It lives in fresh water and its range extends to Canada, the Northeast, and the Midwest United States.

It grows quickly; in one study, tiger muskie grew 1.5 times as fast as muskellunge.

Several states, including Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Washington, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming stock tiger muskies.

[1] The tiger muskie feeds as the northern pike and muskellunge do, by waiting near weeds and ambushing its prey.

[10] Its varied diet includes yellow perch,[11] suckers,[11] golden shiners, walleye, smallmouth bass, and various other types of fish.

[11] When fish are not readily available tiger muskies will feed on crayfish, frogs, young waterfowl, muskrats, mice,[3] and other small mammals.

[12] Because tiger muskies are bred for stocking purposes, studies have been made of its growth rate and the factors that affect it.

In studies, the tiger muskie has had the highest growth, production, and food conversion efficiency at temperatures of 20–24 °C (68–75 °F).

This information helps those involved in wildlife management to make cost-effective decisions about breeding and stocking programs.

Breeders prefer to breed male northern pike and female muskellunge, because the eggs are less adhesive and have less tendency to clump when hatching.

They can also endure high temperatures better than the parent fish and they grow more quickly, reaching legal size sooner and making them more useful in stocking.

[18] The current International Game Fish Association (IGFA) all-tackle world record tiger muskie is a 23.21-kilogram (51 lb 3 oz) specimen that was caught on July 16, 1919, by John Knobla at Lac Vieux-Desert, Michigan, while the current IGFA all-tackle length world record, pending as of August 18, 2024[update], is a 115-centimetre (45 in) individual caught on May 20, 2024, by angler Daniel Caricaburu-Lundin in Ackley Lake, Hobson, Montana.

Like many other predatory fish, muskies like to hide in the edge of weed beds so they can ambush prey.

Unlike other fish muskies seem to feed when the weather and atmospheric pressure stay consistent, rain or shine.