Muskellunge

Muskellunge & Northern Pike Draft Long-Range Plan

Proposed musky stockings in five new lakes are designed to provide additional opportunity for musky anglers in areas of the state where opportunity is limited. During the past decade, musky fishing has become the fastest growing segment of Minnesota’s fishing community. DNR currently manages 116 lakes for musky.

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.