I fished 3 days in a row here from 11/11-11/13. Stocking was done by WDFW on 11/3 with 2000+ "jumbo" rainbow trout. Most of the action has been fish around 14"-16" that cut up slightly soft consistent with recently stocked fish. There are some occasional catches of slightly smaller fish that are probably left over from the spring/early summer stockings of "catchables." A few of us even caught some tiny 5" fish with parr marks that are probably from the "put, take, and grow" stockers. Was surprised to see fish this small biting.

Probably easy limits on 11/11, but we left early after 3 fish to get lunch at Famous Dave's during their Veteran's Day promotion (if you're reading this, Dave... thanks for the free pork sandwich). We returned on 11/12, but fishing was quite slow for us and everyone around us. It was very overcast, so perhaps even with bright colored bait, the fish were not finding it easily or were holding in a different part of the lake. My wife hooked one small, probably 12" fish that threw the hook, and I pulled in one "put, grow, and take" fish with parr marks that unfortunately swallowed the bait entirely. As we did not want to keep this tiny fish, I tried to handle it as carefully as possible with wet hands and cut the leader as close as possible since the hook was inaccessible. I am hoping he will be able to pass the hook and bait. On 11/13, it was an easy limit in about 2 hours of fishing. It alternated between cloudy and sunny, with more biting during sunny periods.
Smallest fish was about 14" and the largest was about 17".

On two of the days, I fished next to a nice older gentleman who was kind enough to share some garlic scented gel to dab onto the bait. This did seem to speed things up a bit when the bite slow. He was also very nice to my 2 year old daughter and had some candy. Unfortunately, he didn't speak much English, only Russian, so it was hard for me to properly thank him for the generosity. Even though it was a popular spot with many of anglers, people were pleasant about sharing the limited space while still keeping a reasonable distance. Unfortunately, I was guilty of crossing lines inadvertently with the aforementioned nice gentleman. I need to work on my casting a bit for busy shorelines. Usually, I fish by trolling, but no motors (even electric) are allowed on this lake.

In summary, when recently stocked, Green Lake is an excellent lake for shorebound anglers to catch stocked rainbow trout of decent size. Some anglers here mentioned that certain colors worked better for them, but they seemed to bite chartreuse, orange, green, or pink power eggs without much discrimination. Dough baits have worked for me in the past too. I also found a Powerbait rat tail in the stomach of a fish with a leader and swivel hanging out of the fish's mouth, so I assume this works too as long as you don't break the fish off. 3#-6# test leader is plenty for these fish as long as you use your drag and land with a net. Seen a lot of people horsing these fish in or jumping them out of the water to get them over the retaining wall or dock. I think a net is nice to have since there is a retaining wall for much of the shoreline that makes it impossible to guide fish onto the ground gently.

These fish fillet made nice table fare, and I kept the heads/carcasses to make stocks for use in paella, fideua, and soups.

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