If you want to catch kokanee salmon in Utah, the search starts with a short list. Of the 60 Utah lakes currently tracked here, eleven carry a kokanee plant across eleven years of state stocking records, and the other 49 carry none. Kokanee are landlocked sockeye, and every one of those eleven is a reservoir or a mountain lake, never one of the shallow community ponds that carry most of the state’s put-and-take trout. For a species this concentrated, the list itself is most of the answer.
Where they actually go in
By plant count, the three biggest kokanee waters on record are Flaming Gorge Reservoir with 109 events since 2016, Strawberry Reservoir with 62, and Fish Lake with 58. All three were stocked with kokanee again in 2026.
The rest of the list is thinner: Jordanelle Reservoir has 23 plants, Rockport 9, East Canyon 8, Lost Creek and Electric Lake 6 each, Starvation 5, Upper Enterprise 4 and Smith and Morehouse 3. Recency matters as much as the count. Electric Lake’s last kokanee plant on record is May 2021, which is a different situation from a reservoir stocked this spring.
They do not go in ready to catch
Every kokanee plant in this data is small. Fish Lake’s have run 2.17 to 3.98 inches, Strawberry’s 2 to 3.98, Flaming Gorge’s 0.86 to 7.98. Across all 293 kokanee events tracked here, 282 fall between 2 and 4 inches. That is a fry-to-fingerling release, the same distinction covered in what actually got stocked. A kokanee fishery is built over seasons of growth after each plant, which is why the reservoirs carrying kokanee have long repeated stocking histories rather than one-off plants.
Timing clusters hard in spring: 226 of those 293 plants land in April or May, and 278 fall between March and June. The exceptions are real but few, including February plants at Flaming Gorge and Strawberry.
What to check before you go
- The kokanee salmon species page covers identification, depth and trolling tactics once fish reach catchable size.
- That lake’s own stocking history table shows how recently and how often it has actually been restocked, which tells you more than any single date does.
- Utah sets species-specific rules and seasonal closures on some kokanee waters. Those are in the DWR’s own Utah fishing guidebook, and they are not something this site restates.
If you are chasing kokanee specifically, start with Flaming Gorge, Strawberry or Fish Lake, and check the current stocking history for whichever one you pick before committing to the drive.