I've seen guys hike down that canyon from the bridge. Never done it myself though.

Question......Do any of you have a girlfriend or wife that keeps buggin you to go steelheading even when it's raining??? (dumb question but i have to ask) Or should i say is your wife/gf that damm cool?

Well i do and i'm glad i do cuz she proved me wrong once again today. I finally said OK to her asking all morning and eggin me to go to the Green. Thinkin the rain and high water would make it not worth the time. Just a hassle i said. I Had to dig up all my stuff but we got on the water at about 11:30.

Fished the car body hole just below 18. No one in site. Water was stained and running fast and high. Vis was about 3 feet.I started to rig up with corky and eggs. And i look up and see my G/F setting the hook numerous times. I'm thinkin she's bumping bottom and just not use to the feeling of it and thinking they're bites.(remind you this is only her second time fishing for steelhead ever) I get my line almost tied and i hear YEAH!! and i look up and sure as sheeit she's got one on. A 10 minute fight insued then finally she lands her first Summer buck, that weighed in at 8lbs. 2nd chromie ever. It was a hatchery fish so she decided to bonk it.

This was almost an exact replay of the first time i ever took her steelheading, except she hooked a 11lb Winter Nate on her first cast. And both times i told her that what she was tieing on wasn't good for Steelhead. Now she's gotten me to believe in the power of the Rooster Tail. Just casting across and driftin the swing. Numerous raibows jumping and a few bigger fish also. I had no idea that there were that many big fish in the river already. Hooked 2 11" rainbows also, so no skunkfish this time. Off the water by 1:00.

This has caused a dilemma. If the steelhead are here in numbers, then i have to scrap the idea of spending more time bass fishing this year.

If you get out, bring a garbage bag with you. The litter was unbelievable. I could have gotten rich off the cans alone.

Damn you FFF! Always scoring fish on the Green. How come we/I never catch anything when I go with you.

I have heard the best time to fish is when the water is just starting to drop. Sounds like you had perfect timing.

Yeah i think your right Carl. Wed hadn't really got any significant rain in the last 3 days and the green is known to clear out quite quickly so i though maybe some nice water might be waiting for us. It was almost muddy looking though. It was just one of those right time at the right spot, situation.

Everyone says that steelhead are really smart and finicky. In a way that is true. Finicky, i'd say cuz of the few numbers make it seem this way. But the smart part, to me, is there internal instinct to conserve energy. USE THIS!! I have yet to catch one out of swift water. I always see plunkers looking for the deepest or the middle part of the river to fish. But most of the fish are takin it easy hugging the shoreline. Even right below your feet. I'll be out lookin for more fish later today. One more thing. That buck had pure white meat, and damm it tasted so good. Too bad my g/f can't keep anymore since our self-imposed 1 keeper steelhead per year rule came into effect. A very good rule i must say.(this rule excludes the 20lb Native class ) Anyone need a guide on the Green?

That pic of the fish should be up on my homepage in a few days if anyone is interested. http://hometown.aol.com/NWNatives

Stifler: It IS possible to hike down from the bridge, but it's a pain in the arse. I've done it once myself, and I don't know if I'd do it again. I found myself in a situation where it was wet and muddy and steeper in one spot (towards the bottom) that I imagined--probably not the safest thing I've done in my life.

lol I'll take a guide anyday. I dunno about anytime soon unfortunately cause its so high... the whole safety thing kinda comes into play. Whats your email so i can get ahold of you in the next couple weeks or so?

Stifler, what road is 169? Carl mentioned you may have to go up higher to Kanaskat so are you talking the Black Diamond Enumclaw road? And the huge bridge just out of Black Diamond? If so, that is a great spot and the climb ain't nothin'.

Just look for the sign that is nailed up on a tree and walk down that trail. It's where the barrier starts to push out towards the lane. There's a great hole with a 50 yard tailout as soon as you get off the trail. Nice and deep with few snags. Perfect hole for plugs, jigs or spoons. But if you get to the the end of the trail where there's one steep spot just above the river, look to your right and there's another trail going into the trees. You'll know your on it cuz in the first 30 yards of it you have to climb over a very big log. Follow that down to the end and you come up to a dogleg left in the river and it creates a huge pool. Great spot for big rainbows and steel. Not all that great of a spot in high water though. The lower hole is much better. You can also walk downriver under the bridge. There's a few good spots there too. Make sure you bring your boots.

When salmon are in (September - November) I can be your guide. This whole steelhead thing has got me stumped. Maybe I need a guide too.
Heck, even when I had a professional guide on the Lewis I still got skunked.

FFF, Hwy 169 runs from Renton through Maple Valley to Enumscratch. You drive through it on your way to Kanaskat P. when you are on Kent-Kangley (Hwy 516).

I just got back from the green. It sure looks alot better than Friday. Quite a few people on the river. Saw 4 driftboats go by. One guys said he had 2 winter run on just 5 minutes out of the launch just downriver from Flaming Geyser. Pink Corkie and prawn. No one at Metzler park or the upper Strawberry patch hole. So i stopped there and threw a spinner for half hour. Then switched to an orange jig and float and hooked up on my first cast but lost it. Seems as though there are alot of fish around.

Anything up high yet, anyone???

Ps. Email is on the envelope icon above my posts.

I can not believe the size of the rainbows !!!! I hooked one that had to be at least 20 in. I talked to many people at Palmer and they had no luck. THE WATER IS VERY HIGH. I went to a zipper-lip local and same thing monster rainbows but no steelies. I am still willing to trade hand tied jigs for a float on the Green.

fff, if you happen to be goingfishing on the green say anytime during the week in the coming months, would you happen to want to show me that place with the monster rainbows?? i release jus about anything, except hatchery steels and kings/coho..anyways, i want to learn some other holes on the green **berkley boy**

Well, i dont' know what Wang is talking about, if he means there's alot of them.

I know there are nice rainbows in the Green but there aren't too many of them. I've fished the Green along time for bows and up till about 6 years ago the biggest fish of all my friends i took up there and including myself was 14". It was a nice fish but not big like most rivers. But i went up to the Black Diamond Bridge hole and hiked up to the dogleg with a buddy in August(the hole i mentioned previously) and landed a nice 18" bow.

But i've seen people walk out of that same hole with 14-17" fish. I'ts said that the Green doesn't carry the same mineral content of other rivers around here and it make slow growing for the bows. And i think if someone is so lucky to hook a nice fish, it's most likely they will keep it. Not exatally helping out the population any.

Although, my friends and I have fished mid summer in low water up at Kanaskat park many times. Take your first right and drive to the gate and walk down to the river. We hiked upstream fishing small yellow roosters and just killin fish between 8-13". I mean like 15-20 fish apiece. So that kinda says the population is good. But where the hell are the grandpas???

So i don't know if i can help ya on that one. Just pick an area and jump in. Don't think of just fishing pools. Every 2 foot rock is a potential resting spot for a fatty.

Probably most of those rainbows are actually salmon or steelhead smolts. On the Green I fish only for steelhead if I am catching this smolts I move to a different area of the river or different techique. Why ruin a possible 14lb fish to bring home a 14 inch fish? I use 1/0 hook unfortulately some smolts die in the process not a good feeling. I caught over 20 steelhead on the green last year(hatchery only kept). I am very gentle in setting the hook when the smolts are abundant.Trying to catch a 14 inch resident trout is not very common on the green. You are probably actually catching these smolts or young steelhead. To target this fish is hurting the return of the large fish. If you must try to catch this small fish use techiques that are fish friendly (barbless,fly, no bait). My comments are just my thoughts about my home river. I don't mean to offend anyone just want to keep the river healthly with adult steelhead.

Tight lines

i went to the green last night 6/13, and i caight 2 smolts which were released and i handle them some what gently, as there was no place to land them, i was on a embankment..i know the differnace between a smolt and a resident trout, there body shape for example, but as spoonman says, why keep a 14" when it could come back as a adult to 14#, i agree with that also...**berkley boy**

I tend to agree with Spoonman; most of these small "rainbows" are probably steelhead smolts and should be left alone. Just curious: how can one tell the difference between a resident rainbow and a steelhead smolt? At what size (how many inches long) do smolts make their way to sea?

It's pretty easy to tell the salmon smolt from the rainbows. The pattern on their sides is pretty obvious. And i always thought the steelhead smolt look a little similar to the salmon smolt a little less silver than the salmon. But that i'm not sure of. You do catch one now and then but most are rainbows. That's why we stuck with yellow. It picked up more rainbows than not. White seems to be the color for salmon, from smolt up to adult, even spawners.

One other thing just so it doesn't sound like we are raping the green of rainbows or smolt of any kind, we have never, in the 16 years of fishing it, kept 1 single fish except for 8 steelhead. It's just not worth the impact on the system, to me anyways.

Wow... look what ive created!

For what it's worth, I found this interesting post on the Washington Fly Fishing site about this very subject (resident trout vs. steelhead smolt). I'm not trying to stir any trouble or do any fingerpointing here; I'm just enjoying the exchange of ideas and trying to educate myself. Anyway, here's the post:

Well I imagine you're not too confused about the difference between adult rainbows and juvenile steelhead. The question seems to be how to tell the difference between juvenile (read small) residents, and juvenile steelhead. Unfortunately, the short answer is you can't, not in the field anyway, unless the steelhead is actually "smolting." (That is, preparing to make the transition to saltwater; its scales will be fine and silvery, sluffing off easily when handled.)
What most of us refer to as "smolts" are usually steelhead parr. They generally won't be bigger than 6-8 inches, with rare individuals up to about ten inches. Some notable exceptions can occur in the southern range -- CA and far-southern OR -- where some coastal steelhead streams can go subterraneon at their mouths for years at a time. The juvenile steelhead involutarily "residualize" in the somewhat brackish lagoons, reaching lengths commonly up to 16". Meanwhile of course, the stream is gathering no annual runs of anadromous spawners. Fairly consistent fisheries can develop for these lagoon "trout." When conditions finally allow the mouths to break open, the "trout" almost immediately disappear, and the stream starts gathering genetically distinct anadromous steelhead again.

One of the many things those cases illustrate is the amazing life-history flexibility of steelhead/rainbows. Other posters on this thread have noted the tendency of juvenile steelhead to residualise. But it works in reverse as well. "Resident" rainbows can provide a genetic "bank" for sympatric steelhead populations, when resident rainbows and steelhead spawn together (documented in many areas of the range). Also, resident rainbows (even if both parents were residents) can and will spontaneously smolt and become anadromous (lots of cases all over Washington). This can be an important factor for populations that could use any kind of a demographic leg up (don't suppose there are any of those around here, huh?).

So the long and short of it is that any juvenile rainbow under 8" in an anadromous stream-reach is a possible (or potential) steelhead. The chances go up in rivers with a large ratio of steelhead to resident-rainbows (like most westside Washington streams).

I'll don the professor's cap (he should come with a companion emocon that he's putting to sleep), even though I don't know that I've answered your question. I guess I'd have to say that if you're into nothing but sub-8s with adipose fins on the North-Fork Sky, or the Tolt, or someplace similar, and catching juvenile steelhead bothers you, it wouldn't hurt to move on. Now of course we could get into a whole other discussion of when, where, how, why, and if it's OK to C&R juvenile steelhead. Like everything else, the answers certainly wouldn't be cut and dry.