GUNLOCK

Somebody put smallmouth bass in Gunlock. Nobody at the Division of Wildlife Resources did, and the division said so on the record four years before it acted. At a Southern council meeting on 20 September 2011, its aquatic program coordinator was asked directly whether the division had stocked them 20:

In September 2015 the division's regional aquatic manager told the same council what would happen next. The minutes went into the October 2015 Wildlife Board packet 18:

Rotenone does not target a species. It is a respiratory toxin and it kills the fish in the water, all of them. Removing the smallmouth meant removing the bass, the crappie and everything else with them, and starting the reservoir again from empty.

The exact date the treatment was applied could not be sourced. What is on the record is the plan for the first of October 2015 18, and the confirmation a year later that it had happened 19. No quantity of rotenone, no cost figure, and no state permit notice for the application could be found.

By the following September the division reported back to the same council 19:

The restocking is the part worth knowing, because most of it did not come from a hatchery. The division's own stocking database holds exactly one Gunlock record, ever: black crappie, 3 May 2017, 201 fish, averaging 9.38 inches 22.

The rest were adult fish caught in another reservoir and driven over. The largemouth came out of Sand Hollow, twenty five miles south, with a target of three hundred fish, and crappie came from Willard Bay E.

By January 2018 the division's southern region report put it plainly 21:

The division has never published a verdict. The closest thing to one is that single sentence from September 2016, "it's now been restocked, and doing well" 19.

Two things sit either side of that.

In favour: Gunlock was put back on the Blue Ribbon Fisheries list. The division's own release says the reservoir "had previously been named to the prestigious list, but was removed after undergoing a rotenone treatment to remove illegally introduced smallmouth bass," and that it was selected again on a Thursday 21 November, becoming the 39th water in Utah to hold the status 24. It still held it in 2024 26.

Against: the 2026 guidebook still carries the kill on sight rule for smallmouth bass at Gunlock 23. Eleven years after the reservoir was poisoned to remove them, anglers are still required to kill every one they catch.

The release announcing the Blue Ribbon designation carries no year. It is dated here to 2019 from internal evidence: it cites 2019 as the most recent funding year, its article number precedes the November 2020 release that put the statewide count at 44, and 21 November fell on a Thursday in 2019 24. Utah currently has 41 Blue Ribbon waters 25, and Quail Creek and Sand Hollow are two of them 26.

Gunlock Dam was finished in 1970 and dedicated that November 1 3. It is 117 feet tall and 1,400 feet long, and both records agree on that much.

The two records also place the dam about 200 metres apart, which is why both coordinates are pinned on the map rather than averaged. Neither record states the structural type in plain language; both give category codes instead, so this page does not say what the dam is made of.

The town two and a half miles north of the reservoir gave the water its name. The park's management plan puts it this way 3: the town "was named after its first settler, 'Gunlock Bill' a.k.a. 'Gunshot Will' Hamblin."

The rock is Jurassic. Utah State Parks names the two formations 17: Navajo Sandstone, about 190 million years old, laid down as the dunes of an enormous sand sea, and the Carmel Formation above it, about 170 to 165 million years old, from a shallow sea, carrying crinoids, gastropods, bivalves and what the park calls oyster balls. The waterfalls, when they run, fall over the red and white Navajo Sandstone.

When Gunlock fills, water goes over the spillway and down the rock below it, and for a few weeks the park has waterfalls. Utah State Parks states the mechanism plainly 14: the falls flow when the reservoir reaches capacity, and the water then runs down the Santa Clara River toward the Virgin.

They are rare. The park describes them as happening "only a handful of times within the last decade" 14. Sourced flowing years: 2020, 2023 and 2024.

When they run, the park manages crowds rather than the water 14: admissions stop at capacity, parking is restricted to designated areas on the west side of Gunlock Road only, the day use fee applies, and traffic enforcement and ranger patrols increase. Spring runoff also piles tree limbs, rocks and dirt near the top of the dam and the spillway, and crews close areas to clear it.

There is no permit or reservation system for the falls. As of 14 July 2026 they are not active 13.

If you have read anything about camping at Gunlock written before mid 2022, it is wrong now. Utah State Parks opened a new campground on 28 June 2022 and its own release records both sides of the change 11: thirty standard sites for tents, RVs and trailers, each with 20, 30 and 50 amp power, a pedestal and water, a dump station, and a restroom building with private showers and flush toilets. Before that, the park "previously offered access to only five primitive campsites with vault toilets and no potable water."

The park's facilities page now lists 30 campsites with power, water and dump station access, plus 3 cottages for nightly rental 10.

All from the park fee page 12, which carries no effective date. The park is open 07:00 to 22:00 daily. Boat ramp hours are 07:00 to 20:00 May to September and 07:00 to 19:00 October to April 9.

Gunlock is the third of three Washington County reservoirs carrying an identical rule requiring anglers to kill every smallmouth bass they catch 23. The other two are Quail Creek and Sand Hollow, and all three are Blue Ribbon fisheries 26.

They are not the same system. Quail Creek and Sand Hollow are filled by pipeline off a diversion on the Virgin River. Gunlock sits directly on the Santa Clara River, a Virgin tributary that joins it near St George. What links all three is what is downstream of them.

And the connection is more literal than a shared rule. The largemouth bass that refilled Gunlock after the poisoning were caught in Sand Hollow and driven here E.