 2 fish. The first was a 10″ eye, the second one (pictured – 42″) made up for it. I’m not a very big musky guy, does anyone know if this is tiger musky or the leech lake strain or something else? It looks like it has a black transmitter on it, but I couldn’t discern any numbers on it (see picture of it in the water).
That’s a tiger. A really nice one too!
We caught a low-30″ tiger last fall. These are the first two that I’ve seen in 13 years of fishing Wissota.
Tigers are often seen in lakes that are specifically stocked with tigers, but Wissota has only received pure strain muskys from the DNR….so these tigers that we’re seeing are naturally produced.
Interesting that the big tiger had a tracking chip…
I wonder if Joe Kurz (fisheries biologist for the Wissota area) is doing any tracking / feasibility studies regarding tiger musky stocking???
Mike
That is one hellashish tiger 
hope ya fried it, When i fry fish i use butter instead of veg oil.How do u fry em?
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I wonder if Joe Kurz (fisheries biologist for the Wissota area) is doing any tracking / feasibility studies regarding tiger musky stocking???
With the regular stocking of pure strain ‘skis that Wissota receives, as well as the ongoing Leech Lake strain experiment, I kinda doubt that Joe would be willing to throw another variant into the mix.
But I’ve been wrong before 
I’m not up on my Wissota biology…. When did they start putting Leech Lake strain muskies in there?
Funny… We get leech lake strain, Mille Lacs get N. WI strain…
Maybe MN would want to institute a carp-for-walleye trading program?? 
I know a few lakes/rivers further south that would be more than willing to let a few bazillion carp go across the border… 
Its all about economics Whit… The Musky venue is where the most $$$ are…according to the Fishing Tackle business reports. Funny…most Walleye,Bass, or Trout devotees I know don’t really seem to care for them much… 
Mike, I believe the program started in 2005, as a partnership between our local Muskies Inc chapter and the WI DNR.
Here’s a short piece on the program from the DNR: Leech Lake musky in WI
The tag isn’t a chip but a regular tag.It is covered with crud and cleans off pretty easy…Years ago I had a “pet” musky I caught with a tag on it,I cleaned it off and was a beacon for when it was following my bait.It was cool to see how they liked on piece of structure over another..I caught a tiger up on the Yellow 2 years ago…Paul
Fishing Foo is correct. Tags are place on the top as pictured.
Tranmitters are sugically installed and the tranmitter wire runs out the anal opening.
tweed
Took a friend out fishing on Wissota last summer and he became a bit of a Musky magnet. Boating two within 40 minutes, one regular and the other a tiger trolling cranks for walleye. The next time out jigging for walleye hooked a giant. A couple of musky fishermen were in the area and asked if they could tag it, so after it was boated, they pulled alongside and attached a tag and released it. They recorded the length and date it was caught and assigned it a number. They told him what number his Musky was. I don’t recall the exact number but think is was in the 160-170 range, so there must be a bunch of them out there with tags. I think they were from the local Musky Club.
Attached is a picture of a Leech Lake Musky that I caught while pre-fishing Leech with Jason. First “spotted” musky I have seen.
Thanks for all of the info. I especially appreciate the pic of the leech lake strain. They definitely are not hard to identify when you know what you are looking for! Next time I’ll have to look a little closer at the tag (not transmitter).
what your looking at is a floy tag. If you rub the scum off of it you can read the numbers. If you give the number to the fish biologist ( Joe Kurz) he can tell you when and what size the fish was when it was tagged
I just received an e-mail from Joe about this very subject:
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The angler took a nice picture of the tag, and from the color of the tag I am positive that it is a Floy tag inserted by the First WI Chapter of Muskies Inc. They’ve been tagging catch and release muskies for years. If anyone catches one of these and gets the tag number, I will pass the information along to the tagging chairman for the club.
Joe Kurz
Fisheries Biologist
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
711 N. Bridge St.
Chippewa Falls, WI 54729
(715) 726-7884
Thanks for the insights Joe!
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