Loch Levin Lakes Fishing Map, Fishing Report, and Placer Hunting Clubs
We have many maps or go to our county by county site for more specific info :
How to fish Loch Leven Lakes, Where to fish nearby (see list of counties below)
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Trout addicts willing to walk catch more fish than those who don‘t leave pavement. However, there’s no reason to hike in for miles. Some spots are close enough to pavement to be an easy “in and out” day trip.
Loch Leven Lakes is such a spot for those willing to grind
up the very steep trail from Hampshire Rocks Campground on the South Fork of the Yuba River just off
Interstate 80. On midweeks there is nobody there, weekends are light pressure -
only on big holiday weekends do you find crowds.
Loch Leven Lakes are rather strange, in that they’re isolated
on the ridge the Emigrants followed on their name-sake trail in Placer County
You can see the lights of the Southern Pacific and Interstate 80 from the crest.
Several decent camp sites near the water offer choices. The site at High Lock
Leven Lakes just east of the two more popular lakes on the main trail is good.
This trail, for those who are total masochists, traverses
the ridge past Cherry Point and then
dives down into the North Fork of the
American River along Little Granite Creek. If you like to fish potholes in alpine creeks, you’ll
love the lower end of Little Granite!
There is some very fine rainbow trout action upstream on American up into the Royal Gorge
section. You can also walk out to the
south up Sailor Canyon to Sailor Flat to
a pickup on Foresthill Road, a decent dirt road.
Loch Leven Lakes always seems to produce enough trout to eat for dinner. Methods didn’t seem to
matter much most years. Kids do well
with salmon eggs or worms under bobbers.
I use 2-pound test and my usual 1/16 nth ounce gold Kastmaster during the day and a No. 16 Adams or Mosquito
dry fly or a No. l4 Rio Grande King wet
fly in the evenings.
But that’s not the
real appeal. I view my trips to Loch
Leven Lakes as a chance to get away from
the mob scenes on the Pacific Crest, John Muir and Desolation Wilderness Trails. Once you grind
up out of the canyon, you have a
wonderful assortment of half-day hikes.
Most are compass and map jobs. For example, you can hike directly east to a decent unnamed lake west
of Devils Peak or orienteer to Huntley
Mill Lake toward Snow Mountain.
These options and the
trail loops mentioned below offer hideaway
campsites unless you find a pack of Boy Scouts, as happened to me two years ago. An assortment of trail loops connect with
Pelham and Four Horse Flats to the
south. Big Valley Creek and other creeks
toward Monumental Ridge offer more options if you like to dunk bait or fish tiny spinners in
creeks.
Best of all, Loch Leven, like a number of shorter
hike-in, or easy overnight backpacker’s
spots, offers a great chance to weekend
in comfort. You can hike in an hour or so, set up camp and catch dinner fish before dark if you
take off from the Bay Area at 4 p.m. on
Friday. Then you have Saturday to
explore and relax, and Sunday to contemplate a return before you ease down the hill for the return
trip. This means you can leave the
freeze-dry food home and pack in a
couple of nice T-Bones, a bottle of wine, some fresh French bread and even fresh vegetables,
salad, eggs and all sorts of other
goodies.
However, don’t complain if you arrive at Hampshire Rocks Campground
and the trail head and discover there’s too much snow on the trail. You should
have called the Tahoe National Forest
(916) 265-453l to check trail conditions.
Even so, you have
other nifty options in the area. For example, you might drive into Sterling Lake from Cisco Grove a
few miles east on I-80. This dirt road
also goes to Fordyce Reservoir. Sterling
has a decent six-site campground and bank launching. The best shore fishing is in the arm near the dam.
Brook trout in the 9- to 14-inch range
are easy to catch here. Fordyce mixes
rainbows and browns. If it’s full, try the south arm. Later in the year try the inlet of North Creek at the east
end of the lake. Sounds good!
Click on a county for Hunting Clubs & Private Ranches:
Oregon and California hunting and fishing maps of hunting clubs, hunting ranches, public
and private fishing.
If you like our Fishing map and information on how to fish this lake, we
have many more hunting and fishing maps, here is a screen shot, but if you want
more info, click on this link:www.freehuntfishmaps.com
www.ranchhuntandfish.com
California and Oregon for private fishing, hunting clubs, and exclusive network of hunting ranches
we have many more fishing maps and hunting maps at www.freehuntfishmaps.com
California Hunting Clubs for Turkey, deer, pig, quail,
fishing with Hunting Maps.
