Nice answer! I'm impressed. Thanks Preston. Jim
-----Original Message----- From: Preston Singletary [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 6:06 PM To: Washington Fly fishers Subject: Dollies vs. Bulls Nope, Dolly Varden and bull trout are both char (genus Salvelinus) but of different species. Dolly Varden are S. malma and bull trout, S. confluentus. They are very closely related, the main morphological differences being in lateral line scale count, number of pyloric caeca and gill rakers, and in the shape of the head and jaws. These are probably not differences that could be definitely identified by the layman but, unlike rainbows and steelehad, enough to have assigned separate species status. I think it would be safe to say that Dolly Varden are probably more likely to have an anadromous lifestyle than bull trout, but I don't think that one could definitively say that bull trout don't. In southern BC and northern Puget Sound rivers (and the coastal rivers) the populations are mixed. North of this region it's Dollies only, until they begin to blend into the populations of Arctic char in Alaska. To the south, bull trout are found east into the Columbia drainage and the Rocky Mountains and, at one time, south as far as California.
