Dolly Varden
April 12, 2010 by cglauner
Filed under Outdoors International
A really fishy dude and a really chrome Dolly.Photo: Cameron Miller
Besides the salmon and the leopard rainbows that are usually targeted while fishing in Alaska, we have a whole lot of fun fishing for Dolly Varden.
Dolly Varden and Arctic Char are really closely related in this part of Alaska. So closely related, in fact, that the Alaska Fish and Game biologist responsible for them thinks we’ve got both in our river. They have complex life histories and in our neck of the woods =they’re indistinguishable without a genetic test…we tend to call them all ‘dollies’ regardless but we know for sure they’re a ton of fun to catch.
Most of these dollies spawn multiple times. They run up the Kanektok pretty much all summer long, with a number of noticeable ’sub runs’ overlapping and containing fish of different shapes, sizes and colors. In general they’re chrome with a slight green tint when they enter the river, and some in their spawning phases turn the wacky circus colors that led to dollies near the spawn being called ‘clowned up’.
Dolly the Clown. Photo: Cameron Miller
They sometimes eat flesh and streamers, but most of our time spent targeting dollies involves fishing beads. Fishing your 5 weight on a productive dolly flat is a whole heck of a lot of fun. Some sections of river have an almost uncountable number of fish. The action is fun, fast-paced and easy!
If you find yourself on the Kanektok one of these years, make sure to spend some time fishing lightweight gear for dollies. You’ll be glad you did.
Another Wolf Bagged in Salmon, Idaho
April 12, 2010 by cglauner
Filed under Outdoors International
An Idaho wolf hunter shot this wolf just outside her home near Salmon, Idaho. While waiting for the pack to make their rounds and come near their home again, they looked in the woods below them and there was this wolf. He weighed 127 lbs. He was a collared wolf and by the time they checked it in (1.5 hours later), Fish & Game already knew about the wolf and said they had been hunting for him as this wolf pack had been terrorizing campers lately. They had a couple of guys “treed” in the cab of their pickup all night at a campground a few days earlier. The wolf is now skinned and hanging at their place.
