the colors of muskies

[lars0926]

I was on a recent fishing trip for muskies to lake Alexander up near Brainard. I was throwing top water and had a follow of the most amazing 50"+ specimen. I'm not sure if it was a natural or hybrid, but the back of the fish was a dark red, almost like a rust color. The fish stayed along side the boat and we were fortunate enough to be able to observe it for about 5 minutes. I've never seen anything like it (and I've boated at least 100 muskies in my life and see hundreds follow and be caught). My parter actually questioned if it was possible that it was a pike. We continued to watch it and could definately identify it as a musky. As luck would have it another fisherman boated a silver colored musky in the same vacinity (49") just minutes later. My question to you all is whether you've seen a musky with such red coloration?

Interesting that while doing some searching I found an albino musky from WI caught recently.

albino musky

[Random guy]

That is interesting, I have noticed as a lot of poeple have the clearer the water the more defined the markings and,if you look at older art work of muskies they were painted with strong runs of red in them. I got to researching the whole coloring / markings thing after I caught a silver pike on Mantrap Lake, kinda looked like a Northern that got chromed at the custom shop. If you come into any info send me a link.

[RK]

Hiya,

They can be all sorts of goofy colors. There was one showing up for a while on a lake that I fish that was extremely pale - almost white, but not quite. First time I had it follow you could see it a cast length away - looked like a fish was swimming upside down. Guy I was with caught one on Lake of the Woods once that had blue fins and a blue tongue and inside of the mouth - I mean, bright blueish green. It was bizarre. Some Ontario fish have a lot of red in them - real red tails and fins, and have also caught one MN fish that was really rust colored on the back. Fish came up to the surface when it was hooked, and all I saw was the back, and I didn't know what the hell I was seeing at first.

I suppose it's juts genetic variations like hair color. Some fish have real bright markings, some are more pale, etc.

Interesting that you caught a silver pike in Mantrap. There are a few lakes in that area with them. Belle Taine by Nevis has lots of them, and a lake I ice fish has quite a few, but never caught on on Mantrap. Wow are they ever beautiful fish... Backs on some of them are almost blue...

Cheers,

RK

[Cooter]

The albino in WI was netted by the DNR in Oneida Co, after rumors of such fish in the area. It was fin clipped and released, 33".