Getting There

To reach The Upper Truckee River in El Dorado County (Tahoe Rim Trail), drive to the Big Meadow Tahoe Rim trailhead by taking Highway 89 towards Luther Pass. The trailhead parking lot is situated roughly 60 yards uphill from the actual trailhead. So park and walk down 89 until you see the sign on the lefthand side of the road. The parking can be sparse on weekends and holidays due to the trailhead being very popular.

The Hike

We chose to make camp at Round Lake ont his trip although if you are solely focused on the Upper Truckee then more secluded campsites can be found some of the Four Lakes. The hike begins as a hike to Round Lake which is a moderate trek with a quick uphill, switchbacked section at the start. Once you have zigzagged up the intitial hill, you will be rewarded with some easy hiking through the flats of Big Meadow. Check out the plentiful Brook Trout in the stream while crossing the wooden bridge. Once you are through Big Meadow the ascents begin again and intensify until you reach the top of the hill. This section can be tiresome but it's worth it as you will be rewarded again with easy downhill trekking as you reach the next valley. Another mile of hiking brings you to the north side of Round Lake. We continued on around the west side, across the outlet creek, below a primitive rock dam, toward the south side where there are excellent campsites that are close to the water. We made camp here. Campfires are illegal in this area and regardless of what others are doing around the lake, do not have a campfire.

The Fishing

From our camp site at Round Lake, we made a cross country trek through moderately wooded hills and valleys while using a GPS program on a smart phone to direct us to the Four Lakes. Once at the Four Lakes, there is an anglers trail circumventing the west side of the largest Four Lake. Traveling west we passed the last small pond and reached the Upper Truckee River. The river is actually a creek with small pools, long shallow runs, undercut and brush-covered banks. Roll casting with your flyrod is essential as there are bushes and trees everywhere around you.

Once we found a nice pool to cast in, we dropped an assortment of basic flies like grasshoppers and caddis flies. Those worked great for small colorful cutts in 8-11 inch range. I used a few beadhead nypmhs under the tiny water falls and that worked well a few times. Paul went downstream from Caleb and me with a Tenkara rod and pulled in some fish with a dry caddis. Caleb used a fly rod for the first time ever and had luck using small dry flies. All in all it was a lot of fun. Remember that there is a restoration project in progress on the upper section of the Truckee River designed to restore the native Cutthroat and remove brook trout so catch and release is essential here.