Trout identification

[natenez]

Last Dec I caught a trout in the Snoqualmie river, but I'm not sure what species. Judging from some id guides I think it is a coastal cutthroat.

What do you think?

[Bodofish]

Dolly/Bull

[curado]

Thats a Dolly Varden

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

Being that you caught it north of the Puyallup river system, it's a Dolly. Puyallup and south they are classed as bull trout.

[geljockey]

The state manages bull trout and Dolly Varden as the same species . There is no way to differentiate them by just looking at them. As an FYI, the genetic analyses that have been done so far on the bull trout/Dolly Varden in the anadromous zones of Puget Sound, indicate that the fish are bull trout. Not many analyses have been done on char above natural barriers, but the results indicated that some are Dolly Varden.

[swedefish4life1]

All in the char= family and they finally put them with trout which they are not!:-$ smolt and egg eating @#$^#$%&^&&& Dolly /Bull trout goofs and can get to 8 or 9 lbs in the upper Skagit / before the heros stepped in we clubbed them to death:cheers: to protect wild steelhead and salmon now there a Prize Slimer! LOL:colors:

[curado]

never caught a Dolly want to though

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

Being that you caught it north of the Puyallup river system, it's a Dolly. Puyallup and south they are classed as bull trout.

Puyallup and below they are federally protected. Above the Puyallup some rivers have open seasons on them.

[Bodofish]

Ditch fishing in AK with a 5wt.............

[natenez]

Cool. Thanks for the good info.

[geljockey]

They are an awsome fish. Many years ago I caught a couple out of Baker Lake (17" and 24") and to this day I can still vividly recall how they looked -- olive body with brite white spots all over. I had brought a camera with me but left it in the truck. Maybe that's why I caught them.

They are actually federally protected within all of Washington, but there are some places where there are healthy enough populations to allow fishing.

Thanks for sharing your pic with us!

[Anonymous]

You ever have one of those moments where you realize you knew the answer all along but just didn't make the connection? I just took me until now to figure out that I released one of those critters in Elliot bay last season right off Alki Point. I'd caught a few in the past while steelheading but for some reason I just didn't make the connection until I saw that pic.

[Iceman]

I never knew what a dolly looked like in reality but now I could of swear that I caught one of these in Lake Washington. I couldn't identify it at the time and it looked funky so I released it without taking a picture. I used power eggs for fun and I said to myself, wild trout don't eat powereggs and all of a sudden my pole started moving. The only thing I could think of at the moment was some kind of northern pike minnnow/trout. That picture reminded me because of the big head and lip to body ratio.

Without pictures I can't prove it but I am pretty sure I caught one in Lake Washington.

[Shad_Eating_Grin]

One way to readily identify a dolly/char from trout or salmon, is that the dolly/char will have white spots like in the pic, rather than dark spots

[curado]

and the body is dark greyish black with red spots in spawning and i believe a bright silvery color in the salt?

[Bodofish]

And skin. Scales are so small you might not even call them that.

[Smalma]

An example of Washington's native char that most of us call Dollies (Dolly Varden) though if you want to be correct the fish is a bull trout.

While both Dolly Varden and bull trout are both found here in western Washington currently it is thought that Dolly Varden are found in head water areas with the bull trout being much more common and found throughout many of our anadromous river systems and with many of them showing an anadromous lifehistory (much like sea-run cutthroat).

As mentioned "healthy" bull trout populations are found in the Skagit and Skykomish basins where there are areas (check your fishing regulations) where an angler can keep them (2 a day with a 20 inch minimum size limit). There are lesser numbers of spawning fish found in the Nooksack, Stillaguamish, Cedar, and Puyallup systems. However bull trout can be pretty nomadic with fish moving about quite a bit looking for foraging opporunties. It is not uncommon to find "visiting" fish in basins in which they do not spawn. As an example radio tagged Skagit bull trout have been found moving along the coast of Puget Sound at least as far South as Seattle with individual fish dipping into any of the freshwater areas along the way.

There isn't a known bull trout spawning population in the Snoqualmie portion of the Snohomish system. The fish pictured is most likely a foraging fish from one of the other spawning populations - mostly likely a Skykomish or Skagit fish. Looking at the fish's size it may have been a 4 year old fish that likely spawned the previous fall (in this region they typically spawn in late September to early November).

All and all a fun catch and a very interesting fish that is poorly understood. They can be a long lived fish that at times gets quite large.

Tight lines
Curt