Northwest Fishing Reports

I,ve been meaning to tell you all about my strange day at tokulcreek last friday .First off i forgot my waders then left to go home to get them ,forgot my rod on top of my car as i drove off to get my waders ,relized that about ahalf mile later stopped turned around went back looked nothing .now im bummed head for home see rod in road munched .it should be noted my Shimano reel was scratched but still works.anyway go home get rod and waders .Get back to Tokul ,at this point i just had to laugh and said lets try to make the best of it.Here,s how it went 2 spawners ,1whitefish,1chrome nate(miss clip ) 7lb,er and then this .at first i thought it was a dolly /bulltrout but the red spots by my thumb show that its a brookie .I,ll be honest i,ve only caught 5 brookies in my life but they looked just like this i,ve caught hundreds of dollies in Alaska they have pink spots .Anyway what a day

Nope that is a dolly. The real identifying feature you want to look for is the dorsal fin which unfortunately you have covered in your hand. If it is a brook it will have "Snake like" striations on the dorsal fin as well as back/shoulders.

Well at least you turned your day around

No brookies that I know of in the Snoqualmie system. Looks like a dolly/bull trout to me. Sounds like you had a good day of catching though, way to hang in there!

The upper Snoqualmie might have brookies but prolly not Tokul.Looks like a young dolly to me.The last time I gave an opinion I got my head bitten off.

racfish wrote:The upper Snoqualmie might have brookies but prolly not Tokul.Looks like a young dolly to me.The last time I gave an opinion I got my head bitten off.

Naw, Rac, I'm with you. I think it's a dolly.

racfish wrote:The upper Snoqualmie might have brookies but prolly not Tokul.Looks like a young dolly to me.The last time I gave an opinion I got my head bitten off.

[lol] Thank goodness for your incredible regenerative powers racfish.[lol]
With your head grown back, Please keep giving the "racfish opinions" the site wouldn't be the same without them.

hello post deleted

nice brookie cuda

racfish wrote:The upper Snoqualmie might have brookies but prolly not Tokul.Looks like a young dolly to me.The last time I gave an opinion I got my head bitten off.

It does. I've caught several (including a 15" specimen) on the upper South Fork.

Brook trout are found in a number of locations in the Snoqualmie drainage. More specifically they are found in Tokul Creek basin. They are found through out the upper Tokul Creek basin (the flat in the spur 10 country) in various beaver ponds as well as the creek itself.

Of course it could also be the case that a brook trout escaped from the hatchery (do not know whether brookies are currently being raised at the Tokul Creek hatchery)

That said it is impossible to say with certainity whether the fish is a brook or bull. As Matt said the easiest way to tell the difference is to look at the dorsal fin - the brooks have black spots on the fin while the bulls do not.

One thing that does argue that the fish might be a brookie is the bent fin rays in the pectoral fin that we can see in the picture. The most likely explaination for those bent rays is that there was some erosion of the fin in a hatchery. It is nearly always the case that as the fins grow back out there will bends or waves in the rays at the point were the erosionn ended.

Tight lines
Curt

I caught them in upper Tokul Creek in the 70's. Took the road up past the lodge...whatever the new name is. Drove back and flyfished for brookies.

As long as we are on this subject (more or less), I've never understood the difference between a Dolly and a Bull Trout, if there is a difference.

I've caught Dollys/Bulls in lots of different places. Metolius River in Oregon used to have lots as did the Clakamas, when I lived in Spokane I traveled a lot and caught them in the Kootenai River, Clarks Fork and in rivers around Kalispell, caught them near Ketchikan, and around Puget Sound.

Is there a difference?

BARCHASER wrote:As long as we are on this subject (more or less), I've never understood the difference between a Dolly and a Bull Trout, if there is a difference.I've caught Dollys/Bulls in lots of different places. Metolius River in Oregon used to have lots as did the Clakamas, when I lived in Spokane I traveled a lot and caught them in the Kootenai River, Clarks Fork and in rivers around Kalispell, caught them near Ketchikan, and around Puget Sound.Is there a difference?

Nope, they're the same thing. Kind of like Kokanee, Silvers, Blue Backs and Land locked Sockeye Salmon are all the same thing. Mostly depends on where your from.

Dont forget Chinook is a Tyee is a King. 3 names =1 fish.Also a Chum is a Pink is a Dog....LOL....

Big D wrote:

BARCHASER wrote:As long as we are on this subject (more or less), I've never understood the difference between a Dolly and a Bull Trout, if there is a difference.I've caught Dollys/Bulls in lots of different places. Metolius River in Oregon used to have lots as did the Clakamas, when I lived in Spokane I traveled a lot and caught them in the Kootenai River, Clarks Fork and in rivers around Kalispell, caught them near Ketchikan, and around Puget Sound.Is there a difference?

Nope, they're the same thing. Kind of like Kokanee, Silvers, Blue Backs and Land locked Sockeye Salmon are all the same thing. Mostly depends on where your from.

Dolly Varden are considerd "sea run" and Bull Trout are considered "resident/landlocked" that's the difference.

racfish wrote:Also a Chum is a Pink is a Dog....LOL....

? A chum and a pink are two different fish...

RiverRock wrote:Dolly Varden are considerd "sea run" and Bull Trout are considered "resident/landlocked" that's the difference.

Like I stated "Mostly depends on where your from." While living in Alaska we called them Dolly Vardens and Sea run Dolly Vardens. Here in Douglas County the Game department calls them Bull Trout in the Entiat River system which can hardly be considered land locked.

Yes Dolly Varden and bull trout are two different species. Though they look very similar genetically they are very different.

The thinking is that during the last Ice Age that the char survived into two different refugia (ice free areas). One being a coastal area; the Queen Charlotte Islands where the Dolly Varden developed and an interior area (Montana) where bull trout developed. When the ice melted the fish spreaded out colonizing a number of rivers over a large area.

As RiverRock pointed out generally the Dolly Varden included the anadromous life history and bull trout does not. However as often is the case in teh fish world there are exceptions. One major such exception is here in Western Washington where extensive genetic testing has found that the anadromous char in the Puget Sound rivers are bull trout and not Dolly Varden. It would be safe to say that few us of have caught a Dolly Varden in Washington waters. There are some Dolly Varden in the area but to everyone's surprise they have only been found as small resident fish in a handful of headwater streams. A couple local areas where they have been confirmed include a couple Nooksack headwater tribs (in both North and South forks), some small Skagit river tribs in BC above Ross Lake and above Sol Duc falls on the coast.

Tight lines
Curt