Come on Smalma ... live up to your namesake and jump in here!

When I first started fishing the coastal rivers in '87, I caught quite a few Dollies in the rivers that had them, some were pretty decent sized as well.

As the years went by, I saw fewer and fewer of them. But, over the last four years or so ... they've shown a big comeback and we see some very nice ones from time to time ... we had about 20" and another about 24" yesterday and last year we had one that went 28". I did hear of one that was 38" long that was checked by an independent source from a tribal netter last year ... that's a pig of a fish, no matter what kind!

I like to see them and I've watched one slam a pink worm four times on the surface as was being retrieved, finally I got the excited customer to stop reeling and the fish fianlly got a chane to fully grab hold of it. Watching that scene was pretty cool!


Sure they eat fry and the like, but they are SUPPOSED to be here, unlike the walleye in the Columbia system. All the more reason to keep salmon & steelie escapements higher than what they are now and let Mother Nature do the rest!