OTTER CREEK
An 1897 dam, and a reservoir at a tenth of its pool
The oldest dam in this series, privately owned, carrying a condition rating from 1993. And a surface area in general circulation that is about a quarter larger than the federal one.
This is the oldest dam in this series by four decades, and it is privately owned .
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Completed | 1897, earth, 43 feet high and 1,220 feet long |
| Owner type | Private |
| Regulator | Utah Division of Water Rights, federally regulated No |
| Storage | 71,790 acre feet maximum, 52,660 normal |
| Hazard potential | High |
| Last inspected | 13 July 2023, on a one year cycle |
| Condition assessment | Satisfactory, dated 1 January 1993 |
A dam finished in 1897 is a nineteenth century structure. Its years modified field is empty , which on the evidence of this series means only that no modification has been recorded, not that none has happened.
The drainage above it is 364 square miles , which is by some distance the largest catchment in this series and is what a reservoir on the East Fork Sevier system looks like. The inventory leaves the surface area field empty, which matters more here than usual and is dealt with two sections down.
Storage is published monthly, and the direction is one way .
| Month | Acre feet |
|---|---|
| June 2024 | 46,892, the highest in the recent record |
| April 2025 | 43,466 |
| September 2025 | 9,766 |
| April 2026 | 24,864 |
| July 2026 | 5,483 |
Read the 2026 rows in order, because they are the sharper story. The reservoir refilled to 24,864 by April and then lost three quarters of that in three months, reaching 5,483 in July. That is an irrigation reservoir doing its job in a dry year, and it is the single most important fact on this page for anyone planning to put a boat, or a diver, on this water.
The storage figure is monthly and flagged derived rather than observed . The station advertises a daily series and a semimonthly one and returns an empty array for both. A control station elsewhere in Utah returns the same on the identical query, so that is the network and not this reservoir. Its record begins 1 October 1914.
3,120 acres is the figure you will find almost everywhere for this reservoir . No agency source located in this build supports it.
| Source | Surface area |
|---|---|
| The federal water body dataset, as published | 2,519 acres |
| The same polygon, added up by hand for this page | 2,527 acres |
| The dam inventory | Field empty |
| Non agency writing | 3,120 acres |
Where the polygon can be trusted here. It carries a stamped elevation, which several polygons in this series do not, so it is a real pool footprint rather than an unverifiable snapshot . This page does not claim to know where 3,120 came from, only that four searches did not find an agency publishing it.
No maximum depth, no mean depth and no shoreline length is published by anyone. Five and a half miles long and a little over three miles across at the widest, from the federal polygon .
The advisory is for the river, and this reservoir is one end of it
Utah names both this reservoir and the one sixteen miles north to define a river reach that carries a mercury advisory. Neither reservoir carries it.
Otter Creek Reservoir has no fish consumption advisory. But its name is on the advisory page, and where it appears is the interesting part .
The heading, verbatim:
"East Fork Sevier River (between Otter Creek and Piute Reservoirs; Piute County)"
| Species | Mercury | Pregnant women and children | Women of childbearing age | Everyone else |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brown trout | 0.619 | 0 four ounce meals a month | 1 eight ounce meal a month | 5 eight ounce meals a month |
That is a real distinction and it is easy to lose. A page that wrote "Otter Creek Reservoir has a mercury advisory" would be wrong, and so would a page that wrote "there is no mercury advisory near Otter Creek". The water immediately downstream of this dam carries one, and the reservoir does not.
This reservoir is also not on the health department's twelve water list from its 2022 analysis .
The river reach is measured, too. The live gauge on this page, East Fork Sevier River near Kingston, sits on that same reach . So the flow card at the top of this page is measuring the water the advisory is about.
The shape in the header is traced from the Fathom print artwork and checked against the federal water body polygon .
| Measure | Traced | Federal | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Width against length | 0.5936 | 0.5872 | 1.10% |
| Share of its bounding box | 0.222 | 0.228 | 2.6% |
| Area, matched on length | 2,484 acres | 2,527 acres | 1.71% under |
The self check is clean. Adding up the federal polygon by hand gives 10.2282 square kilometres against the 10.1958 the dataset publishes, agreement to about three tenths of one per cent.
One trap worth recording for anyone else using this data. The federal water body dataset stamps an elevation on some records, and the unit is not consistent. This reservoir carries 1,942.2, which is metres and works out to about 6,372 feet, against the storage station's 6,350 . The lake this series covered immediately before carries 8,083 in the same field, which is feet . Reading either one with the other's unit puts the water thousands of feet wrong.
This section is shorter than it should be, and the reasons are all fetch failures rather than absences in the record.
| What was checked | Result |
|---|---|
| The watershed plan that would carry the phosphorus load figures | Repeatedly failed to fetch. The document exists and this build could not open it |
| The statewide harmful algal blooms index | A 2018 archive |
| The local health authority that issues bloom advisories here | Reached, but no per water advisory page for this reservoir was retrieved |
Check with the Central Utah Public Health Department before getting in . That is the body that issues these advisories for this county, not the state environmental department.
What the research did find, and what this page will not print in agency voice. A research pass reported that Utah's assessment record lists this reservoir with a phosphorus load plan approved and with pH and temperature not supporting their standards, under a class 3A designation. This build could not open the underlying document to quote it, so the finding is described here and is not stated as a quotation. It is a lead, not a citation.
Where everything is
Seven places, and only two of the gauges have anything to do with this reservoir.
Otter Creek is a Utah state park , which makes it one of the few waters in this series that is.
That does not change any earlier answer, because the waters checked were absent from the roster at any count. It is recorded because a page that quotes a number should say when the number moved.
No fee figure is printed on this page. The park's own fees address returns the fee table for Green River Golf Course, which is about a hundred and ten miles east in a different county, at a status code of 200 rather than an error. The words Otter Creek do not appear on it.
The same address pattern serves the same wrong golf course for other Utah state parks, checked and confirmed on a second park while this page was being built . So it is the site and not this park, and no fee figure from that address belongs on any page. No horsepower or wake restriction was found in any agency source either.
Six stream gauges have daily records in this county and only two have anything to do with this reservoir .
| Gauge | Daily discharge record |
|---|---|
| Otter Creek above the reservoir, site 10187500 | 1 May 1961 to 29 September 1980. Forty six years ago. |
| East Fork Sevier River near Kingston, site 10189000 | 27 March 1913 to today, over forty one thousand values, still reporting |
So the flow card on this page is not an inflow and not a release. It is the river below, on the reach the mercury advisory names , and the card says so in every state. Nothing has measured what enters this reservoir since 1980, and nothing found in this build measures what leaves it at all.
The state took the limits off this water in July 2026
Sixteen trout and six wipers a day until 1 October, because the reservoir is going. Under that, four agency trend net surveys, a named author, a method and a date: the best evidenced species list in this series.
Rainbow trout
The wildlife division writes, in its 2022 survey of this reservoir, that "Otter Creek Reservoir is considered Utah's best RBT sport fishery" . That is a superlative in an agency document about this specific water, which is not something this series has been able to print before.
Utah's best RBT fisheryWiper
From the same survey: "Wipers ranged in size up to 710 mm (28.0 in) and 7,120 g (15.7 lb), larger than the Utah state angling record at the time of the survey" . A fish in a research net that beat the state record. Wipers were introduced here in 2011.
Over the state recordBear Lake cutthroat trout
Named in the 2022 survey . Drawn as a cutthroat and named as the division names it. No other subspecies is drawn, because no other is named for this water.
2022 surveyBrown trout
Named in the 2022 survey . It is also the species Utah's mercury advisory names on the river reach immediately downstream , at 0.619.
2022 surveySmallmouth bass
Named in the 2022 survey . The division recommends analysing its scales and dorsal spines alongside the wipers, which is a statement that it is managing this fish rather than tolerating it.
2022 surveyUtah chub
Named in the 2022 survey , and the reason the other five are managed the way they are. The division writes that "Competition between stocked trout and Utah chubs has historically been a chronic problem".
The reason for the wipersThere is an emergency fishing rule in force on this reservoir right now, and it was issued because of the drawdown the rest of this page describes .
The wildlife division, verbatim:
"Otter Creek Reservoir, Piute County: Due to ongoing drought conditions and anticipated water loss, the daily fish limit will be increased to 16 trout (any species) and six wipers. The reservoir will also be open to spearfishing for all sportfish. The changes will be in effect from July 2 until Oct. 1."
Director Riley Peck, in the same release: "we want anglers to be able to harvest additional fish at these seven waterbodies, so they can be used and not wasted" . That is a state agency saying the fish in this reservoir are not expected to survive the summer.
This page is being published inside that window. The order runs to 1 October 2026 and this section will be wrong the day after. Check the current rule before you fish here. Two other waters this series has covered, Minersville Reservoir in Beaver County and Pineview Reservoir, are named in the same order with different limits .
This is the best evidenced species list in this series. Utah's wildlife division has published four trend net surveys for this reservoir, for 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 . The six species drawn above are the ones those surveys name.
The 2022 survey, author Michael J. Hadley: seven experimental gill nets, four floating and three diving, set on 6 April 2022 and fished overnight .
Nothing outside those surveys is drawn. No tiger trout, no splake, no largemouth bass. The surveys name six species and this page draws six.
2023, 2024 and 2025 do not exist at the same addresses, which were tried in the same pattern. So the newest agency survey of this water is four years old, and the reservoir has since fallen to about a tenth of its normal pool . What that has done to these six fish is not published anywhere this build could find.
Two of the six fish above are on this page because of each other.
The division, on the problem :
"Competition between stocked trout and Utah chubs has historically been a chronic problem."
And on the response :
"Based on these results, the addition of wipers to the Otter Creek Reservoir fishery commenced in 2011."
A wiper is a white bass by striped bass hybrid, and the division writes it that way . Drawing one is not evidence that either parent is in this water, and neither parent is drawn.
The fish that beat the record. 710 millimetres is twenty eight inches, and 7,120 grams is fifteen point seven pounds . That fish was in a research gill net, not on a line, so it is not a record and the division does not claim it as one. It is a measurement of what this reservoir was growing in 2022.
Two questions a fishing page is expected to answer, and this build could not answer either to the standard the rest of this page is held to.
The previous page in this series set out why: this document has returned a fabricated entry with a correct county, and a strict existence question confirmed the fabrication rather than catching it. Check the current guidebook yourself.
Blue Ribbon. This is a well known fishery and the wildlife division calls it the state's best rainbow trout water in its own survey . It is still not confirmed. The division's Blue Ribbon page publishes no list and no count , and its most recent funding release states 41 waterbodies including two mountain areas and does not name this one . A separate release found in this build gives 42.
No per water designation release for this reservoir was found, and nothing here came from the division's fishing application, which builds its content in the browser and serves a document containing no waterbody data for any water. A search engine's stored title of that application is not a source, and this series learned that by publishing one and having to withdraw it.
What to watch for
Two recorded recoveries in this county, one of them not in open water. A reservoir at a tenth of its normal pool. And a name that returns four other states first.
This is one of the few waters in this series with a documented incident history, and the two events are very different from each other.
August 2016. A seventeen year old was pulled into a culvert below the dam, not in the open reservoir. A civil suit followed, naming several land and water managers over the absence of a grate or a fence at that structure.
Both are news reporting and both are chipped as such. No sheriff or state posting for either was retrieved, so nothing here is in agency voice, and neither person is named on this page.
The 2016 event is worth separating carefully. A culvert below a dam is not the reservoir, and a hazard at a water conveyance structure is not a hazard of open water swimming. It is on this page because it happened at this dam, and because the difference between the two is exactly the kind of thing a page like this exists to keep straight.
The single most important condition at this water is on the live strip at the top of this page, and it is the storage figure .
5,483 acre feet in July 2026, against a normal storage of 52,660 . About ten per cent.
Another reservoir in this series demonstrated the consequence. In 2021 the responders at a drawn down Utah reservoir could not launch their boats, because the water was too low and the dock was closed, and carried out a recovery with kayaks and by swimming. That is what a ninety per cent drawdown means operationally.
And it moved fast. The reservoir refilled to 24,864 acre feet in April 2026 and was at 5,483 by July . Three quarters of it, in three months. Any figure on this page describing the size or depth of this water is a figure about a full pool.
Beyond the two incidents above, no further drowning, boating fatality, vehicle in the water, ice incident or submerged debris recovery at this reservoir was found in searchable press.
And there is a second reservoir sixteen miles north in the same county. Piute Reservoir sits on the Sevier River, is also a state park, and is named alongside this one in the state's own mercury advisory heading . The two are routinely confused and this page keeps them separate.
Two gaps in this build, stated rather than hidden. Piute County sheriff records and Utah public safety records were not queried directly. And no source states which agency has primary water rescue responsibility here, which the 2015 recovery suggests is a live question: the divers came from another county.
Utah calls this its best rainbow trout fishery. In July 2026 it held about a tenth of its normal pool.
Fathom Restoration is a Utah 501(c)(3) that runs volunteer dive cleanups and is built to pull what does not belong out of Utah water, statewide.
Donate to Protect Otter CreekEvery figure on this page is quoted from the source named beside it.
Sources
How these were checked
Numbered sources are agencies, and on this page there are more of them than usual: four separate wildlife division net surveys of this one reservoir. The single lettered source is not a publisher at all. It is the figure of 3,120 acres, which appears throughout non agency writing about this water and which four searches could not trace to any agency. Where sources disagree, all of them are printed. Two method notes. First, this page states no fishing rule and no Blue Ribbon status, because the guidebook could not be transcribed completely and the division publishes no list. Second, this page corrects an earlier claim of its own series: the Utah state parks roster now returns forty seven parks and previous pages checked against forty six. No earlier answer changes, because the waters checked were absent at either count.National Inventory of Dams, federal identifier UT00235, Otter Creek. County Piute, river Otter Creek, owner type Private, state regulated Yes by the Utah Division of Water Rights, federally regulated No. Completed 1897, earth, 43 feet high, 1,220 feet long, maximum storage 71,790 acre feet, normal storage 52,660, drainage area 364 square miles, surface area field empty, hazard potential High, inspected annually. Condition assessment Satisfactory dated 1 January 1993, last inspected 13 July 2023, years modified empty, record last updated 28 March 2024
Otter Creek Reservoir trend net survey, 2022. Author Michael J. Hadley. Seven experimental gill nets set 6 April 2022 and fished overnight. Names rainbow trout, Bear Lake cutthroat trout, brown trout, smallmouth bass, hybrid wipers and Utah chubs, states that "Otter Creek Reservoir is considered Utah's best RBT sport fishery", records wipers up to 710 millimetres and 7,120 grams, and dates the wiper introduction to 2011
Otter Creek Reservoir trend net survey, 2021
Otter Creek Reservoir trend net survey, 2020
Otter Creek Reservoir trend net survey, 2019
Utah fish consumption advisories. There is no block for Otter Creek Reservoir. The name appears once, inside the heading "East Fork Sevier River (between Otter Creek and Piute Reservoirs; Piute County)", whose single row is brown trout at 0.619
Otter Creek reservoir storage, station 10188000:UT:BOR, county Piute, elevation 6,350 feet, record beginning 1 October 1914. The monthly series is flagged derived rather than observed, and the daily and semimonthly series it advertises both return an empty array
Otter Creek above the reservoir near Antimony, site 10187500, at elevation 6,380 feet. Daily discharge from 1 May 1961 to 29 September 1980, 4,627 values, and nothing since
East Fork Sevier River near Kingston, site 10189000, at elevation 6,159.54 feet. Daily discharge since 27 March 1913, over forty one thousand values, and still reporting
National Hydrography Dataset. Otter Creek Reservoir, permanent identifier 120027939, published at 10.1958 square kilometres with a stamped elevation of 1,942.2 and reach code 16030002001090
National Hydrography Dataset, Moon Lake. Published with a stamped elevation of 8,083, which is feet, while this reservoir's record carries 1,942.2, which is metres. The same field carries different units on different records
Blue Ribbon fisheries programme allocates over 446 thousand dollars, 15 July 2026. States that there are currently 41 waterbodies including two mountain areas, names four project waters, and does not name this reservoir
Blue Ribbon fisheries. The programme and its criteria, with no list and no count on the page
2026 Utah Fishing Guidebook. The document this build could not read reliably. Six checks agree on the wording of an entry for Otter Creek the stream, and two of them disagree with a third about which page it is on. No transcription of the reservoir entries was complete
Game and fish advisories. Twelve Utah waters from a 2022 mercury analysis, and this reservoir is not among them
Harmful algal blooms. The statewide index, whose monitoring table is a 2018 archive
Central Utah Public Health Department, the local authority that issues harmful algal bloom advisories for this county. Its Junction office serves Piute County
Point forecast over the reservoir. Forecast office Salt Lake City
Emergency change to daily fishing limits at seven waterbodies, 2 July 2026 at 9:53 in the morning. For this reservoir: "Otter Creek Reservoir, Piute County: Due to ongoing drought conditions and anticipated water loss, the daily fish limit will be increased to 16 trout (any species) and six wipers. The reservoir will also be open to spearfishing for all sportfish. The changes will be in effect from July 2 until Oct. 1." Director Riley Peck is quoted on the reason
Otter Creek State Park fees address. Returns the fee table for Green River Golf Course at a status code of 200 rather than an error. The words Otter Creek do not appear on the page
Palisade State Park fees address. Returns the same Green River Golf Course fee table at a status code of 200, which is how this build established that the fault is the address pattern rather than one park. The correct address for either park is park-fees
The figure of 3,120 acres for this reservoir, which appears throughout non agency writing and which no agency source located in this build supports. The federal water body polygon computes to about 2,527 acres and the dam inventory leaves its surface area field empty
Why the flow card is not measuring this reservoir
Nothing has measured Otter Creek itself since 1980, and nothing found in this build measures what leaves this dam at all.
Site 10187500, Otter Creek above the reservoir near Antimony. Daily discharge from 1 May 1961 to 29 September 1980, 4,627 values . That is the gauge this card would use if it still existed.
Site 10189000, East Fork Sevier River near Kingston. Daily discharge since 27 March 1913, over forty one thousand values, still reporting . This is the card. It sits downstream of the reservoir, on the river.
And that river reach is the one Utah's mercury advisory names, as "East Fork Sevier River (between Otter Creek and Piute Reservoirs; Piute County)", brown trout at 0.619 . So the flow card happens to be measuring exactly the water the advisory is about, which is a coincidence of gauge placement and not a design.
The storage card reads the monthly series and has no choice . Station 10188000 advertises daily, semimonthly and monthly reservoir contents and returns an empty array for daily and for semimonthly. A control station elsewhere in Utah does the same on the identical query, so that is the network and not this reservoir. The monthly series is flagged derived rather than observed, and its record begins 1 October 1914.
The percentage is worked against normal storage, not maximum. The dam inventory gives 52,660 acre feet normal and 71,790 maximum . Against the maximum the same reading would be lower, and the card states both.