sure those weren't rainbows? Rattlesnake isn't stocked with kokanee.

Thanks for the comment, Mike. I was expecting to catch rainbows, but both fish were kokanee: distinctive dark greenish-blue backs with faint fine dark speckling between the dorsal fin & tail, but sides & tail lacked any spots; sides were bright silver (not a hint of pink anywhere) with very fine scales; tails were deeply forked rather than squarish; and both fish were considerably more toothy than I’ve seen in rainbows of similar size. I was puzzled that they weren’t rainbows or cutts, so when I got home yesterday I double-checked the ID against some websites, and they sure matched bluebacks, not rainbows. The list of kokanee-bearing lakes on the WDFW site doesn’t include Rattlesnake, and the WDFW trout & kokanee stocking plans for Rattlesnake Lake from 2012 – 2016 show plants of only rainbows, except for a single dose of cutthroat fry in late 2014. So the state hasn’t stocked any kokanee in Rattlesnake, but apparently someone has … Maybe I’ll go back next week to try to catch one big enough to keep, or get a picture & count rays in the anal fin to nail down the ID.

Hmm. They might be leftover steelhead plants from when they released steelhead spots after the lawsuit!

Ive gotten kokes out of bosworth, which also is not listed as having them.

I've noticed on tours taken to local hatcheries that, in some cases, kokanee and rainbows are reared in long troughs in the buildings and are close enough where they could (conceivably) jump from one trough to another and mix. This might be an explanation for the finding of koks in rainbow lakes ?

Bosworth kokes are most like landlocked coho. I ask wdfw about this and they confirmed that coho do end up in the lake and come in through a stream connecting the pilchuck to bosworth. For some reason some those coho end up staying in the lake for their entire life most likely due to low water conditions when they would otherwise migrate out to sea. Now I'm not saying your kokes weren't true kokes just stating what I've been told.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/washington/7/
They now list coho as a species you might catch starting this year

Bosworth "kokes" are coho.

I actually called fish and game. I happen to know that the rattlesnake fish that are silvery are steelhead. They are genetically so basically they take the eggs of the searun steelhead and breed them.They grow faster, have the silver color and are often thin and long. Tons and tons were released into the lake in an overabundance. the mentioned lawsuit is true. For most the year they keep that very silvery hue with a green hue. With very few spots and often just a few stray ones on the top of the dorsal fin. The kokanee tend to have a more blue color and do not have the spots. I also know the same fish were released into Langlois. Lot's of miss identifying happens there because there are kokanee but they more blue and lack as many spots. It takes a bit to tell the difference but I caught once a kokanee, steelhead and rainbow in the same trip. side by side I could totally tell the difference. It seems they may have recently stocked a batch of the silvery steelhead in several area lakes because I was catching them in various lakes and they did not quite have the rainbow hue. watch at some point of the year those silvery steelhead will turn a bit you will be able to tell they are the same fish because they will still appear longer their belly will still look more silvery or white. they will still have extra teeth. .

But steelhead ARE rainbows, only anadromous. Rainbows/steelhead don't have forked tails, while the fish I caught did. I think Why2Fish's comment probably is a good explanation of why kokes are in Rattlesnake Lk.

Could be but I have seen trout with slightly forked tails. Especially these steelhead they just planted. What makes me believe that those aren't kokanee is the fact that you said you didn't just catch one and on flies but 2. I have seen kokes take flies but you also said frequent leaping kokes. Now with a lake that has never seen any kokanee dropped in it what are the possibilities of catching 2 and seeing several jump. Not very good