Scofield: Kokanee Tour of Utah 2025

In 2025, my goal is to fish every body of water in the state of Utah that either has kokanee salmon, or has had them in the past. Kokanee salmon aren’t native to the state, and state officials have experimented with putting them in several locations. Scofield Reservoir is one of their of a failed experiments.

Scofield Saturday January 11, 2025

It was cold this morning when I left my house. It has been a fairly warm and mild winter so far, something that’s delayed the start of ice fishing season in Utah. Aside from the lakes in the Uintas, Scofield is usually one of the first lakes to freeze over in the state. 

There was a dusting of snow in the valley, but 2-3 inches in the mountains. The roads moved along about 10-20 mph below the posted speed limit through the mountains, but snow plows had been out and roads were decent the whole way. 

This year, my goal is to fish all the lakes in Utah that have or have had Kokanee salmon in them. Scofield falls on the later list. I was doing some research for this trip on the history of Kokanee at Scofield. 

The first thing that came up when I searched was Google’s AI info box, and the first thing it said was: Yes, kokanee salmon can be found in Schofield Reservoir, Utah.

First of all, AI can’t spell Scofield right, and no there are not Kokanee salmon in the reservoir. Not any more. 

History of Kokanee in Scofield Reservoir

There were once kokanee in Scofield. In 1948, state biologists planted 208,000 kokanee fry (2-3” small kokanee). Into the 1950s, the Utah department of fish and game reported that there was a limited population of kokanee still at Scofield, though by their estimation, “introductions of kokanee into Utah waters have not been too successful.” (Game, Fur, Animal, and Fish Introductions Into Utah, released in 1950). 

The kokanee at at Scofield were eventually killed off by the fish and game by a rotenone treatment to kill other invasive fish. These treatments are meant to kill all the fish in a body of water. Due to how poorly kokanee did at the reservoir, they were not reintroduced, unlike Strawberry which also had undergone rotenone treatments in the past, though kokanee have always been re-introduced there. 

My Day Out On the Ice at Scofield Reservoir: 

I was the 3rd vehicle in the turnoff parking area this morning. I set up near the dam, just across the bay from the state park boat ramp. 

It’s certainly not a secret spot, which is why I’ve included the pin above. Parking is free at these turnoffs. By noon there were several tents and snow mobiles going by regularly. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was tent city. Reports say that strawberry capped this past week. I suspect that the weather, and the fact that reports have said Scofield has been cooling off, paired with Strawberry now being fishable, it made Scofield not as busy as it has been the past few weeks. 

Indeed, as I watched the people around me, I didn’t see or hear a ton of people catching fish. 

The wind was strong when I got there. It made setting up the tent an adventure, as I was solo. Tip of the day- if the wind is bad, put an anchor/stake for your tent in the ice before you get your tent up, so that way you have something to tie it down to.

Scofield Fishing Report

Fishing was ok until about 8:00, but my challenges getting the tent up meant i missed a lot of prime fishing. I marked lots of fish on the old striker fish finder. As the day wore on, I was marking less and less fish. 

I went looking for the fish. I tried deeper and shallower but was still marking more fish at my original spot, so I went back. 

I was marking fish in the bottom 3 feet of the water column and 6-8 feet down. In the morning they were more in the 6-8 feet level. As the day wore on, I was marking them more at the bottom of the water column, between 12 and 18 feet deep. 

I had the best luck with a white jig tipped with a piece of shrimp, though I also got hits on chartreuse jig, also tipped with shrimp. 

I don’t want to overstate my success. I had 3 bites on white and 1 bite on chartreuse.

3 bites before 8:00, and one around 10:30. Things seemed pretty dead after that for me. I kept marking fish, but they stopped biting. I didn’t land any of the fish. 

Next Stop on my Kokanee Tour of Utah

The next stop in my kokanee tour of Utah 2025 is going to be either Strawberry or Electric Lake. Strawberry has always been good to me through the ice, but Electric Lake seems to be the most likely place to be able to catch kokanee through the ice in Utah. Flaming Gorge is another place people catch kokanee through the ice, but most people don’t think the Utah portion won’t cap this year, so they’re not on my ice fishing list. I’ll look forward to hitting that one with my boat in the summer time.