I really havent seen chain pickerel help out any population of fish yet in the lakes and ponds we manage and electrofish. Typically I consider them trash. Usually when we find them overpopulated so are the 12" largemouth bass.
I actually have been stocking literally thousands of tiger muskie, pure muskie, and northern pike for all sorts of people for different reasons, applications, and experiments. I have one 3 acre pond that I own but don't ever use that has 25 tiger muskie all about 3 lbs each this spring. I will be sampling it this fall.
I have noticed huge differences in growth rates among tiger muskies that we stock. some of them grow super big super quick and some of them stay small in the 20 inch range for a long time.
RC, tiger muskies are made in a hatchery and do not reproduce. pure muskies do not reproduce in Illinois either. Every muskie in Illinois is a stocked fish. In fact Justin and I help trap the broodstock muskies that make the babies for all the public muskie stockings in Illinois. Here is a video of the trapnetting process:
We take the fish to Jake Wolf State fish hatchery and they strip the eggs and milt and raise the babies all summer long. Many of those female muskie have invisible chips in them and have been caught every spring to make babies for many years.
