Utah fishing regulations, explained

The rules that apply everywhere, in plain English. The water-specific rules — slots, closures, artificial-only sections — are on each water’s FishUT page, and the Utah Fishing Guidebook is the legal authority. Rules change each January; verify before you keep a fish.

Licenses

Anyone 12 or older needs a license to fish public water in Utah; children under 12 fish free. Licenses run 365 days from purchase, come in youth, adult, senior, disabled-veteran, and short-term (3- and 7-day) versions, and are sold online, in the DWR app, and at any license agent. Free Fishing Day — usually the first Saturday in June — waives the license but not the rules. Full fees and details are on the fishing license page.

Statewide daily limits

Unless a water says otherwise, the statewide limit is 4 trout — trout, salmon, and grayling count together — and you may not have more than a day’s limit in possession. Warm-water fish have their own statewide limits (bass, walleye, catfish, and panfish are each set separately, with size rules on some), and a few species have no limit at all because the state wants them gone: Utah chub, carp, and burbot at Flaming Gorge, for example, must not be released. Many popular waters override the statewide numbers with a lower limit, a protective slot (Strawberry, Scofield, Panguitch), a bonus limit (brook trout on many Uinta lakes), or catch-and-release — the water page shows which.

Tackle and bait

Two poles are allowed on most waters with an ordinary license. Live baitfish are illegal statewide — it’s how illegal fish end up in reservoirs — but worms, dead minnows, eggs, and commercial baits are fine where bait is allowed, and live crayfish may be used only on the water they came from. Artificial flies and lures only waters prohibit all bait and scent. Snagging is illegal except where specifically allowed (some cisco and kokanee situations), and fish must be taken by hook and line except during the Bear Lake cisco dip-net season and setline permits for catfish on a few waters.

Seasons and hours

Utah fishing is open year-round, day and night, on nearly every water — including ice fishing. The exceptions are spawning closures on specific tributaries (typically the inlet streams to reservoirs like Strawberry, Jordanelle, and Scofield in spring or fall) and a short list of waters with their own season dates. Those closures are on the affected water pages and in the guidebook’s special-regulations table.

Blue Ribbon and special-regulation waters

Utah’s Blue Ribbon fisheries and a few dozen other waters carry rules designed to grow big fish or protect native cutthroat: reduced trout limits, slot limits that require releasing mid-size fish, artificial-only tackle, single-hook requirements, and catch-and-release sections. The Green below Flaming Gorge, the Middle Provo, the upper Logan, Little Dell, Minersville, and Strawberry are the best-known. If a water on FishUT has special rules, they’re listed in its regulations section above the weather.

Boats and invasive species

Quagga mussels at Lake Powell drive Utah’s strictest rules: every boat leaving Powell must be decontaminated or dried per the state’s schedule, boaters must complete the annual mussel-aware course and, for nonresident boats, pay the AIS fee, and inspection stations operate at major reservoirs. Draining live wells and bilges at the ramp is required everywhere. Moving live fish between waters is a serious offense.

Frequently asked

This page summarizes; it isn’t the law. The Utah Fishing Guidebook and the Utah Wildlife Board’s rules (R657) govern. FishUT is not affiliated with the Utah DWR.