Char · Salvelinus malma
Dolly Varden
Also called Dolly.
Short answer
The Dolly Varden is a Pacific char with pale pink and cream spots on an olive body and white-edged fins. It is abundant in Alaska, where it follows spawning salmon upriver to feed on eggs, and it is routinely mistaken for a bull trout, which is a protected species.
How to identify a dolly varden
- Pale spots on olive
- Cream, pink and pale orange spots scattered on a dark olive body. Char patterning.
- Fins
- White leading edges on the lower fins, like other char.
- Spawning colour
- Autumn fish develop brilliant orange bellies and red spots; some of the most colourful fish in fresh water.
- Versus bull trout
- Very hard to separate in the field. Where both occur, treat an uncertain fish as a bull trout and release it in the water.
What a dolly varden is
Dolly Varden are the common char of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest coast, named after a brightly dressed Dickens character. Many populations are anadromous, dropping to salt water to feed and returning to fresh water to overwinter and spawn, and the summer and autumn ecology of an Alaskan Dolly is organised entirely around salmon: they follow the runs upstream and eat loose eggs, growing fast and colouring up brilliantly in the process. The practical complication is that they are extremely difficult to distinguish from bull trout, which are ESA-listed — the two were considered one species until relatively recently.
- Native to
- Native to coastal and interior waters of Alaska, British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.
- Typical size
- Twelve to twenty inches commonly; sea-run fish reach several pounds.
- What they eat
- Insects and small fish when young; salmon eggs and flesh once the runs begin. An autumn Dolly in Alaska is essentially an egg-feeding machine.
Where dolly varden live
Throughout Alaska, coastal British Columbia, and the coastal rivers of Washington and Oregon. In Alaska they are present in almost every river that holds salmon.
Fly fishing in Alaska Fly fishing in Washington Fly fishing in Oregon
Conservation status
Secure and abundant in Alaska. Southern coastal populations are less robust, and the overlap with threatened bull trout means anglers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana should know the rules for both.
Protected status and the rules that follow from it are set state by state and change. Before you fish, check the current regulations for the water you are standing in — this page is a starting point, not a legal reference.
How to catch dolly varden
In Alaska, fish an egg pattern or a flesh fly below spawning salmon and you will catch them, often in numbers, often alongside the rainbows. Outside Alaska, be careful: where bull trout are present the rules are strict and the two species are hard to tell apart, so know the regulation for the water you are on before you cast.
- Where bull trout also live, assume an uncertain char is a bull trout and release it.
- Follow the salmon. Dollies sit behind spawning fish and eat eggs all autumn.
- Autumn spawning colour makes them one of the most beautiful fish in fresh water.
Flies that work for dolly varden
Each of these is a card in the deck, and each has a full page in Our Fly-brary.
Keep reading
- How to release a trout — handling, and why it matters more for some species than others
- How to read water — where each of these fish holds
- Hatches and what trout eat — the food these fish are feeding on
- Fly fishing by state — which species you will meet, state by state
Rainbow Trout Brown Trout Brook Trout Cutthroat Trout Steelhead Bull Trout Lake Trout Golden Trout Arctic Grayling Tiger Trout Mountain Whitefish