The 12 Largest Lakes in Utah

With the Caribou-Targhee Nationwide Forest, Bryce Canyon Nationwide Park, the Grand Staircase-Escalante Nationwide Monument, and extra, the one option to describe Utah is to say it’s breathtakingly attractive. It has a various vary of pure points of interest and year-round leisure alternatives. Utah has such a various geographical panorama that you can fortunately spend weeks touring the state.

Desert dunes, valleys, pine forests, and hillsides can all be discovered right here. Other than all these picturesque terrains, the state boasts greater than 2,000 lakes and 89,000 miles of streams. Each pure lakes and man-made reservoirs abound all through Utah. Most of those lakes are replete with trout and largemouth bass, making the state much more widespread for anglers. Beneath, we’ll discover the 12 greatest lakes in Utah and different details.

The 12 Largest Lakes in Utah

12. Fish Lake

Fish Lake is one in every of Utah’s most well-known lakes for a great purpose. It’s a 2,500-acre alpine lake within the Fishlake Nationwide Forest, mendacity 8,848 ft (2,700 meters) above sea degree. This pristine lake, bordered by the rugged peaks of the Mytoges Mountains, is Utah’s largest pure mountain lake. Rainbow trout, lake trout, brown trout, tiger trout, splake, kokanee salmon, and yellow perch can all be discovered within the lake’s waters. Yellow perch are thought-about an invasive species. Thus anglers are suggested to launch any that they catch. The Utah Division of Wildlife Assets fish hatchery close to Glenwood provides the lake with fish. The lake can also be fairly deep, with some areas exceeding 170 ft.

11. Scofield Reservoir

Scofield Reservoir is a 2,815-acre (11.39 km2) reservoir in Carbon County created by Scofield Dam. The reservoir is positioned on the northern facet of the Wasatch Plateau. It serves as an important water provide for each municipal and industrial functions. For adjoining communities, it’s additionally a famend fishing and out of doors exercise place. Scofield is one in every of Utah’s most well-known ice fishing spots. Annually, additionally it is among the many earliest reservoirs to freeze. The lake is thought for having world-record tiger trout populations. Nevertheless, in recent times, rising numbers of Utah Chub have upset the steadiness, producing competitors and limiting rainbow trout development.

10. Deer Creek Reservoir

Deer Creek Reservoir was inbuilt 1941 with the erection of a dam on the Provo River close to Heber, Utah. The reservoir has 2,965 acres (12 km2) floor space and is primarily utilized for irrigation and recreation. Rainbow trout, brown trout, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, perch, walleye, and carp are all equipped within the lake. As a result of the lake is mostly heat, fishing is feasible all yr. Swimming, water snowboarding, boating, crusing, and windsurfing are widespread actions for guests. Mount Timpanogos’ snow-capped peaks mirror the lake’s clear water, providing lovely sights from the aspen-covered lake margins.

9. Rush Lake

Rush Reservoir, generally often known as Rush Lake, is a shallow salt lake in Tooele County, Utah, United States. The lake is shaped by a stream that flows into the Nice Salt Lake. It has a complete floor space of three,212 acres (13 km2) and is positioned at a mean altitude of 4,951 ft (1,509 m). It’s a relic of Lake Bonneville, a postglacial inland sea that previously blanketed a lot of western North America in the course of the Ice Ages. A number of totally different fish species may be discovered within the lake, together with Utah Chub, largemouth bass, channel catfish, carp, inexperienced sunfish, bluegill, yellow perch, black crappie, and black bullhead.

8. Jordanelle Reservoir

Jordanelle Reservoir, nestled between Heber Metropolis and Park Metropolis, was created in 1992 as a product of the Jordanelle Dam on the Provo River. It spans 3,301 acres (13.36 km2) and sits on the peak of 6,188 ft (1,886 m). Agriculture, flood management, leisure leisure, and fish and wildlife preservation had been all causes for the reservoir’s building. Jordanelle State Park was established in 1995 to provide entry to the reservoir and leisure actions. Rainbow trout, brown trout, cutthroat trout, and smallmouth bass abound within the Lake, a lot to the enjoyment of native anglers. 

7. Willard Bay

Willard Bay is a 9,900-acre (40-square-kilometer) freshwater reservoir in japanese Field Elder County, Utah, northwest of Ogden, on the Nice Salt Lake’s north-eastern floodplains. It parted from the larger lake in 1964 and at the moment serves as a ingesting water supply for the close by communities. This physique of water produces wonderful walleye and wiper fishing and is a good spot for duck looking. Willard Bay can also be a well known leisure web site, with boating, swimming, jet snowboarding, water snowboarding, and fishing among the many actions obtainable. You may additionally get pleasure from climbing, picnics, and ATVing on land. Jordanelle State Park, which opened on June 29, 1995, is now a favourite summer season location for triathletes and runners alike.

6. Strawberry Reservoir

Strawberry Reservoir, nestled 65 miles from the Wasatch Entrance, has 17,164 acres (69.46 km2) and is 7,602 ft above sea degree (2,320 m). In 1973, the reservoir was expanded to accommodate 1,106,500 acre-feet of water. Strawberry Reservoir is a state-favorite recreation web site, significantly for fishing, flanked by the attractive Wasatch Mountains. It’s, in actuality, Utah’s most famous fishery, with over 1.5 million angling hours per yr. Cutthroat trout, rainbow trout, kokanee salmon, and crayfish are all plentiful within the lake’s waters. Components of the reservoir are positioned throughout the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache Nationwide Forest, offering tranquility and wonderful wilderness walks. A complete of 1,524 miles of climbing and bike trails and 245 km (152 miles) of motor vehicle routes are additionally obtainable.

5. Flaming Gorge Reservoir

With a floor space of 42,020 acres and sitting at a floor elevation of 6,045 ft, Flaming Gorge Lake can maintain 3,788,900 acre-feet of water. It’s positioned within the middle of the Ashley Nationwide Forest, close to the Wyoming-Utah boundary. The recreation space’s focus is the lake, which supplies nice windsurfing, water snowboarding, boating, and fishing alternatives. Climbing, cross-country snowboarding, and snowmobiling are additionally among the different widespread actions. The reservoir is well-known for its lake trout, but it surely additionally accommodates smallmouth bass, kokanee salmon, and rainbow and brown trout. Scuba divers and anglers flock to the Lake for its wonderful readability.

4. Bear Lake

Bear Lake is a pure freshwater lake within the Western United States, positioned on the border of Utah and Idaho. It covers round 70,000 acres (280 km2) and is cut up about evenly between the 2 states. The Utah portion accommodates Utah’s second-largest pure freshwater lake, behind Utah Lake. Bear Lake is an impressive pure lake used for irrigation, hydropower era, and flood management, along with being a well-known vacationer vacation spot. The huge lake is named the “Caribbean of the Rockies,” owing its wonderful turquoise colour to suspended limestone deposits. It additionally has two state parks, one on the Utah facet of the lake and the opposite on the Illinois facet. 

3. Utah Lake

Utah Lake is a 95,000-acre (380 km2) pure freshwater lake positioned in north-central Utah’s Mountainland Area. It is likely one of the remaining surviving parts of prehistoric Lake Bonneville, which previously occupied most of Utah. The lake is used for numerous functions, similar to water conservation, chicken statement, and recreation. Not less than 25 totally different fish species have been imported into its waters. There are many carp, black bullhead, channel catfish, largemouth bass, white bass, walleye, goldfish, yellow perch, bluegill, and black crappie. The nice brown bat, silver-haired bat, Botta’s pocket gopher, mule deer, desert woodrat, and striped skunk are among the mammals that reside close to the lake.

2. Lake Powell 

With a complete capability of 26,214,900 acre-feet and a complete floor space of 161,390 acres (65,310 hectares), Lake Powell is the second-largest reservoir in the USA by quantity and the biggest lake touching Arizona’s borders. Lake Powell is well-known for its spectacular panorama, attracting over two million vacationers and guests annually and offering large water storage for the American states of Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, and New Mexico. Like Lake Mead, Lake Powell was created by a dam on the Colorado River (Glen Canyon Dam). The Arizona-Utah border has virtually 2,000 miles of shoreline and 96 principal canyons, so that you don’t want a houseboat to get pleasure from them. The waterways are appropriate for kayaking, jet snowboarding, crusing, and waterskiing.

1. Nice Salt Lake

The Nice Salt Lake is the largest salt lake within the Western Hemisphere and the world’s eighth-largest terminal lake, with a floor space of 1.087 million acres (4,400 sq. kilometers). It’s positioned within the northern a part of Utah and has a considerable influence on the encircling space’s local weather, primarily attributable to lake-effect snow. Low portions of salt absorbed within the freshwater stream of contributing river techniques are continuously introduced in as a result of it has no launch. It evaporates when water enters the Nice Salt Lake, leaving the salt behind.