Chinook 1, Cowlitzfisherman and I are friends, and he corrects me whenever I get one of the Cowlitz fish statistics wrong, so no worries there.

The tiger muskies are not major predators of juvenile salmon or steelhead. The tiger muskies prey mainly on pikeminnow, which do prey on juvenile salmon. Tiger muskies are water temperature dependent predators, and by the time they become really active in late spring, early summer, the salmon and steelhead smolts have mostly moved through Mayfield reservoir. So although tiger musky are an exotic species not native to the Cowlitz basin, none of the relicensing stakeholders raised it as an issue that had to be dealt with, and WDFW wanted to continue the program.