Fish Lake Fishing Overview

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Description
Fish Lake is a deep, natural lake that provides consistently good fishing, summer and winter. It is perhaps Utah's best splake fishery and also offers good action for medium-sized lake trout. This is one of our best ice fishing waters. It is located on top a mountain in a beautiful forest setting - a very popular spot for camping and recreational cabins.

Location
NW of the town of Loa, off Hwy 24, in south-central Utah.
      200 miles from Salt Lake City
      325 miles from Las Vegas

Primary Species: Rainbow trout, splake, lake trout and yellow perch. DWR reports that tiger muskie have made their way into Fish Lake via from Johnson Reservoir, which is located about seven miles downstream from Fish Lake. Tiger muskie were stocked into Johnson several years ago. The number of tiger muskie in Fish Lake is probably quite small, but there may be a few big ones.

Special Regulation
Limit 4 trout, no more than 2 may be lake trout/mackinaw and only 1 may be a lake trout/mackinaw larger than 20 inches. Dead yellow perch maybe used for bait. Limit 50 yellow perch. When ice fishing, the size of the hole may not exceed 18 inches.

Seasonal Factors
Because it is so deep, Fish Lake is slow to freeze in the winter and the ice is slow to melt in the spring. It usually does not freeze until late December - you can usually plan to ice fish the lake by New Years Day. It is often early or mid-May before the ice comes off. There is open water to fish by Memorial Day weekend, but nights are still crisp at that time of year so campers need to be prepared. Summers are cool at the lake, which is at an elevation of about 8840 feet. Because of the high elevation, Fish Lake does not go through a "dog days" slow period in late summer. Action is consistently good year round.

Lures & Techniques
Dense weeds grow in shallow areas at Fish Lake. In most areas weeds extend from shore out to where the bottom falls off into deep water. Fish small baits in the weeds and you will catch perch, and maybe a few rainbows. Fish the deep-water edge of the weedbeds and you may catch any of the lake's fish, even when you use small baits. Fish deep in open water areas for the splake and lake trout. This pattern is generally true year-round.

Small splake and small lake trout roam freely in the lake. Larger fish are usually found in deeper water. The big ones are commonly caught by anglers fishing a heavy jig or lure tipped with a perch tail or piece of dead minnow. Try tipping tube jigs, Kastmasters and similar offerings.

You can also catch big fish trolling deep using downriggers or weighted line.

Fly fishermen normally take rainbows and action can be good lake-wide early and late in the day. The edges of weedbeds on the north end seem to be particularly productive. If you fish deep with sinking line you may pick up a splake or laker, especially during the spring or fall.

Copyright Dave Webb, 2007