They're as white as a ghost and stick out like a sore thumb. They're none other than the West Virginia golden trout. The cream colored hatchery mutants are a lot unto themselves.

The biggest angling tease of the Mountain State waterways, they usually pass up whatever baits the angler offers.

To perpetuate this annual teasing test of angling wits, the DNR folks manage to get a few of them scattered out at just about every fishery on the stock list.

Since they're as plain as can be, you have to acknowledge that yes somebody put them in there and no they haven't been caught yet!

Unless they were blind, you wonder how many other kindred souls have seen that fish there as plain as day. And why hasn't somebody caught, creeled and cooked that Casper looking salmonid son of a gun yet?

And that's sometimes months after the stocking season has ended.

As tempting as their visual presence is, experienced anglers oft ignore them flat out.

In fact, the palominos as some folks call them act as if they're as well camouflaged as their normal parent stock brethren, the rainbow trout.

Those wise old anglers well tuned to the finicky feeding habits of the golden trout oft use them merely as Judas fish instead. That is, the goldens indicate the high likelihood that one or more their normal colored brethren that you can't see despite of the finest Bill Dance polarized fishing glass are lurking nearby.

What's more, the normal colored rainbows are much more cooperative, at least in the relative realms of cooperating trout.

To beat all, there once was this case of golden trout sensory overload. Instead of the normal one or two here and there, the hatchery boys dumped a whole truckload it seemed of fingerling stock at a popular catch and release stretch.

The fishermen flocked to the spot but none could catch these schooling gray ghost midgets out amongst the riffles and pools. Could it have been a fisherman's diversion tactic? After all when umpteen folks are fishing one spot, at least they're not at somebody's honey hole somewhere else.

This is the kind of mental anguish that fishing for goldens can produce. Come on now little golden, let us catch you. We're just going to be letting you go anyway