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Northern pike
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STATE RECORD
45 pounds, 12 ounces, length n/a, Basswood Lake (Lake County), 05/16/1929.
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Muskellunge & Northern Pike Draft Long-Range Plan
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Outdoor calendar
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05/15/10 - 02/27/11
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Walleye, sauger, northern pike - 2010 season
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This voracious predator is one of the easiest fish to catch because it so willingly bites lures or bait. What's more, northerns produce chunky white fillets that many anglers say taste as good as walleyes. Most northerns caught by fishing run 2 to 3 pounds, though trophies over 20 pounds are caught each year. A close cousin to the muskellunge, the northern pike lives in nearly all of Minnesota's lakes and streams.
The quickest way to tell a northern pike from a musky is to note that the northern has light markings on a dark body background, while musky’s generally have dark markings on a light background. A foolproof method is to count the pores on the underside of the jaw: the northern has five or fewer; the musky has six or more. Northerns also have rounded tail fins, compared to the pointy tail fins of a musky.
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Muskellunge
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STATE RECORDS
Musky: 54 pounds, 56 inches, Lake Winnibigoshish (Cass and Itasca counties), 1957.
Tiger Musky: 34 pounds, 12 ounces, 51 inches, Lake Elmo (Washington County), 07/07/1999.
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Muskellunge & Northern Pike Draft Long-Range Plan
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06/05/10 - 12/01/10
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Muskellunge (Muskie) - 2010 season
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The muskellunge is one of the largest and most elusive fish that swims in Minnesota. A musky will eat fish and sometimes ducklings and even small muskrats. It waits in weed beds and then lunges forward, clamping its large, tooth-lined jaws onto the prey. The musky then gulps down the stunned or dead victim head first.
Musky are light colored and usually have dark bars running up and down their long bodies. That's the opposite of northern pike, which have light markings on a dark body. Musky are silver, light green, or light brown. The foolproof way to tell a musky from a northern is to count the pores on the underside of the jaw: A musky has six or more. A northern has five or fewer.
A sterile hybrid of the northern pike and the musky--the tiger musky--is stocked in several heavily fish lakes in the Twin Cities metro region. This species has dark markings on a light background, as on musky, but has rounded tail fins, as on northern pike.
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