Flaming Gorge Reservoir
Today’s report
Flaming Gorge Reservoir is a fair bet today. The reservoir is 65% full, well below the usual 83% for this time of year, and drawing down over the last month. The DWR last stocked rainbow trout (1,001 fish) on September 13. This Afternoon's forecast: sunny, 63°F.
- calm, fishable weather
Fishing Flaming Gorge Reservoir: what to know
Flaming Gorge is 91 miles of reservoir behind a 500-foot dam on the Green, split between Utah and Wyoming — red-rock canyon country on the Utah end, open sage-and-bluff water up north. It holds the state-record lake trout, a strong kokanee fishery, rainbows, smallmouth bass along every rocky point, and burbot, an accidental introduction anglers are asked to kill. Utah-side access runs through Dutch John: Cedar Springs and Lucerne marinas, Sheep Creek, Antelope Flat, and the Mustang Ridge area.
Spring after ice-out brings lake trout and rainbows shallow and the smallmouth onto the banks as water passes 55°F. Summer is a deep-water trolling game for kokanee (30–60 feet) and lake trout, with smallmouth on the rocks all day. Fall turns the kokanee red and puts big lake trout back in reach of a jig; October and November are the trophy-laker months. The Utah canyon arms freeze most winters and the ice fishing for lake trout pups, rainbows, and burbot — jigged at night with glow lures — is a February tradition.
Lake trout: vertical-jig tube jigs and heavy spoons over 40–90-foot humps and points, or troll big plugs deep. Kokanee: dodgers and squids on downriggers, watch the graph for the schools. Smallmouth: tubes and crawfish plastics on every rocky shoreline. Burbot: glow jigs after dark in winter — there's no limit and they must not be released. A reciprocal permit lets you fish both states' water; Flaming Gorge has its own lake trout size rules, listed on the water page below.
Current conditions
Stocking
Last stocked Sep 13, 2026 — rainbow trout (1,001 fish).
| Date | Species | Quantity | Avg length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 13, 2026 | rainbow trout | 1,001 | 9.46" |
| Jul 21, 2026 | rainbow trout | 644 | 12.03" |
| Jul 19, 2026 | rainbow trout | 996 | 12.01" |
| Jun 12, 2026 | rainbow trout | 1,800 | 11.36" |
| Jun 9, 2026 | rainbow trout | 1,317 | 11.03" |
| May 30, 2026 | rainbow trout | 3,337 | 11.27" |
| May 21, 2026 | kokanee salmon | 9,098 | 3.89" |
| May 20, 2026 | kokanee salmon | 20,654 | 3.91" |
Best time to fish Flaming Gorge Reservoir
The DWR has stocked Flaming Gorge Reservoir 270 times over the last 6 seasons, and 66% of those plants landed in April through June — the freshest fish and the easiest bite usually follow within a week or two of a stocking.
Species
Location
Nearby waters (within ~25 mi):
Guides & shops for this water
From our independent directory — no booking relationship.
Regulations
See Fishing across state lines and reciprocal fishing permits on page 8 for license and permit requirements.
- Excluding lake trout, a limit of 4 trout or kokanee salmon (a combined total); no more than 3 of these may be kokanee salmon.
- No limit for lake trout 28 inches or less; only 1 lake trout may exceed 28 inches.
- Anglers may use dead lake trout that are part of their daily bag limit as bait.
- Linwood Bay, west of a line from the easternmost point of the south shore of Linwood Bay (mouth of canyon) to easternmost point of the north shore of Linwood Bay (Lucerne Point), CLOSED to nighttime angling (sunset to sunrise) from Oct. 15 through 6 a.m. on the second Saturday of December.
- Limit 6 catfish.
- Limit 3 smallmouth and largemouth bass (a combined total).
- No limit for burbot. Anglers must not release any burbot they catch. All burbot must be immediately killed.
- Anglers may use dead burbot as bait.
- An angler may use up to six lines when fishing through the ice. If the angler is using more than two lines, the angler's name must be attached to each line, pole or tip-up, and the angler may check only their lines. (There is no restriction on ice hole size.) Flaming Gorge.
- Chumming is allowed, but you may chum only with legal baits, dead burbot or lake trout, as specified in Utah Admin. Rule R657-13-12.
Special rules from the 2026 Utah Fishing Guidebook. Statewide daily limits apply to anything not listed. Rules change — always verify in the current guidebook before you fish.