Goldens?

Why I ask? I see out F&G is introducing Golden Trout in several select
lakes around Washington. Why I ask? From what I gather from Cal.
aquaintences the little buggers are sloooooow growing and fight like
a spawned out brook trout.
I can see the novelty of fishing for a "New" species might attract some,and
I may give em a trip too, just to say I've caught one. But otherwise I think it's
a dumb decision compared to other possible California introductions......like
somma those shapley blond beach bunnies .......or more to the point, the
Eagle Lake Rainbow.

Eagle Lake Rainbow strain is said to be nearly as alkali tolerant as the Lahontin Cutt.
They commonly grow to 3-4# and fight like hell. In rich waters they will top
10# on occasion. They could breath some new life into lakes like Lenora and Grimes and a
dozen others over here like Alkali, that are sometimes marginal in low water years.

There are a few on the west side that already have them in it. There is one or two lakes in the Stillaquamish drainage that have them planted in them.

good to hear from ya again FishnFellaS!

hope to hear some more reports from your side.

i planted three remote lakes in the olymppics with golden trout several years ago, for the game dept. and they didnt do too well. they are slow growers and poor biters.

I have fished eagle lake ca. several times when I lived down there. The eagle lake trout get big. Not only is the average 5 to 8 lbs but these fish have shoulders. They hit hard and fast and are know for going air born. eagle lake is very alkine and mostly very clear. the eagle lake fish can be taken on flys trolled just below the surface. I use my dowm riggers at 3 feet.yes thats three feet. I will troll a fly 200 to 300 ft behind the boat with no weigth or dodger but just clipped in the downrigger at three feet. the north end of the lake is mostly 10 to 15ft deep and very clear so this works great.
as far as goldens go I have to ask why are they being planted. they only do good at very high elevation lakes in the serrias and are protected in most cases. be carefully they are not beening planted in order to impost resrictions on these waters. The same thing is going on in the trucke river near reno. They are trying to reintrudes the cutthout trout that have been replaced with the rainbow 100 yres ago. the cuts grow slower then the the rainbows and they plan to pass a bunch of restrictions to allow the fish to have time to grow. what they are doing is removing a great rainbow and brown trout fishery in order to put in a "native " that will only allow a c & c fishing river its a shame.

Well I doubt any ulterior motive to dumping Goldens around E. Wash.
willy nilly other than probably incompetence or oversupply due to lack
of labor to pack them into high lakes, where they've been planted off
and on for quite a few years.

But who knows why with the current quality of leadership in F&G.

What I'm really wishing is that someone with some pull or some of the clubs
over there would take up the banner and get F&G to plant Eagle Lake Strain in Lenora,
Grimes,Alkali,and many of the other unmanaged lakes having too high
an alkali content for fisheries currently.

Our present E. Washington Trout Waters are getting loved to death. We need to
manage every lake capable of producing for the recreational trout program. Eagle
lake strain would be one way to increase the number of fishable lakes and
provide some pleasant surprises for those of us fishing those lazy lahontins.

Golden trout may grow slow but they evolved and do best in very high altitude lakes. I use to catch them in California above 10,000 feet. No other fish would do as well in those lakes. Goldens also will spawn downstream, perfect for those high country cirque lakes. Wyoming planted them also in the lakes where no other trout could live.

---bdb

Yes I know Loco that Goldens may have their place in high elev relatively sterile waters.
But what I am remarking about is their recent introduction into Lost and Sidley,two
lakes in Okanogan County that are hardly high elevation or food poor lakes. In fact Sidley has one of the stronger chironomid and Mayfly hatches in Okanogan County.

I still say"Why Goldens", even in most high lakes, where the brook trout has proven about
as capable of surviving short growing seasons and breeds readily without the cost of
replanting.

I don't know the lakes you are talking about, but if that's true, you have nothing to worry about. In the remote backcountry of the Kern river headwaters you see the goldens disappear by 8000 ft. We have a couple lakes with goldens here in Idaho and except for the very high, almost sterile lakes, goldens just can't compete with rainbows, brookies, or cutts. I've also backpacked the last few years to some high lake in the Wind River range in Wyoming in search of big goldens(18"+) and have caught lots of cutts and some brookies, but no goldens.

Each species has certain genetic advantages and disadvantages. You put down cutts and while I agree I would rather catch a rainbow, in higher altitude lakes where rainbows just don't do well and brookie tend to overpopulate and stunt, cutts are more inclinded to grow big. A well run Fish and Game Dept will match the best fish to the water.

Of course I don't know if the Wash. Fish and Game is well run or a bunch of clowns like we have here in Idaho, but why don't you ask them the reason for the plantings? As bad as Idaho Fish and Game is, a few good people slip through the cracks and get hired. Henry Lake is planting more brookies and cutthroat-rainbow hybreds instead of the straight cutthroat. Of course I'd like to see more very restrictive limits or even C&R instead of stocking the K-mart specials they plant in most waters, but I take what I can get.

Here's a thought.

Maybe they just wanted to give more anglers a chance to catch goldens.. and then maybe start a spark towards back country fishing. Might get them to start exploring alpine lakes in search of more goldens.

Why would they want to start something like that. You turn too many rookies loose in the woods and you will have more of them getting lost. And then when all the Search and rescue teams have to go out and find all the idiots. There are enough people out there now who don't belong away from thier mamas.

Old Man,

So then... we shouldn't mention that Lime Lake has goldens and neglect to say that one has to siwash off of an existing trail to get to Lime Lake.... is that what you mean by saying they might get lost?

We have goldens in a couple of our high lakes in southwest Washington and one lowland lake.


Goldens were planted as an additional opportunity for anglers. We found that not all anglers were after huge trophy size fish and goldens would be a great alternative. It's not always about planting the biggest best fish!

One problem encountered is what we call high/alpine lakes are relatively low in elevation compared to where these fish come from.

I have been working with California Fish & Game over the past four years with our golden trout plants and it has always been thought that they are slow growing because they are not in the right conditions (here in Washington).

A lot of times, if they are in low elevation lakes they won't even color up correctly.

Golden trout are the most neurotic fish to try and raise. That is why they are planted out as little guys and not kept to catchable size. We spent one year trying to raise them out to catchables and it was a nightmare for the hatchery guys.

But we did find that they colored up beautifully despite being raised in low elevations. We planted them out into Gillette Lake and while they did not grow to mutant sizes, the anglers really enjoyed fishing for them.

So, as far as the strain of fish you were talking about using instead, our theory (here in Reg. 5 - I do NOT speak for other areas in the state) is that yeah, we could plant giant fish in all our lakes, but that would get kind of boring for some anglers.

So, we provide fingerling golden trout plants into a couple of our 'high' lakes and the people that hike into the back country lakes have really enjoyed the experience.

There are pros and cons for bringing any fish into a place it is not native too. But, here at least, we have had some really great success with anglers and management issues.

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stace