The Green below Flaming Gorge is the aquarium of American tailwaters: emerald water through a red-rock canyon, up to 14,000 trout per mile, and a riverside trail that makes it the best walk-and-wade big river in the country.
Reports current for Friday, October 23
Every one of the 20 Utah waters we cover has a live read this morning. 1 is scoring 4 out of 5 or better and 2 are slow. Water runs 47 F to 74 F. Pressure is holding steady on most of them, so the day comes down to water temperature and wind. 16 have a better-than-even chance of rain.
Best right now: Lake Powell 4/5, Deer Creek Reservoir 3/5, Fish Lake 3/5
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
Utah's emerald tailwater below Flaming Gorge: 8,000 trout per mile in water so clear you fish by sight all day.
Lake Powell: the Glen Canyon reservoir across the Utah-Arizona line, where striped bass and walleye have no limit and record-low water has closed most launch ramps.
Utah's home river: brown trout by the thousand in the middle and lower canyons.
Strawberry Reservoir in Wasatch County: cutthroat, rainbow and kokanee under DWR's 15- to 22-inch cutthroat release rule.
The Weber River in Summit County: a Utah Blue Ribbon reach between Wanship and Echo Reservoir, with its own access law on the upper river.
Southern Utah's trout bowl at 8,400 feet: rainbows fattened on scuds, a cutthroat comeback, and ice fishing framed by red-rock country.
Provo Canyon's blue anchor: walleye and smallmouth over clean rock, rainbow trolling lanes and Timpanogos filling the windshield.
The Great Salt Lake's freshwater neighbor: a diked bay of wipers, walleye and gizzard shad chaos on Utah's improbable west side.
Pineview Reservoir: the Ogden Valley reservoir that holds Utah's tiger muskie records, drawn down through 2026 for Ogden City's pipeline work.
Park City's deep neighbor: a Provo River reservoir of brown-trout ambush, smallmouth banks and perch schools under paddleboard traffic.
Bear Lake: aqua-blue water on the Utah-Idaho line, home to three fish found nowhere else and a midwinter cisco dipnet fishery.
The Strawberry below Soldier Creek: a pinyon-canyon tailwater of wild browns, scuds and solitude an hour from the famous reservoir.
The Beaver bargain: a high-desert trophy pond where Utah's quality rules grow 20-inch rainbows on a fraction of Strawberry's fame.
The canyon commuter: Ogden's home tailwater drops through its namesake canyon with browns rising minutes from downtown.
Otter Creek Reservoir near Antimony: a heavily stocked rainbow trout water in Piute County, drawn down to about 10 percent in the 2026 drought.
Starvation Reservoir: a Reclamation lake near Duchesne managed as Fred Hayes State Park, with walleye, smallmouth, brown trout and heavy rainbow trout stocking.
Utah’s high cold pantry: Scofield stacks tiger trout and cutts at 7,600 feet, and its ice season out-fishes its summers.
A natural, fault-formed lake at nearly 9,000 feet in the Fishlake National Forest, managed by Utah DWR for lake trout, splake, kokanee and perch.
Huntington Creek: a canyon stream below Electric Lake in Emery County, with a fly-only Right Fork and an artificial-only Left Fork.
The Logan River through Logan Canyon: Cache County trout water with special limits from Card Canyon upstream to the Idaho line.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: April.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
Utah's crown is the Green below Flaming Gorge: the aquarium-clear tailwater with the trail access every river wishes it had. But the state runs deeper: the Provo's browns within an hour of Salt Lake, high-Uinta brook trout lakes, Strawberry's cutthroat factory, and Lake Powell's houseboat-striper universe in the red-rock south. It is a two-speed state: technical trout north, warmwater adventure south.
Spring: baetis on the Green, pre-runoff Provo, stripers waking at Powell. May-June: the cicada window on the Green: dry-fly fishing's loudest event. Summer: Uinta backpacking lakes, Powell boils at dawn, evening caddis everywhere. Fall: brown trout aggression on every river, Strawberry's cutts fattening. Winter: midge fishing under red canyon walls, often alone.
It releases from deep in Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which settles out sediment: the river below runs filtered, cold and stable, powering both the visibility and the food base.