Had a great time today fishing Lake Josephine via the Pacific Crest Trail, behind Stevens Pass. This is the #1 alpine lake where I really learned to fish with my dad and brothers as kids, circa: 1972-77. Back in the day it was on fire for fish.
If you ever decide to go here, take note that you do not need to hike in on Crest trail via the actual ski resort at Stevens Pass, but you can cut 6 miles round trip off the hike, if you drive in part way via FS road #6960, and take that to where it crosses the Crest trail. I marked it on my Garmin GPS prior to leaving home.
The hike from there is about 2 miles, we did it in about 60-70 min. half way there you go by Lake Susan Jane. A much smaller lake, but certainly worth a stop.

A couple months ago I had found out that Josephine had been planted with Golden trout every other year since 2011. This sounded like a great opportunity to maybe see my first Golden.
Upon arriving at the lake, I decided to bushwhack it to a large rock slide below the incoming trail. The main lake entry point is a little shallow. My friends had packed in small inflatable fishing rafts, and they entered at the mouth of the creek. (This is the mouth of the actual Icicle creek) I through Rooster Tail spinners, various colors. I caught a small 7" fish on my 2nd cast, yellow rooster tail.
The fish came off actually in my hands as was very bouncy, and back into the lake before I could get a clear look at any of its coloring. It did not appear though to be a Golden, and it had what I think is called the 'Par' marks that you see on juvenile trout.
I had 4-5 more bumps with various rooster tails. As well as multiple follows from fish.

I then through on a small Gold Kastmaster. With 4 lb test and a brand new vintage Fenwick pack rod, I was able to chuck this thing a LONG ways.. I let it go to the bottom for the first time. On the retrieve I hooked into a better quality fish, which took some drag and was fun.
I got the fish into shore, and it was definitely different from the usual rainbows as well as the cutthroat that I usually catch. I've caught brooke trout as well, and it wasn't quite like that. I'll attach some pics. Some friends have suggested it is a Western slope Cutthroat, not that I completely disagree, but the spotting is completely different from the Cutts I catch in Lake WA. And YES, I totally get it that cutthroat are often very different looking depending on the water they come from, diet, etc. Example being that many people think they must have the red slits on the throat.. not true of course.

Anyway, I'm open to hearing what you all think. If the pic comes over well, just notice that spotting on the cutts I'm familiar with usually goes all the way along the body of the fish, as well as the spots are not usually as large as on this fish. This fish also had a yellowish-golden sort of belly, without spots along the lateral area above the belly.

The Goldens that I have looked at online, are 'sometimes' very colorful, and have sort of blue 'par' marks along the side, but then others have spotting just like this, and have that colorful belly without out spots.

So, I'm assuming prob a Cutthroat of a little different variety than I'm used to, but if anyone here has ever actually really had a 1st hand experience with catching Golden trout, I'd love to hear about it.

Sorry about the fish with moss and stuff on it, but he happily made his way right back to the depths below. (-:
Tried to fish the fly rod a bit, but backcast from shore is always a bugger.