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Fishing this lake is not for the faint of heart. Or those with heart conditions, haha.

So fresh off Friday's salmon success, Saturday is hike up a mountain to chase unicorns day. My hiking partner is working graveyard so I was hoping to hit the trail at first light, but instead we hit the trail at 9:45. It's a fairly substantial drive out there.

Now my hiking partner doesn't look like she's an athlete ... but she's done triathlons while 75 pounds overweight. She has way more hiking experience than me, so I let her lead. Well, the pace she sets is death march. We hit Bear Creek in 30 minutes, trailhead at 50 minutes, then in 1 hour flat we're up the steep part. That's with stopping to take pictures of mushrooms and a frog probably 8 times, and me demanding a 2 minute break about 5 more times. I'm dying. She's laughing. 8 minutes later we're at Little Grieder, we poke around a bit, see some trout in the water, then pound out to Big Grieder. There is a couple up there camping, other than that we're alone.

My hiking partner is a veritable force of nature, and I am in better shape all around than anyone I know other than my friend who beats people up in a ring for a living, and honestly I'm not sure if even he could have kept up the pace she set. If you attempt this hike, do not plan to make it in 2 hours. Plus, on the lower stretch there are numerous scrambles through ravines, 1 in particular steep enough to be sketchy.

The trail, by my standards, was in awesome shape up to the end of Little Grieder. Then it gets sketchy. We pick our way half way down Big Grieder to where the trail pretty much ends, and there's a pretty large flat rock. Perfect for boat launching. Inflate the raft. We see trout rising. As we're loading the raft one rises 8 feet off the boat, looks at me, gives me the finger, and slowly swims away. Ok trout. It's on.

It's a little cloudy, a touch of wind to provide a solid drift, I start fishing, my hiking partner eats trail mix. About 10 minutes in I get a bite, but no hook set. Then BAM, multiple runs, pole tip pulled into water, really carries on .... no pic as this was not what I was here for and I can only post 2, but a 12.5 inch rainbow. Not skinny. Really solid fish. Time passes, next hookup a sweet 10 inch fish, super yellow, looked like legitimate half and half golden trout / rainbow ... but my hiking partner fumbles with the camera, it pops off the hook, bounces off the raft, lands in the water, I grab the tail but of course that slips out, and it's gone. You'll have to take my word for it, but the golden shine was entrancing. Way more so than the pics, which clearly are mixed fish. Again, a solid, healthy fish. These are not scrawny.

More time passes, I catch ... I think 3 more, one about 8-9 inches not really memorable, another about same size which is in the pic has a nice yellow shine, and another little guy in the pic which was less yellow but you can see the shadows of the big golden trout spots on his side. By this time we've drifted clear to the far end of the lake. Ugly clouds coming. Hiking partner not enthused about getting rained on, so I start rowing. Didn't even come close to beating rain. We're both wet. I let her off at the rock, try to keep fishing, it stops raining, but the wind totally stops and no more drift. I dont want to get too far away as there are clearly bears in the area (scratched trees on way in), no more bites. She yells it's getting late, it's 4:45. I paddle in, wow takes SO LONG to deflate boat through little tiny holes, we depart 5:15. Again at death march speed.

Thirty minutes we're back to the steep spot, 55 minutes down, we jog from trailhead back to bear creek saving 7 minutes, back to car at 7:15 in the dark.

I did better on the way down. Didn't have to stop and rest so much. Still, I couldn't believe she was leading a pace DOWN HILL that was causing me to be out of breath. That pace though, holy cow, hard on the joints going down. My knees were not pleased.

All in all, awesome hike, awesome to catch a fish, let alone more than one, let alone a huge rainbow and some with really solid golden trout markings. But did not get full breed golden, so .... I guess I'll have to go back and try again!

snohawk

10/7/2014 10:40:00 AM

That is a rainbow.

The Quadfather

10/8/2014 12:00:00 PM

I certainly don't want to take away from your beautiful hiking experience, but while the one fish in the pic. looks more colorful and not like your "Typical" rainbow. The marks along the side are called, Parr marks. Juvenile native fish (rainbows) can look very different from the lowland lakes smaller rainbows that we are used to seeing.
I catch rainbows that are exactly like this one, in alpine river settings. They have those beautiful colored Parr marks. Took me along time to find the info. regarding Parr marks on juv. rainbows.
But that being said.... you caught another fish that you said had a pretty good yellow shine, who knows..?
Sometime go to Central Market in Shoreline, 155th And Aurora. Golden trout for sale in the seafood section all day long. (When they are in)
Completly different looking fish. But, then again if you Google images on Goldens, you will see there are apparetnly some different looking variables.
Thanks for your story!

whorde

10/8/2014 1:10:00 PM

If you fire up google images, a standard "golden trout" is quite yellow, it has a red side instead of pink like a rainbow, and it has a double line of big black blotches on the top and bottom of the red line. So in the picture of the littler fish above, it is definitely not silver like a normal rainbow, and it definitely has the ghostly outline of a double line of black blotches, and honestly it looks to me like the coloration is more on the red side of pink than not. So that's what I'm going on in terms of it being mixed. Also the other fish is quite more yellow than a regular rainbow, although lacking in blotches. And the other one I didn't get a picture of was way more yellow. All that being said, the fact I caught one actually full blood rainbow out of the lake I find to be surprising. We know it was stocked repeatedly. But it's been a decade since it was stocked with goldens, so I would expect almost every fish in the lake to be mixed at this point. Going there and catching a full blood golden would be like catching a unicorn. And yeah, I know those "golden" trout you speak of at Central Market. From what I read on the internet, those aren't golden trout at all. Look for palomino trout on google images, and you find something much more like what they have at Central Market.

cwbraue

10/11/2014 4:42:00 PM

It's good to know there are still fish in there, though I am highly dubious about goldens though. They planted some in the 70's but I've never seen any there. That is a great hike though I don't know why everyone claims it's so hard, there are much more grueling trails in Washington.

whorde

10/13/2014 8:53:00 AM

From the Fish & Wildlife website stocking charts:

Upper (Big) Greider Lake
Golden trout
Sep 30, 2006 1,230
Oct 2, 2004 1,230
Oct 12, 2002 1,200
Sep 25, 2001 1,224
Oct 15, 2000 1,224

As for the hike, it would be much more easy and straightforward if you had all day. Say you were going on a Friday at noon and were staying through Sunday. But if you want to make a day trip of it, then you have to pound the hike, as every minute you're on the hill is a minute less for fishing. Especially this time of year when there's 4 hours less daylight. And those minutes are very, very important, as it's a good sized lake, and I can tell you after 2 visits with enough time to fish around quite a bit and honestly just watching the risers that there are clearly areas where the fish are, and areas where they're not, and I'm not talking!

Good luck to anyone who tries it!

By the way, Little Grieder does not seem promising at all. I saw some fish at the very start of it, but there are overlooks where you can see huge chunks of the more shallow, swampy part of Little Grieder, and from there - nothing moving anywhere. With the number of snags in Little Grieder, I would not take out a rubber raft. I am anxious enough in Big Grieder.

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