History of Tiger Musky Stocking In Washington State

[Don Wittenberger]

Below is the stocking history I currently have in my records. I've collected this information from various sources over the years, including WDFW staff, scientific reports, newspaper articles, etc. The data for Mayfield and Evergreen are incomplete, and I had conflicting data from multiple sources for a few entries, in which case I used the source I considered most reliable. I can't guarantee this information is error-free, but I believe it to be mostly accurate.

The first tiger muskies stocked in Washington were put in Mayfield Lake in 1988 by Jack Tipping, a WDFW biologist (now retired). Jack told me years ago he didn't think any of these fish survived, and he thought the 1989 Mayfield stocking was the first successful stocking. Mayfield was Washington's only musky lake until 1992, when tigers were introduced into Spokane's Newman Lake. Merwin followed in 1995, Evergreen in 1997, Curlew in 1998, Tapps in 2000, and Silver Lake in 2002. There also were several one-time stockings in other lakes and ponds, including Seattle's Green Lake in 2002. A question mark (?) next to a lake means the lake received a stocking that year but I don't know how many fish were stocked. Otherwise, if a lake isn't mentioned for a particular year, it wasn't stocked that year.

WDFW assumes mortality rates of 66% in the first year and 50% in succeeding years. Thus, a stocking of 300 fingerlings would result in 50 surviving fish available to anglers in the third season after the stocking.

1988 - Mayfield 7000+
1989 - Mayfield ?
1990 - Mayfield ?
1991 - Mayfield 616
1992 - Mayfield 1150, Newman 679
1993 - Mayfield 375
1994 - Mayfield 255, Newman 2366
1995 - Merwin 1209, Newman 955
1996 - Mayfield 1103, Merwin 375
1997 - Mayfield 700, Merwin 1331, Newman 999, Evergreen ?, Red Rock 1644, South Lewis County Pond 20
1998 - Mayfield 863, Merwin 3662, Newman 500, Curlew 400, Evergreen ?, South Lewis County Pond 20
1999 - Mayfield 477, Merwin 1273, Newman 400, Curlew 100, Evergreen ?, Red Rock 400, South Lewis County Pond 20
2000 - Mayfield 1000, Merwin 2096, Tapps 1876, Newman 644, Curlew 350, Evergreen 450, Green Lake 150, Fazon 28
2001 - None
2002 - Mayfield 700, Merwin 694, Tapps 800, Newman 500, Curlew 336, Silver 1000, Evergreen 300
2003 - Curlew 298, Silver 231
2004 - Mayfield 600, Merwin 200, Newman 350, Curlew 365, Silver 200, Evergreen 74
2005 - Mayfield 1000, Merwin 1000, Tapps 803, Curlew 600, Silver 400, Evergreen 200, Anderson 75, Upper Anderson 10
2006 - Mayfield 1100, Merwin 1500, Tapps 1000, Newman 700, Curlew 400, Silver 300, Evergreen 2002
2007 - Mayfield 800, Merwin 900, Tapps 191, Newman 400, Curlew 150, Silver 250, Evergreen 100
2008 - Merwin 900? or possibly 0, as none of the other lakes received fish that year
2009 - Mayfield 1463, Merwin 2200, Tapps 1790, Newman 700, Curlew 450, Silver 350, Evergreen 200
2010 - Mayfield 1200, Merwin 1250, Tapps 1100, Newman 700, Curlew 450, Silver 350, Evergreen 250
2011 - Mayfield 1400, Merwin 1800, Tapps 1150, Newman 700, Curlew 400, Silver 350, Evergreen 300
2012 - Mayfield 1100, Merwin 1566, Tapps 1000, Newman 600, Curlew 400, Silver 350, Evergreen 250
2013 - Mayfield 1200, Merwin 2000, Tapps 1400, Newman 975, Curlew 425, Silver 325, Evergreen 300
2014 - Mayfield 1400, Merwin 2175, Tapps 1300, Newman 720, Curlew 250, Silver 300, Evergreen 300
2015 - Mayfield 1500, Merwin 2650, Tapps 0, Newman 700, Curlew 250, Silver 300, Evergreen 350
2016 - Mayfield 1700, Merwin 2800, Tapps 0, Newman 700, Curlew 250, Silver 300, Evergreen 350

WDFW also provided a few fish to the Cabela's store in Lacey for their aquarium, and they may have provided some fish to neighboring states.

(This post revised on 12/5/16 by adding 2016 data.)

[Larry3215]

Interesting! Thanks for the post

[namaycush]

Lake Marie had 300,000 Pike/Muskellunge planted in 1920.

[AJ's Dad]

How is it determined how many fish are planted into each lake? Is it done by size of lake, or angler population in the area or a combination, or something else? Just curious. I have never been to Mayfield, Merwin or Evergreen, so I don't know how big they are.

[Don Wittenberger]

Merwin - 4,090 acres
Tapps - 2,296 acres
Mayfield - 2,050 acres
Newman - 1,200 acres
Curlew - 870 acres
Silver - 486 acres
Evergreen - 235 acres

Lake size is a major determinant, but isn't the only factor. As a rule of thumb, WDFW strives for a population density of roughly 1/2 fish per acre, but this can vary depending on species mix, how much forage is available, etc. And, of course, how many fingerlings survived in the hatchery and are available for stocking (WDFW aims for 6,000 stockable tiger muskies per year, but this can vary by 10% or more in either direction).

[AJ's Dad]

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

[Don Wittenberger]

Where the musky anglers live bears more on finding lakes to stock with tiger muskies; for example, the area between Tacoma and Vancouver has all three of Washington's largest tiger musky lakes, and the Spokane area has two of the remaining lakes. The other two are in central Washington, midway between the state's major population centers, one of them just off Interstate 90. But angler population location isn't the main determinant in choosing lakes, because this factor is overpowered by three other factors:

(1) The lake has to be suitable for tiger muskies in terms of water quality and temperature, forage base, etc.

(2) The lake has to be physically isolated. WDFW won't stock tiger muskies in contiguous waters, where they could migrate into other waters, especially salmon waters. Generally speaking, WDFW chooses lakes that don't have an outlet, although this isn't true of Merwin, Mayfield, and Tapps, which are impoundments behind dams. A few tigers make it over the dams or through the turbines into the rivers below, but this hasn't been a problem, so WDFW continues to stock these reservoirs.

A subset of this factor is that tiger musky stocking can't infringe on fish species protected by the Endangered Species Act. This is why the two reservoirs above Merwin Lake will never be stocked with tiger muskies. Swift and Yale Reservoirs are physically attractive habitats for tiger muskies, and it would be terrific to have "our" fish in the entire chain of Lewis River reservoirs, but it isn't gonna happen because Yale Reservoir is a habitat for native bull trout, which is a listed species under the ESA. A few bull trout escape into Merwin Reservoir below, but tiger musky stocking in Merwin is allowed anyway because they don't reproduce there and therefore don't constitute a breeding population the feds, state, and tribes are trying to preserve. The bull trout in Yale are a reproducing population, and therefore that lake is off limits to a predator that could threaten them there. Swift, which is above Yale, is not a recognized bull trout water, but if you put tiger muskies in swift they could escape into Yale, whereas Merwin's tiger muskies can't climb over the Yale Dam. They can only go downstream, so you can have tiger muskies below Yale Reservoir but not above it.

This factor plays out in various ways in other waters. After northern pike invaded the Pend O'Reilles river, Spokane-area sport anglers wanted WDFW to manage them as a sport fishery, but instead WDFW (no doubt under pressure from the feds) adopted a policy of exterminating them, because (1) unlike tiger muskies, they can reproduce, and are able to establish self-sustaining populations in waters they get into, (2) the POR is connected to the Columbia River, so there's a potential for them to eventually infest the entire Columbia River system (a few are already being caught by anglers in the Kettle Falls area), and (3) they're viewed as a threat to the Columbia's endangered salmon runs and the billions of dollars being spent to save the salmon.

(3) There can't be tribal objections. This factor rules out a number of waters, such as Mason Lake in Mason County, and may have played a role in WDFW abandoning its plan to stock tiger muskies in Whatcom County's Lake Samish. The tribes have a big interest in salmon recovery, and won't agree to introducing non-native species like tiger muskies into any water where there's a salmon migration or resident population. That was the problem with Mason Lake; a migratory salmon population passes through it on its way to its spawning grounds. Tribal interests also play an important role in the policy decision to keep northern pike from taking over the POR.

I've worked with WDFW fish managers for years to get more muskie lakes, especially one in the northwest corner of the state, in Whatcom or Skagit county. Presently, muskie devotees living north of Seattle either have to fight their way through Puget Sound traffic to reach Tapps, Mayfield, or Merwin -- all of which are several hours' driving time away from Bellingham, Mount Vernon, and Everett -- or they have to go to eastern Washington, if they want to fish for tiger muskies. So it would be nice to have a tiger musky lake north of Seattle. We've been working on this, and identified several potential lakes in Snohomish County, plus Samish Lake in Whatcom County, but it hasn't been possible to bring this to fruition.

Although Washington has a lot of lakes, very few of them meet all the suitability tests for tiger musky stocking. At one point, WDFW thought about putting them in Sprague Lake, which is in the I-90 corridor west of Spokane. This would have given the Spokane area a third tiger musky lake, and it would have been a big one, over 2,000 acres. But in the end, tiger muskies didn't fit into WDFW's species management plan for Sprague, and the idea was dropped.

Within the last few years, we've had to defend the retention of Tapps as a tiger musky lake. First, there was doubt whether Tapps would even exist; it was created a century ago by a Tacoma Power dam to generate power, which is no longer used, and TP wanted out of its responsibility for maintaining the dam and lake. Tapps Lake was saved when a consortium of municipalities bought it from TP to use for water supply. Then, a handful of Tapps homeowners complained about the tiger musky stocking (because they thought the TM's were driving off birds and destroying their grandkids' panfishing opportunities), and state Senator Pam Roach held a townhall on the issue, which successfully defused the push to discontinue TM stocking at Tapps. Then, there were water level issues that resulted in suspending TM stocking at Tapps in 2015 and possibly 2016, but WDFW has assured me Tapps will continue to be a tiger musky lake and stocking will resume when lake conditions permit.

Besides Mason and Samish lakes, and several Snohomish County lakes (including Stevens Lake), WDFW has considered, and I've discussed with them, a small reservoir near Aberdeen/Hoquiam, and we've kicked around several other possibilities, including one in the Vancouver area. None of these have come to fruition. I wouldn't completely rule out the possibility of more tiger musky lakes in the future, but I've come to realize it will be extremely difficult to add to the seven lakes we already have, and I'm also mindful we can't take those lakes for granted and part of our efforts and attention as an angling community need to be directed toward keeping the tiger musky stocking going where it presently exists.

In that respect, we've very fortunate, because for the last 17 years the warmwater program has been run by biologists who like tiger muskies, some of them fish for them, and there's a pretty strong commitment within WDFW to this program. In addition, the tiger musky stocking program -- which costs about $150,000 a year -- was protected from budget cuts during the recent brutal recession because all of this money comes from fishing license fees and by law must be spent on warmwater enhancement -- it can't be poached from the budget by other programs. But personnel changes occur all time time, and new personnel in the future might not have the same commitment to the tiger musky program. Ultimately, keeping tiger muskies in Washington State will depend on angler demand for them, and effective representation of tiger musky anglers in the nooks and crannies of the WDFW bureaucracy where policy decisions are made.

WDFW has a freshwater fisheries advisory group with 15 citizen members appointed by the director. The warmwater and trout interests are combined in this one group, so a lot of these members represent trout anglers. For example, the high lakes groups (people who like to fish for stocked trout at hike-in-only alpine lakes) have had a strong presence on this panel since it was created about 20 years ago. Tiger musky anglers have had a representative in this group, and therefore a voice in WDFW's fish management policies, for the last decade. That would be me. I was appointed to this group in 2006, and ever since then I've been diligently attending its meetings and making sure our interests are heard. I was also responsible for getting WDFW to change the "keeper" size for tiger muskies from 36 inches to 50 inches, which effectively turned our fishery into a C&R fishery, and plays an important role in keeping those big 20 to 30 pounders in our lakes so we can enjoy catching "big ones." I won't be able to do this forever -- I will be 70 years old in May -- and hopefully there's someone out there with the ability and willingness to take over this role when I can't do it anymore, because it's really important to have someone speaking for all of us when decisions are being made.

Tiger muskies are a non-native species here, and as such, are automatically disfavored. In Oregon, tiger muskies are treated like criminals, which is why that state doesn't have a tiger musky fishery. (Note: There's an experimental TM population in Phillips Reservoir near Baker City that should begin reaching a fishable size this year or next, so things may be starting to change in Oregon.) An awful lot depends on the attitudes of the public servants (some people call them "bureaucrats") making the fish management decisions; so, yes, lobbying is important and pays off.