The other night I drove to the Park headquarters in PA to listen to a lecture by Sam Brenkman...he is the BIO in charge of that Dolly study they are doing in the park, focused mainly on the Hoh. I could talk about it for hours but, in a nutshell, basically we all have it wrong.

What we are catching are Bull Trout. There are only three places in the park where Dolly Varden are found and they are all above anadromous fish barriers. The Bull Trout head up river to spawn in May, June, early July. They DO NOT hang out for any length of time, anywhere except the spawning grounds.. Basically, they blast right up to the spawning ground, which has been identified as the stretch between Lewis Meadows and the campground at the park.

When they are done spawning they head back out to the ocean. They seem to have an affinity for the mouths/estuaries of other rivers as they have marked fish in the estuaries of Goodman, Hoh, Queets, Quinault and Raft rivers, all of which were originally caught, implanted with a radio transmitter and released in the Hoh.

During the course of the study they received 87 Bull Trout carcasses from the Hoh's, the largest of which was almost twelve pounds. Kinda makes that 14+ I've been telling people I caught a little more believable....

The funniest bit about the whole study is that I didn't really learn anything I hadn't already kinda figured out on my own, you know? If he would have asked me before the study I could have told him most of that stuff by experience, I think. Like spawn timing, location of spawning area, and the 'blasting right to the spawning grounds' behavior they observed.

Ok...I take it back. I did learn that they can live up to 14 years in the wild and that I've been referring to them as 'Dolly Varden' incorrectly as have most of us, including WDFW.

Anyway...I'll prolly post this...there are probably a bunch of things I'm forgetting. If you have any specific questions, I'll try to answer them as best a mere observer can!

Anyone else go check out this awesome lecture?