Red Creek Reservoir, eight miles east and a long way up

About sixty acres, which makes it a small mountain reservoir rather than a recreation lake. It sits roughly eight miles up Red Creek Canyon, east of Paragonah on the Markagunt Plateau, and it holds cutthroat and tiger trout, with splake and tiger muskellunge added to control shiners. There is no boat ramp and no crowd, and quiet fishing from the shore or a float tube is the character of the place.

You drive east out of Paragonah on Center Street and follow the gravel Red Creek Canyon road up the mountain, roughly eight miles and a long climb to the water. It is a maintained Forest Service road, and a careful driver in an ordinary vehicle manages the dry gravel, though the surface narrows and roughens past the reservoir. That is the short, sensible way in, and going back down the way you came is what most people do.

Not really. The canyon road is not maintained in winter, and at this elevation that is a long closure rather than a short one, since snow arrives on the plateau early and stays late. The working season is roughly late spring to autumn, with unreliable shoulders at both ends. A road that is a comfortable gravel drive in August is not a road at all in February.

Cutthroat and tiger trout are the mainstays, with splake and tiger muskellunge also in the water. The Division of Wildlife Resources stocks it. Because a stocked fishery changes with the stocking program and with what the winter did to it, check the current stocking reports and the state fishing guidebook rather than an old report.

Yes, a current Utah fishing license, and you should read the current guidebook for the rules and limits that apply to this water. Small reservoirs sometimes carry rules that differ from the general statewide ones, and the tributary streams have their own closed season. The Division of Wildlife Resources publishes both the guidebook and the stocking reports.

In dry conditions the gravel is generally good and a careful driver in an ordinary vehicle manages the climb up the canyon, but the road narrows and roughens past the reservoir, and wet weather can turn it to mud. There is no fuel, water or service anywhere up there, and phone coverage on the plateau is not something to rely on, so fill up in Parowan, about five miles south, and take water with you.

Only a small one without a gas motor. There is no boat ramp and gas motors are not allowed, so people fish from the shore or from a float tube or a small hand launched craft. That restriction is part of why the water stays quiet, and it is worth knowing before you load a trailer for the drive up the canyon.

At about 9,560 feet on the Markagunt Plateau. It comes down the mountain, is impounded as this reservoir on the way, and then runs through the middle of Paragonah and out to the fields north and south of it. The water you fish at sixty acres is the same water that gave the town its first name, several thousand feet lower down.

There is dispersed camping only. There is no developed campground, no hookups and no store, so come self contained. This is high plateau country with the water, the road and a long view back down toward the Parowan Valley, and not much else. If you want facilities or company it is the wrong drive; if you want a small lake with nobody on it, it is exactly right.