I took a day to go out to Montana Creek in Juneau to go fishing. I was fortunate enough to have some decent weather in what has been a terrible stretch of rain and wind in Juneau. The bridge that goes over the creek and to Montana Creek trail was blown out from the water level rising rapidly in previous weeks, so I had to wade to get across the creek and started heading upstream. When I got to the end of the trail I began fishing down and found a pocket of deeper and slower moving water that looked great for fish holding and cast into it. Within five casts, I hooked this Dolly Varden. Dollies are commonly associated with trout, but are actually a char (Fish and Game species profile). There are also two different forms of Dolly Varden, southern and northern subspecies, with Juneau and Southeast Alaska having the southern form of them; which differ in the amount of chromosomes and amount of vertebrate, the northern subspecies having more vertebrate allowing them to grow large than the southern ones (Trout Unlimited). You can tell the difference between char and trout by looking at the spots: char have lighter spots (orange in the case of the Dolly Varden), and trout generally have darker spots (Trout Unlimited, 2021). Dolly Varden also vary in color based on spawning stage. When they are in ocean stage, they take on more silvery/blue colors with light orange spots. Then, when they swim into freshwater to begin spawning, they turn grey, green and black hues with their spots more brightly colored and emphasized. Dolly Varden life history is similar to salmon as they swim out to the ocean as juveniles, grow and come back to freshwater to spawn, chasing salmon and eating their eggs the whole way. They differ from salmon in spawning however. Both are anadromous, but salmon are semelparous, meaning they are only able to spawn once in their lifetime. Whereas most char are iteroparous and can spawn multiple times throughout their lifetime.

"Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma) Species Profile." Alaska Department of Fish and Game. https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?ADFG=DollyVarden.main

Trout Unlimited staff. "Dolly Varden: all you need to know." Trout Unlimited. 6 July 2021. https://www.tu.org/magazine/fishing/dolly-varden-all-you-need-to-know/

Posted on October 15, 2022 04:32 AM by gcadenhead