Agreed, Jim. It's good you brought that up. It's incumbent upon ALL of us to be certain of our identification of any fish we target, as well as the increasingly intricate regs for the area we're fishing. For all the joking that went through this thread (most of which was from me!), I would be devastated to learn I had taken a dollie or worse, a bull trout thinking it was a brookie. Page 67 of this year's regs gives a pretty good description of the brook and the dolly/bull. As I recall from an earlier thread, the difference between a dolly and a bull is almost impossible to tell in the field by the layman fisherman, but the brookie should be noticeably different (wormlike marking along the top and on the dorsal fin, blue-ringed yellow and pin spots and white tipped anal, pectoral and ventral fins).
I went digging around the net looking for a site that had good trout pictures. As I recall, there was a thread about the difference between westslope and coastal cutts, and someone provided a nifty link to a site that had great prints of all kinds of fish (not just trout). I thought I'd kept a copy of that link, but can't seem to find it. In the meantime, Flyshop.com (the old Virtual Flyshop site) has a species guide that's pretty good (both salt AND fresh) at http://shop.flyfishing.about.com/species_guide/index.htm. Also, I found a neat little site that tests your knowledge, and specifically has a bull trout and a brook trout to check your identification prowess. It's at: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/qisley/FishID.htm. Perhaps we can get our webmaster to link these into the waflyfishers.com website... My personal opinion is that we spend way too much money on our equipment and too much time and energy in our pursuits to justify fishing for meat. If we wanted meat, we'd buy farm trout from Safeway. We fish because we love the sport and the we love the environment and it's inhabitants. Many say that we should not allow ANY invasive species. If that were so, we'd be limited to cutthroat, bulls, whitefish and squawfish. I enjoy brown trout, brook trout and rainbows. They all have their unique characteristics that make them an exciting quarry to chase. I've caught one bull in my life (in a reservoir in Oregon) and I immediately let him go. I never keep cutts or browns and I only keep an occasional rainbow when it's from a planted lake. I love the bend in my 5 wt from a 2 lb smallie and there's nothing like a 5 lb carp to test your presentation and fighting skills. It's all personal choice as to what you consider game and what you consider invasion. I tend to target brookies when they are out of balance with the rest of the cold-water population, and I make darned sure it's really a brook and not one of our endangered bulls. But catch and keep is not everyone's cup of tea. Oh, well.... More for me! ;-)) Sean (the brookie slayer) Jim Speaker wrote: > Thanks Kent. That's really interesting - I'll have to get a photo next time > for positive ID. > > That adds a bit of a twist to this thread since there is the possibility > that someone might kill a dollie thinking it's a brookie. Certainly > reinforces my no-kill ethic for wild trout - I certainly wouldn't want to > make a mistake like that! > > Thanks again. > Jim Speaker > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Kent Lufkin > Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2002 7:47 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Small creek fishing report > > I fished the SF Snoqualmie under the Fire Acedemy bridge with my > then-9 year old daughter a couple years ago. We caught several > Dollies (possibly Bull Trout) up to 9 inches that were definitely NOT > brookies. > > Kent Lufkin > > >Speaking of brookies and the S Fork Snoqualmie, Washington Trout believes > >there may be some native char (Dollies, probably not Bull Trout) in the S > >Fork. If anybody believes they catch one there, WT would love to hear from > >you. It may be, however, that reports of char there may actually have been > >brookies. > > > >Ed Morrison > >From the south fork of the Snoqualmie > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Jim Speaker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 3:31 PM > >Subject: RE: Small creek fishing report > > > > > >> S Fork Snoqualmie has brookies too, but the numbers are much lower than > >the > >> rainbows. I'd guess there are at least 10:1 rainbows:brookies. The > >> brookies are rare, a very few are good size (up to 11" to hand) and I > >> actually consider them a treat up there. > >> > >> -tight lines- > >> Jim Speaker > >> > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Sean Grier > >> Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 10:02 AM > >> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >> Subject: Re: Small creek fishing report > >> > >> > >> As have I. And yes, the lake did cut off the cutts (pun intended). > Some > >> old buddies of mine from when I lived down there get together each year > >and > >> use Timothy as base camp. We take the middle of the day when nothing is > >> biting and fish the upper or lower Oak Grove and catch and kill brookies > >> every time. Unfortunately, ODFW used to (may have quit by now) plant > >> brookies in many of the Mt. Hood area lakes. > >> Timothy has some monsters in it. Might be worth trying Homer's, err.... > >> Phil's idea of a sculpin pattern there near the dam... My buddies > should > >be > >> heading out right now for the annual Western Flyfishing Open IV. > >> Unfortunately, being laid off has nixed my inclusion in the trip this > year > >> (thanks again you middle eastern terrorist ba@#$rds!!!). We'd usually > go > >> and try to hit the big hex hatch on Timothy and > >> (somewhat) nearby Lost Lake. > >> > >> Sean > >> > >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> > >> > I fished the Oak Grove fork above the lake, in the big meadow, a > couple > >> years ago and all we caught were brookies. We released them all though. > I > >> wonder if the formation of the lake has cut that area off from the > >> cutthroats? I believe that whatever species are in the lake have the > >ability > >> to swim upstream to the meadow, but we didn't see anything else. > >> > > >> > Ross > >> > > > >> > > > >> > > No problem, Brian. I probably came off sounding kinda snotty, > anyway. > >> Didn't mean to.... > >> > > > >> > > There's a great little stream east of Portland called the Oak Grove > >fork > > > of the Clackamas. Although it's a tailwater (feeding out of Timothy > >Lake), > > > there's still tons of beautiful wild, native coastal cutts in it up to > >16". > > > The TU chapter there that I belonged to when I lived in Vancouver, WA > >kinda > >> took that stream as it's personal crusade. I remember during a fish > >> counting outing that also doubled as > >> > > a fishing expedition, we were told by the local ODFW Biologist to > keep > >> and kill ANY and all brooks we found. You can imagine trying to get a > >bunch > >> of dyed-in-the-wool C&R TU'ers to kill ANYTHING with fins, but we did. > >The > >> group of us were broken up into teams of two and given a beat on the > >stream > >> to fish and count. The guys closest to the lake, of course, caught the > >> largest amount of brookies, but we > >> > > all landed some. So I'm not surprised at hearing the ratios you > talk > >> about. Sad, very sad. Maybe we can talk to WDFW and see if they have > the > >> same attitude towards non-native invasive species and ways that we can > >help > >> return fisheries like you experienced to some level of balance. Were > you > >> perhaps fishing one of the tributaries of the Cispus, by chance? I've > > > caught lots of brookies in the lakes > >> > > feeding those tribs, though never seen any in the Cispus itself. > >> > > > >> > > Sean > >> > > > >> > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> > > > >> > > > Sean, > >> > > > I stand corrected. I should have used the wild (not planted) > rather > >> then native. These were definitely brookies, not dollies. We didn't > catch > >> any cutts in these streams. The brookies outnumbered the bows by about > 10 > >to > >> 1. They were starting to signs of becoming stunted due to the numbers in > >the > >> creek. Some of the 7 inchers looked like they were about maxed > >> > > out size wise. Small bodies with big heads. > >> > > > Brian > >> > >> > >>
