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Idaho Fish and Game

Tiger Muskie Record Broken Twice in 72 Hours

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Idaho's 1999 record for tiger muskie was snapped twice in late June. The old record of 34 pounds, eight ounces-set last year by Justin Olson-was broken by a 35-pound fish caught on the last weekend of June. Before the paperwork was submitted for that record, angler Dave Tacherv brought a 37-pound, 13 ounce tiger muskie in to the Panhandle Region Fish and Game office. He caught his fish about 72 hours after the last one. Tacherv's tiger muskie was 49 3/8 inches long. All of Idaho's record tiger muskies have come from Hauser Lake near Coeur d'Alene. When the biggest of them get into the mood to bite, records have fallen in the same rapid-fire pattern as they have this year. Fisheries biologists are not sure how many more huge tiger muskies the lake can hold. They think most of the age class that has produced the records must have been caught by now. Tiger muskies are sterile hybrids, a cross between muskellunge and northern pike. They have been introduced into only a few Idaho lakes where numbers of nongame fish needed to be reduced. Enormous as the record Idaho tiger muskies have been, they still have a way to go for the world record. The biggest in the books is a Wisconsin fish taken in 1919 at 51 pounds, three ounces.