I've been reading a lot about a good number of Dollies in the Puget Sound rivers this year, especially big ones. I've typically only released these fish but I'm starting to wonder how many people are keeping them these days or killing them because they eat other game fish? Anyone killing the Dolly Varden?

Oh boy...

Killing Dollies because they eat eggs or fry is wrongheaded in my opinion.

Take the Hoh for example. It has the most robust Dolly Varden population in the state AND the most robust population of native steelhead. Sounds like, even though I know it gets plenty of help from fishermen, nature is doing just fine in this system on its own?

When I first started fishing that river (or anywhere for that matter) I killed a Dolly one morning and ate it for breakfast. It was horrible...I've talked with a few oldtimers out there that say they are ok if your freezer is empty, you bled the fish right after you caught it and smoked it with an extra pan or two of chips but.... who has the time for all that?

I am biased I guess because I like the fish so much...they just annihilate hardware.

Many of those "dollies" are Bull Trout, an ESA listed fish. Almost impossible to tell the difference between these two char species in the field.

For more info on Bull Trout, check out:

http://ecos.fws.gov/servlet/SpeciesProfile?spcode=E065

Old Chum,

It is legal to take Dollys on a number of rivers, and I suppose that some anglers keep them. I've kept two in my life; none in the last 20 years or more. Here's my take on them as table fare. They are char, and their flesh is best when they are taken from cold water. One caught in the summer or early fall isn't likely to be as good as one taken in the winter. However, I recommend releasing them, independent of the ESA listing.

Since WDFW restricted the harvest of Dolly Varden, bull trout, native char in about 1991, the north coast and north Puget Sound populations have increased significantly. Some have increased ten-fold. Hold that thought for a minute. A drastic reduction in harvest has resulted in up to a ten-fold increase in population size.

Very few anglers used to fish for native char in most of our waters. There are many anglers fishing some northern rivers like the Skagit and Sauk specifically for the char, hoping they might get lucky and catch a steelhead. The "dolly" fishing has been pretty good. Now if the majority of the anglers decide to harvest what the law allows (2 over 20"), do you think the population will increase, stay the same, or decrease? Sorry, that's a trick question, cuz I already know it will decrease. Not as low as it was, but not as large as it is now.

Consider that these population recoveries have occurred over the last 12 years, with all the habitat degradation we have, altho char do spawn in the more pristine areas.

When I think about this turn around of the char population, I'm reminded of similar turn arounds with wild sea-run cutthroat and steelhead. There are things we can directly affect and things we can't. By choosing to not harvest, or limit the effective harvest to the low mortality rates associated with C&R, we can have larger fish populaltions, which just happen to correlate with improved fishing success, if success is measured in hookups rather than fish retained in the creel. There are now a lot of anglers fishing for native char. If they decide to harvest them, they are going to have a much greater effect than harvesting did in the 70s and 80s.

So I hope that no one discovers a really delicious recipe for Dolly Varden, or otherwise encourages more anglers to retain more char. If people don't harvest them, there will be improved fishing. Hold that thought.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

They're way to pretty a fish in my opinion to keep and can turn any mediocre day of fishing into an absolute blast!! (Especially this season)
All I can say is Thank God For Dollies!!

Their takes are aggressive and their fight is about the same.

In my boat I fully endorse the catch and release of these hard fighting and definately underated fish.

I believe Robbo will back me on this one and promotes the same here on the Skagit system.

Salmo g., you have got it right man. The best thing we can do to positvely affect the quality of our fishing is to release those fish that bite agressively and spawn repeatedly. Us 10% of the fishermen that catch 90% of the fish can more than fill up on returning adult salmon, and have no need to kill native char, cutts, or steelhead. These fish not only spawn repeatedly, they bite repeatedly - I personally have caught the same wild steelhead 3 times in one day - and leaving them in the water is what makes the fishing stay good.

I have always been under the impression that bull trout, for the most part were not anadromous. After reading bout them a lil bit I'm very confused the only difference tween bull trout and dolly varden:

"Compared to Dolly Varden, bull trout are larger on average, with a relatively longer and broader head.

During a cursory search of the net I could find no guestimates of what percentage of fish in Puget Sound are dollies and what percentage are bull trout.

I have lived most of my life in the Puget Sound area and have always been under the impression that most were Dolly Varden, w/bull trout being associated more w/inland waters (Easter Wa, Montana etc.).

Anyone have more up-to-date info?

One source did say that bull trout prefer streams (as opposed to rivers) and ones that are cold with very little sediment. Which, correct me if I am wrong would seem to rule out many Puget Sound rivers, including the Skagit/Sauk.

Sincerely,
Roger

let them swim for another day,finally a fishery that we can and do have a possitive affect,now if the weekend warriors will listen up,your children and grandchildren will have some stories to tell

As usual, Salmo has hit the proverbial nail on the head. C & R does work! Release the fish that bite aggressively and the BIG ones. Don’t get me wrong, I think that we need to continue to release all Dollys and Cutts and should probably be releasing all Wild Steelhead.

That’s just my opinion, ya don’t need to try and change my mind...

As far as Dollies providing a good fight -- I have gotta disagree, more like a stick that gives a headshake once n a while.

Now SRC, those put up a great fight, I absolutely love catchin them, and their numbers certainly seem to be increasing, due to the mandatory catch n release regs, I think.

Tight Lines,

Sincerely,
Roger

Come on Smalma ... live up to your namesake and jump in here!

When I first started fishing the coastal rivers in '87, I caught quite a few Dollies in the rivers that had them, some were pretty decent sized as well.

As the years went by, I saw fewer and fewer of them. But, over the last four years or so ... they've shown a big comeback and we see some very nice ones from time to time ... we had about 20" and another about 24" yesterday and last year we had one that went 28". I did hear of one that was 38" long that was checked by an independent source from a tribal netter last year ... that's a pig of a fish, no matter what kind!

I like to see them and I've watched one slam a pink worm four times on the surface as was being retrieved, finally I got the excited customer to stop reeling and the fish fianlly got a chane to fully grab hold of it. Watching that scene was pretty cool!


Sure they eat fry and the like, but they are SUPPOSED to be here, unlike the walleye in the Columbia system. All the more reason to keep salmon & steelie escapements higher than what they are now and let Mother Nature do the rest!

Gee I finally get a day on the river and when I check in I find all kinds of things have broken loose.

Salmo has it pretty much correct. The char populations in the North Puget Sound region have increased substantially since 1990 (when the size limit was raised to 20 inches and bag limit reduced to 2). Spawning redds counts on the South Fork Sauk (Skagit system) jumped from less than 10 per year pre-regulation to the 150 -200 range the last couple years. On the North Fork Sky counts jumped from the 40 to 50 range to more than 300 last year and 500 this year.

Not only are there more fish there are more larger ones. The truly large fish are often 8 to 12 years old. With the continued increasing escapements we can expect to see even more large fish over the next decade.

In Western Washington both Dolly Varden and bull trout are found. While it is generally true that bull true aren't anadromous and Dolly Varden are the exact opposite appears to be the case here. The Dolly Varden are found only in head water streams and never get very large (generally less than 10") - The fish above Sol Duc Falls would be an example. The vast majority of our char appear to be bull trout including the anadromous fish. For example geentic informtion from a tagged fish that was recoveried in Puget Sound clear showed the fish was a bull trout. These animals are quite complex and resist our efforts to put them in nice neat "boxes".

My experience with "Dollies" (they will always be Dollies when I have my fly rod in hand) is that they are an excellent game fish. When caught with appriopate size gear (I generally use 4 or 5 weight fly rods) they can be a handful. I have caught both sea-run cutthroat and "Dollies" side by side many times. I would say that a 14 inch char would be a match for a 16 to 18 inch cutthroat. "Dollies" typically aren't the jumpers or runners that steelhead are though I have some jump as many a 5 times and others run as far as 80 yards into my backing. The fish caught in early winter aren't the best fighters as they have just finished spawning and haven't full recoveried

I'm clearly bias when it comes to our native char as I consider them to be the most complex and interesting of all our salmonids and hands down my favorite fish.

Tight lines
Smalma

I've heard rumors and seen evidence of a study being done on the Dollies in the Hoh...anyone know the specifics?

I can second Smalma on the fight of a dolly, even on somewhat inapropriately-sized gear.

Some year ago I was fishing the Dungeness during a particularly cold snap in late December with my old glass steelhead rod and direct drive reel - water was way low and clear below the hatchery, where a bunch of old boot coho were hanging out. I pitched a cluster of eggs into the hole anyway and was rewarded by a 14 pound keg of dynamite wild steelhead hen that tore up the hole, spent most of the time in the air, and in general ran me ragged until I finally wore her out and released her. I fished on downstream, found and lost another steelhead, and eventually made my way back up to that hole and threw a couple more baits into it. Nothing happened, so I crawled out on a log to look into the hole a little better and saw a nice fish, a little smaller than the one I released, laying right where I had been casting. As I sat there wondering why this particular fish was so zipper lipped it charged the school of coho, smacked onto a ripe old hen hard enough to make her discharge eggs, circled around and ate them. I got a good look at the fish and could see it was a dolly nearly 2 and a half feet long! Well, I had my answer, single eggs, so I rummaged around in my tackle, found an old dry fly on a #12 hook, stripped it bare and tied it on, dug around in my bait box for some nice big single eggs, stuck one on and waited. Sure enough, the dolly charged the coho again, I took advantage of the disturbance and strip-cast the egg into the pool with no weight, around it came after the eggs and sucked mine in. Well, I set the hook and this time I had a nuclear warhead - this puppy not only jumped around more than that big steelhead, it blew the hole to boot and took me twice as long to land. I finally measured and released it - it was "only" an 8 pounder - biggest dolly I ever caught though, and pound for pound likely one of the strongest fish I ever hooked.

Damn right release 'em, and let 'em grow up to be like that one

Glad to see this thread went the way it did. Dollies can turn a long unproductive day of Steelheading into a blast. I have seen several dollies landed this year that went over 5 pounds. Now those are not monsters by a Steelhead or Salmon relationship but it gets the blood flowing. There are rivers that in between good Steelhead holes we cast for the Dollies as the boat is moving from hole to hole with trout rods and do pretty well. I say let them swim to feel the sting of the hook once again.

I guess I'll jump in here too.

Presently, we're conducting a study on the anadromous bull trout (dolly) in the Snohomish basin. We've surgically implanted over 60 char with acoustic tags and have hydrophones that listen for the tags throughout the Snohomish River, a few in the Skagit River and in the marine nearshore from Kayak Point to Mukilteo. As Smalma pointed out, their migratory and life history strategies are very complex and with this study we're trying to tease out some specifics of where they go and when.

One the interesting things we've seen is 'basin hopping' between the Snohomish and Skagit Rivers. We've captured and tagged both adult and juvenile fish in the Snohomish River and have them wind up in the Skagit River (basin), where they probably spawned.

Fisherman have helped in this study by calling us or WDFW when a tagged fish is caught. If anyone catches a char with with either a light blue or medium green speghetti tag behind its dorsal fin, please record the number on the tag, measure the fish, and give us or WDFW a call (our ph# is on the blue tags).

The study is sponsored by the Corps of Engineers who have the responsibility to maintain navigation channels by maintenance dredging. Since the anadromous form of char spends quite a bit of time in lower rivers and nearshore marine areas, and since the fish is listed under ESA, the Corps is required to document that that their activities do not interfere with the fishes movements.

Almost exactly what I've heard they are doing on the Hoh with spaghetti tags and hydrophones...I sure would like to know for sure.

Very cool to hear about the studies. I, too, find these fish fascinating and have wondered about gaining more knowledge of their behaviors. Is it possible to subscribe to a listserve or any way to see this info as it becomes available?

I once heard of a Bull Trout study in the Fraser BC, where tagged fish showed up in the Skagit only weeks after. Cool stuff.

I'm relieved that everyone so far has posted positive things about keeping this fish protected and abundant. One of my initial fears about hearing so much about people targeting these fish this year was that a lot of poeple were not releasing. I'm pretty sure that I remember reading a couple years ago on a bulletin board that people were almost hostile to these fish in the Sauk and were aggressively trying to get rid of them because they claimed they were chowing on fry. I wondered if anyone on this board would openly admit to that kind of behavior.

I killed a dolly/bull once on the Sauk and ate it. It was my first and last. It had two small whitefish in its belly and it didn't taste very good. Since then, I have targeted these fish often and have to admit that they are my favorite fish for lots of reasons. They are the perfect fly rod fish for streamers and are readily accessible to waders. They live and spawn in beautiful waters and have beautifull colors. I find that like other salmonids, their fighting habits vary widely but if I could never catch another fish but a dolly, I'd be a happy man. My largest has measured 26" in Washington waters but I have seen, but not hooked, larger fish. They also seem to be smarter (better problem solvers) than other fish I've caught. Let's release them alive!

Varden

Too bad native steelhead don't also taste like poop, eh?