Once thought of as a trash fish, and a threat to salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest, Dolly Varden are only now beginning to be recognized as a valuable part of a natural ecosystem and a great boon to fly anglers.

The U.S. Bureau of Fisheries once paid a bounty of up to 5 cents for the tail of an Alaskan Dolly Varden. The anadromous char was said to eat Pacific salmon fry and eggs, and was blamed for declines in commercial salmon catches through the first half of this century. Between 1921 and 1940 six million fish were killed and discarded, and the tails delivered to the bureau. After administering the program for 20 years, the bureau discovered most of the tails were actually from rainbow trout and coho salmon, and discontinued the program. While it is true that Dolly Varden are opportunists, and eat stray salmon eggs, and salmon fry when available, ecologists today realize that Dolly Varden coexisted with Pacific salmon for thousands of years, and can hardly be blamed for the recent, man-made declines in Pacific salmon populations.


Adult male Dolly Varden (above) are among the most colorful of all the trout species. Their pink or red spots--sometimes accompanied by faint blue or purple halos--set Dolly Varden apart from most trout species, but it's sometimes difficult to differentiate between Arctic char, bull trout, and Dolly Varden based solely on physical appearance.

Dolly Varden are now protected in much of their historical range. And while they still don't get much respect from salmon and steelhead anglers who catch them accidentally, a few anglers are beginning to realize the sporting potential of hard-fighting fish than run from the ocean into coastal rivers weighing up to 10 pounds or more.

Lefty Kreh tells a story about standing at the mouth of a coastal stream in Alaska casting to a huge school of 10-pound Dolly Vardens. He was on a salmon trip, but he passed them up for fresh-run Dolly Varden.

Many of the Dolly Varden tippet weight categories for fly-fishing world records are open. No one has even applied for them, so if you want an easy world record, and an introduction to a beautiful native trout, the Dolly Varden is a natural.

Dolly Varden are not a true trout, but a a member of the char family like Arctic char and bull trout. They look almost exactly like bull trout--their inland cousins--but their life history is much closer to that of the Arctic char. If fact, these three species are so closely related, that anglers--and scientists--have confused the species for decades. The first char called Dolly Varden (on the McLoud River in California) was actually a bull trout. And most of the fish (but not all) called Arctic Char in Alaska over the years, are actually Dolly Varden.

Like many trout and char, there are both landlocked and anadromous versions of the Dolly Varden. Most Dolly Varden live in freshwater their whole lives, feeding on small invertebrates and seldom reaching sizes of more than 10 inches. Sea-run Dolly Varden live in the same rivers as Pacific salmon and steelhead and may weight 10 pounds or more. They occupy the rivers and lakes in a narrow strip of land around the Pacific Ocean, from Puget Sound around Alaska to the Mackenzie River in Canada's Yukon, and all around the Chukokst Peninsula in Russia, down through Kamchatka, and the territory north of Korea and Japan.

The name "Dolly Varden" came from a female character in a Charles Dickens novel who wore a pink-spotted dress and hat, and the description still fits. The dark, olive/brown body of a Dolly Varden is sprinkled with red and/or pink spots on its side. They come in from the sea with a bright silver sheen, and subdued colors, but as mating season approaches, they take on the brilliant colors characteristic of other members of the char family.