Went down to the Upper Queets to try for some Steelies or maybe a King to CnR but no luck. Lost one King in the 30 to 35# range that was Chrome. But we did find some other fish to keep things interesting with the lack of the species we were after.

My pink worm spinner strikes agian. We hooked about a dozen of these guys in this size range and one larger one that I lost.

Here are some very nice Queets Dollys.

Sweet!

Nice Dollies Rich!

FJ...out.

Doesn't look like you had any fun at all!!

Good job. Like the pink worm.

We didnt get any under 20 inches. I lost one that I estimate was 28 inches or so and chunky as some of the ones in the pics are. I spotted a pod of em a dozen fish or so and one of em was a monster. Must have been near 10 pounds, One of the Largest Char I have ever seen anywhere It looked to in the neighborhood of 30 inches or so he dwarfed the other ones he was with. I know they were all dollys as I could see the white outlines on their fins and they were sitting in less than 4 feet of water so they wernt hard to see with polorized glasses.

There numbers must be on the rebound as we wernt even trying to catch the buggers, but since they are so pretty we had to take some pics of the ones we got.

These fish have obviously been eating well, with last years big runs of salmon they have lots of smolt and fry to eat to make them so fat.

Nice dollys!!!Check your P/M

Rich G-
In most of Western Washington fish in that size range (20 to 24 inches?) have spawned several times; likely 2 to 4 times. Our native char can be long lived; I estimate that some of the fish in the North Puget Sound region are more than 15 years old and may have spawned as many as 10 times.

Your question about the lack of smaller fish is a good one. The first time spawners are typically less than 20 inches. When a pod of holding fish is first fished on the larger fish seem to be more agressive and are more likely to be caught first. Have notice on my local streams that there are a lower % of first time spawners than normal also. Two factors are likely contributing to this: 1) The protective regulations are resulting in more older fish (higher % of repeats), and 2) 4 and/or 5 years there likely were high flows that limited the survival of the eggs or low summer flows limiting rearing areas for juveniles either of which limit the success of that year class of spawners.

I seem to remember both conditions occurring about that time but don't remember exactly when (must be getting old!). Occassional weak year classes of char are not uncommon and should not be of major concern, especially give the abundance of the larger repeat spawners. Those larger females have several times more eggs than the smaller first time spawners.

Good to see the populations responding to the fishery closures.

Tight lines
Smalma

The queets is the only river listed as having a healthy population of native char by the feds.