Currently browsing… Dolly Varden
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Pursuing ‘the people’s fish’ in Alaska
“When we think about people, and the ‘habitat’ people utilize, we don’t just look at the superhighways where they can easily be seen traveling," he said. "People don’t live on the freeways, people don’t ‘spawn’ on the freeways or on their commute.”
The author traveled to the end of the road in his pursuit of Dolly Varden. Daniel A. Ritz photo. Searching for Dolly Varden in southeast Alaska Daniel Ritz is fishing across the Western United States this summer in an attempt to reach the Master Caster class of the Western Native Trout Challenge, attempting to land each of…
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Dolly Varden: all you need to know
Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma) Species summary and status: Though similar to, and often confused with trout, Dolly Varden are in fact a char. To tell a char from a trout you can look at their spots — char have light spots (white or yellow to red) on a dark body, while trout have dark spots (brown…
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What species is the ‘fish of your lifetime?’
Brook trout might be the most stunning of all, but are they the 'fish of a lifetime?' All photos by Chris Hunt. I’ve spent a lifetime chasing trout along the spine of the continent. Save for about 10 of my 52 years, where I’ve lived elsewhere due to circumstance or obligation, my views have always…
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Prepping for Southeast Alaska Fishing
Getting ready for spring fishing in Southeast Alaska.
The days are beginning to get longer, the temperatures are starting to rise and the ice is melting on many lakes and streams around Southeast Alaska. After six months of cold and darkness, and the last month of hunkering down, a lot of anglers are beginning to dust off their fly rods and reels, tie a few new flies, and begin…
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Mousing the Aniak
Oh, to be Brian O'Keefe for a day last summer in western Alaska. O'Keefe served as Todd Moen's fishing subject in Moen's new short film, "Alaska Fly Fishing with a Mouse," that's been crawling the interwebs with a vengeance over the last few days. And rightly so—the footage of massive Alaskan rainbows erupting beneath mouse…
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Act, then put the Tongass on your bucket list
If you want to catch a very large steelhead in a very small stream, there’s probably no better place on the planet to do so than Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The Tongass is almost 17 million acres of mountains, fjords, massive glaciers and wild rivers and creeks. With 18,000 miles of public waters that…
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At home on the Tongass
My father once told me that “home is where you hang your hat.” I believed it, for a time, at least. I mean, as a young boy, who was I to argue with the wisdom of a grownup? I’ve come to realize, though, that “home” is where everything seems to fall into place just right.…