In 1932, the town of Spider Lake (now Manitowish Waters) entered in to an agreement with the Wisconsin Conservation Commission to create the first municipal fish hatchery in our state. The town raised $1000 and constructed the Manitowish Waters Fish Hatchery a few yards downstream from Rest Lake Dam. The hatchery was a point of community pride, and other Wisconsin towns soon copied this progressive plan.

Importantly, history teacher Jim Bauer’s Masters Thesis on the Rest Lake Dam also includes some key insights into fish hatchery operations. Bauer explained that the fish hatchery was expanded in 1936, and cited the largest annual releases were 14 million walleyes in 1942 and 2.7 million muskies in 1939. The Iron County Miner newspaper revealed that in September of 1945 the Town Board of Manitowish Waters agreed to turn over the hatchery to the Wisconsin Conservation Department. The state intended to repurpose the hatchery to raise feed for fingerlings in department rearing ponds.

During its 13 years of operations the Manitowish Waters Fish Hatchery delivered numerous ground breaking outcomes. Jim Bauer shared a story of locals trying to collect some big male muskies to fertilize the eggs gathered from of a giant female musky. Frustrated, the hatchery workers grabbed two large male northern pike in the nets in the channel between Manitowish and Little Star lakes. The musky eggs were fertilized with northern pike milt as a local experiment, and created hybrid or Tiger Muskies! Once the State learned these fish were viable, they jumped in, seized the jars of eggs and spread the Tiger Musky eggs to other facilities.

The Manitowish Waters Fish Hatchery created a new game fish, and proudly claims to be, The Home of the Tiger Musky!