This is a nice deep hole that good sized rainbows and dolly's like to hang out in. I tossed an olive muddler minnow in the riffle and let drift out into the hole. At once I had a good sized dolly on the line. After a strong but brief fight the fish got off... should've been quicker on the strike. I left the hole to settle for a later try.

Caddis. These guy's used mostly pine needles to build the case. Does anybody know what kind of caddis these are? Entomologist's?

Please note that ALL Dolly Varden or Bull trout MUST be released and are not to be the target however in this river you catch as many Dolly's as Rainbows so after these photos the fish swam away strong.

This could be quite possibly the biggest wild trout I've ever caught or at least close to it. This very healthy and silvery Dolly took me into the backing on my 5wt. I didn't measure it but as you can see it is from 23" - 26" long. I was caught with a grizzly marabou conehead muddler. By this time I had switched to the heavier conehead muddler (you can see the fly further down the page).

It can be debated as to whether the fish in this river system are Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma) or Bull Trout (Salvelinus confluentus). Everyone around here calls them Dolly Varden so I will here unless a biologist tells me what these fish are for sure. I would love to know. I do know that these beautifully colored fish fight like bulls so maybe they are bull trout after all. They are very strong fighters.