My friend and I took a trip to the Snohomish up by Bob Heirman Park. We were swinging size 2 Mepps Aglia spinners through the runs and riffles. I hit a section of slow, shallow-ish water and got a decent 11 inch cutthroat that followed my spinner to about five feet away from me! The fish jumped a few times as well, and he swam away fine when I released him. I then decided that my spinners weren't running deep enough in the faster water that could possibly be holding dollies, steelhead and maybe a spring chinook (if I was really, really lucky...), so I switched to a silver/blue 1/8 oz Little Cleo spoon and started tossing. The entire run that I had been fishing was fished with high-drag spinners that probably weren't running very deep at all, so from this point on my chances of catching something nice were tripled! On the third cast of swinging this spoon though the run it got slammed as I was starting to retrieve it. I got the fish in and was pretty surprised to have a dolly varden in my net! This measured 14 incher would be the first dolly I've ever caught in the Snoho/Sky/Snoqualmie system so it feels like a breakthrough. Most of these fish are caught in the Skykomish, however, and I've never heard of anyone catching one out of the slow and deep Snohomish. Fish stories anyone? I kept the fish in the water for a few pictures and watched him swim away nicely. I'm going to go hard at fly fishing for these fish in the near future...

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