The Skagit River

The Dolly Varden trout apparently earned its name in the 1870s when the name essentially meant fashionable. A naturalist of that era called it "the handsomest trout."

After a day of chasing Dollies with my guide Andrew Grillos on the Skagit River in north central Washington, I couldn't agree more. The fish is so pleasing to the eye that I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

I took this photo of my first-ever Dolly, taken on my 6-weight flyrod less than an hour into my all day float down the Skagit.

As memorable as it looks, the Dolly Varden may be even better remembered for its take.  The fish bent my rod to the cork and fought hard through a series of runs before being netted.

The Dolly Varden is a char and also known as a Bull Trout. They live in both fresh and salt water.

I took off work yesterday in order to really give myself over to learning a new river. I had intended to fish the Yakima, but with water levels rising Andrew suggested the Skagit, which had not occured to me. With his recommendation, I eagerly agreed.

The section of the Skagit I fished near Rockport is designated a Wild & Scenic River and is located just on the border of the North Cascades National Park. It is jaw-dropping beautiful and many miles away from cell phone coverage.

We anchored the boat in a shallow where the water was moving at about walking pace. I caught my first two on my own single-handed rod, an Orivs Access with floating line, a standard leader and some tippet.

With the glow of some early success, I bombed the banks as we floated to another stony bank where I got my first lesson in two-handed Spey casting.

Spey casting made sense to me immediately.  It felt comfortable and on a large river like the Skagit you want to cast larger Spey flies greater distances.

My set-up, which I will be assembling soon in order to continue my education, was an Echo 7-weight with Spey line called Skagit Compact 540 and a running line of Berkeley Big Cat 40 (Solar Collector Green) and a T8 sink tip by Rio. I used a Lamsen Light Speed 4 reel.  The leader is Maxima (2 feet of 20 pound followed by 2 feet of 12 pound). Andrew tied for me a black and blue maribou/ostrich Spey fly.

I don't yet know the distinction (perhaps I will write about it in a future post) between straight Spey casting and Skagit style Spey casting.  But I know there is a difference.  I cast both over the right and the left shoulder and worked on a couple different cast styles. I have to say that I enjoyed Spey casting more than regular casting and look forward to improving.

The results with a Spey rod were quite good.  I cast out into the current, walked a few steps downstream while it floated down and then waited for the fly to swing. A few takes were on the swing and others were at the bottom of the swing when I would strip in line once or twice.

I landed 8 very nice Dollies and hooked about 4 others that I didn't land. The largest was about 24 inches and the smallest was in the 18 inch ranch. These are strong, colorful, muscular fish that were really fun to pursue and quite attractive to admire.

Below is a stream flow chart that shows the rising and falling nature of the water level throughout a day due to water discharge from the Diablo Lake dam.