Hey everyone! Long time no see.

Caught this yesterday and I’ve gotten conflicting answers from buddies and other people online. Majority are saying musky but others say pike.

What do you think?

Musky.

I compared shape of fins to both species and musky fits.

Here's a pike. Notice rear two fins upper and lower are rounded?

Now look at same fins on a musky and compare to your fish. Shows corners rather than rounded.

From my comparison, your fish shows the same corners rather than rounded for lack of better descriptive words.

Also those same fins on your fish shows dots that also match the musky. So I am seeing at least 2 distinct characteristics to make a quick uneducated guess.

I say musky based on visual comparison. If wrong, won't be the first time- and the "Florida argument is irrelevant" since we don't have those around here. But I bet they are fun to catch. Nice fish!

The coloration patterns say Musky to me.

The color, patterning, and pointed tail fins are a dead giveaway. Pure strain muskie.

The only debate on this fish is Muskie or Tiger Muskie. Certainly not a pike. I agree with the gentlemen above and say it’s a pure muskellunge

13 minutes ago, Jar11591 said:

The only debate on this fish is Muskie or Tiger Muskie.

It's not a tiger.

Tigers look like this:

That's a 38" my friend Jeff from Red Cedar Fly Fishing caught in a local river last November.

I was on the oars, and told him to chuck a cast at a mid-river log...and boom...

Musky. Brian.

Tigers have the pattern of a pure strain muskie combined with the color of a pike - more of a greenish hue. They also have rounded tail fins as apposed to pointed ones.

The one that @Further North posted is a really good example. Stunning color and pattern on that fish. Also, they don't grow nearly as big as a pure strain either. A 40 incher is comparable to a 50 incher in the pure strain class.

Definitely a pure strain muskie. Pike have short squiggly horizontal placed lines while muskie's have a vertical bar design. Musky just below & pike in 2nd pic.

17 hours ago, Dwight Hottle said:

Definitely a pure strain muskie. Pike have short squiggly horizontal placed lines while muskie's have a vertical bar design. Musky just below & pike in 2nd pic.

Now that's a PIKE!!!!! Brian.

I say musky.

I usually don't target pike but somehow I catch a few.

My musky experiences although almost always eventful on bass gear, a rare enough that I can't really differentiate between types.

I do prefer to get my bait back if at all possible.

A-Jay

Easy to identify……the ever present northwoods bait thief. They come in all sizes and various species but can all be identified with a cadre of bass fisherman’s lures in their mouth. Lucky for us here in Virginia other than a few locations, we mainly have chain pickerel which are smaller but just as capable of chomping through most line choices and they are not picky. We are blessed with the Northern Snakehead which is just as toothy.

This is from the MN DNR.

Muskellunge

Native muskies have darker markings (spots or bars) on a light background. That's the opposite of northern pike, which have light markings on a dark body. Muskies are silver, light green, or light brown. They look and behave much like northern pike but are much rarer.

Tiger muskellunge

Rounded tail fins identify the tiger muskie, a sterile hybrid of the northern pike and the muskie that is stocked in several heavily fished lakes in the Twin Cities. Like native muskie, this fish has dark markings on a light background with the key difference its tail fins.

Northern pike

This voracious predator is common throughout Minnesota and one of the easiest fish to catch because it so willingly bites lures or bait. Similar to both the Muskellunge and Tiger Muskellunge, it has rounded tail fins with more distinct oval spots.