OK, so maybe I should know this and maybe I jumped at fish IDing too quickly. Our cover fish pic, the pike caught on Moses lake - is it a Pike or a Tiger Muskie? I received an e-mail from a reader saying they were planted in Moses lake (which I hadn't heard about). So anyone else want to venture a fish ID or know about Tiger Muskie's in Moses lake? I've seen beautiful Tiger Muskies out of Mayfield and they look like Muskies - vertical bars. This fish has broken horizonal bars - a pike. I see nothing on the WDFW page on Moses lake being planted with TMs (I did a search). I did, however, see a reference to these fish being raised nearby Moses lake at the Columbia Basin Fish Hatchery in Moses Lake. And, the picture on WDFW clearly looks like a muskie, not a pike. HELP!

Can't really tell myself which it is, Tiger or Pike,but can tell ya one thing. You can kiss goodby any chance of a resurgence in Crappie fishing the F&G were working hard to rebuild.
And you can also kiss goodby the once fair to good trout fishing in the lake.

Suspect this is an accidental escapee or an illegal introduction, not something from F&G.

Well..... they've caught a couple of pike down in the Potholes rez..... and to get there those fish have to come via Moses Lake.

Unfortunately that picture is too shiny. I took a closer look at the tail and it could be vertical strips. I wish we had another picture to examine.

Since there are pike in the Columbia system, thanks in large part to Lake Couer d'Alene's population spreading, it could well be a Northern. Based on what I see there, it looks like one, but picture quality is way down.

However, if tiger muskies have been planted in Moses, then that would be the most likely culprit...

Pike in the Potholes? When did that start happening? I wonder if some reports of pike are through confusion with walleyes-- which have been miscalled "walleyed pike" for a long time. But I wouldn't be surprised at pike there.

At one time, I talked to a fish bio for WDFW who had checked a stringer of pike in Roosevelt-- and this was about 20 years ago now. Obviously, the fish have been in the system for a long time, and they could have spread.

Keith

My vote is a Northern Pike. Game department wouldn't want the political headache of muskies planted in Moses Lake, too many chances of it migrated throughout the whole canal system. I've caught a lot of pike and sure looks like one to me.

Bet it's a transplant from Lake Couer d'Alene system or upper Spokane River. They are very aggressive and multiply like crazy. If there is a sizable population in Moses then people should start catching a lot of "snakes" 12 inchers.

I remember reports from the late 70's early 80's about pike caught in Banks and Potholes but it never was really confirmed.