Getting There

If you are going to stay at Upper McCabe Lake be sure to get a Yosemite Wilderness permit! We chose to launch our trip to Upper McCabe Lake from the Saddlebag Lake Area. There is a trailhead by the campground with plenty of parking. This is a very popular place due to the 20 Lakes Basin on the north side of Saddlebag Lake. There is a store with tackle and supplies and a restaurant for that great hamburger your'e gonna crave when you come back out of the woods. And best of all, they have a water taxi to take you across Saddlebag lake. This will save you about 2 miles of hiking.

The Hike

It is a moderate to difficult hike to Upper McCabe Lake in Yosemite. After exiting the water taxi, we enjoyed a mile or so of easy hiking as we headed toward Cascade Lake. Passing between Cascade and Tower Lakes, we headed up the trail north towards a lake called Secret Lake. This lake is usually unnamed on maps. We turned left and headed south towards North Peak to make a large switch back and head back to the top of the ridge. We followed this ridge line searching for areas to climb down to Upper McCabe Lake. This was tricky hiking in the class 3 arena. There are better routes to Upper McCabe Lake, we are sure. The boulder hopping got us there.

The Fishing

We had a hard time fishing that evening sight-casting to rises and bubbles, and trust me, there were quite a few. A few takes and nothing more. The next morning I headed out early over to the southwest shore of Upper McCabe Lake. Here I found many fish and by mid morning we had collectively landed more than 20. The fish in Upper McCabe Lake are really nice Rainbows in the 1-3 pound range. I've seen them husky in the past at Upper McCabe Lake.

We used a variety of techniques at Upper McCabe Lake. Steve and Alex used Panther Martin spinners and had good action around the southwestern shoreline. I used black ants, adams and beadhead nymphs in darker colors. Grasshoppers were uninteresting. A beadhead wooly bugger landed one as well.