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Home › Waters › Utah › Bear Lake
Lake · Bear Lake Valley · Utah

Bear Lake Fishing Guides

The Caribbean of the Rockies on the Utah and Idaho line, a turquoise limestone lake holding four fish species found nowhere else, including the cisco anglers net through the ice.

Conifers crowding a rocky point on a clear northern lake

Map of the Bear Lake

17 numbered points: 8 access points, 4 campsites, 2 outfitters, 1 agency office, 1 regulation section limit, 1 USGS gauge. Tap a marker for details. Reviewed Sep 24, 2026.

Printable version →
  • Access / boat ramp (8)
  • Campsite (4)
  • Outfitter / canoe rental (2)
  • Agency / conservation office (1)
  • Regulation section limit (1)
  • USGS gauge (1)
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Points are curated from OpenStreetMap and state agency sources; confirm access and hours before you go.

Print it. Bag it. Bring it.Phones die, screens crack, and most of this water has no signal. Print this map, fold it into a zip-top bag or dry bag with your license, and you have a backup your electronics can’t give you. Every marker is numbered so you can say exactly where you are.

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All 17 points on this map
#PointTypeLat, LonNotes
1North Beach (Bear Lake State Park, Idaho)
Idaho State Parks · two boat ramps · day use only		Access / boat ramp42.11960, -111.29815Idaho's north-end unit: over a mile of sand, two ramps, life-jacket loaner station, picnic tables and restrooms. Day use 7am-10pm; a parking day pass is sold separately. Ramp position is the mapped slipway.
2North Beach Rentals
Boat and PWC rental · 535 Eastshore Rd, St Charles ID		Outfitter / canoe rental42.10908, -111.26574Bear Lake Fun's Idaho-shore rental base, on site at the north-east corner. Boats, Sea-Doos and non-motorised craft; no bait or tackle advertised. Trading per the operator's own 2026 locations page.
3Mountain Fawn Campground (Bear Lake State Park, Idaho)
Idaho State Parks · 5687 Eastshore Rd, St Charles		Campsite42.03165, -111.25827Lakeshore camping on the Idaho east shore: restrooms, picnic tables, fire rings, dump station and group sites; reservation only. The park's own pages still call this stretch East Beach in places.
4Mountain Fawn Day Use Area ramp (Idaho)
Idaho State Parks · small boat ramp · day use 7am-10pm		Access / boat ramp42.02733, -111.25925The day-use half of the Mountain Fawn (East Beach) unit: beach access, a small boat ramp, life-jacket loaner station, restrooms and three reservable group shelters. Shares its entrance with the campground.
5Sage Springs Beach (Bear Lake State Park, Idaho)
Idaho State Parks · 6419 Eastshore Rd · no ramp		Access / boat ramp42.01852, -111.25968Day-use beach with two large parking areas, north and south, and restrooms at both. Shore access only - Idaho State Parks names no ramp here. Primitive campsites sit just south at 7031 Eastshore Rd.
6North Eden Campground (Bear Lake State Park, Utah)
Utah State Parks · 9705 N Cisco Rd, Laketown · approx. May-Oct		Campsite41.99948, -111.26171The northernmost Utah eastside unit, about 13 miles up Cisco Road from SR-30. Utah State Parks says the rebuilt campground will be renamed Border Campground; check the park page before relying on the site count.
7Rainbow Cove launch ramp (Bear Lake State Park, Utah)
Utah State Parks · 7739 N Cisco Rd · ramp open year round		Access / boat ramp41.96852, -111.27226Eastside launch ramp with primitive campsites above it. Under a phased rebuild: new access road, expanded trailer parking and a new day-use beach; the ramp itself stays open year round. Ramp position is the mapped slipway.
8Cisco Beach (Bear Lake State Park, Utah)
Utah State Parks · 7175 N Cisco Rd · low-water ramp		Access / boat ramp41.95420, -111.27720Rocky beach-front camping with a low-water ramp at the south end of the campground; vault toilets, no hook-ups, first-come in summer. The January Bonneville cisco dip-netting happens off this shore. Coordinate is the park's own.
9South Eden Campground (Bear Lake State Park, Utah)
Utah State Parks · 5829 N Cisco Rd · approx. May-Oct		Campsite41.93167, -111.28323Twenty individual sites with power and water plus two group sites, about 8 miles north of the SR-30 junction on Cisco Road. The park's pages name no launch ramp here.
10First Point (Bear Lake State Park, Utah)
Utah State Parks · 2815 N Cisco Rd · four-lane ramp		Access / boat ramp41.87530, -111.29550Day-use launching area at the south end of the eastside road, about 4 miles up Cisco Road: four-lane ramp and a small picnic area south of it, no overnight facilities. Open year round. Coordinate is the park's own.
11Rendezvous Beach campgrounds (Bear Lake State Park, Utah)
Utah State Parks · 1220 N Bear Lake Blvd, Laketown		Campsite41.84320, -111.34900Four campgrounds behind the south beach - Birch and Big Creek full hook-up, Cottonwood tent-only, Willow group-only - plus the day-use beach. Usually open late April to late October. Coordinate is the park's own for the whole unit.
12Rendezvous Beach Rentals
Bear Lake Fun concession · inside Rendezvous Beach		Outfitter / canoe rental41.84796, -111.35224On-site boat, Sea-Doo and non-motorised rental plus fast food and camping cabins, inside the state park at the south end. No street number is published - the operator gives the location as 2 miles west of Laketown.
13Rendezvous Beach launch ramp (Bear Lake State Park, Utah)
Utah State Parks · 2 miles NW of Laketown on SR-30		Access / boat ramp41.84812, -111.35223The south-shore ramp, beside the concession. Utah's 2009 statewide boat-ramp inventory records a Rendezvous Beach ramp 0.8 km east of this mapped slipway; the park's current pages describe the beach but name no ramp, so check status.
14Bear Lake State Park office (Utah)
Utah State Parks · 940 N Bear Lake Blvd, Garden City		Agency / conservation office41.96370, -111.39930Park headquarters for all three Utah areas - Marina, Rendezvous Beach and the Eastside - at the marina. Phone 435-946-3343. Coordinate is the park's own.
15USGS 10055000 - Bear Lake at State Park Marina
USGS lake-level gauge · near Garden City, UT		USGS gauge41.96592, -111.39818The lake-elevation record the water page reads. Site type LK; identity and position confirmed against the USGS site service, and the coordinate is the roster's own rather than a hand-typed one.
16Bear Lake State Park Marina (Utah)
Utah State Parks · 940 N Bear Lake Blvd, Garden City · seven-lane ramp		Access / boat ramp41.96519, -111.39846The lake's main launch: seven lanes, open year round, gates 6am-11pm, with 361 leased slips and 21 nightly rental slips. Concession rentals, fuel and food on site. The marina is under a phased expansion. Ramp position is the mapped slipway.
17Swan Creek mouth — Utah tributary-mouth area
Utah DWR special-regulation area · Bear Lake tributaries, Rich County		Regulation section limit41.98469, -111.40761Utah's Bear Lake tributaries entry bounds an area of the lake itself here: 'that area extending from the mouth out into the lake 1,000 feet, or as buoyed'. Seasonal; this site does not restate regulations - read the Utah guidebook.

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About the Bear Lake

Bear Lake straddles the Utah and Idaho border, a large natural lake sitting at over five thousand nine hundred feet in a high valley. Suspended limestone particles give it a striking turquoise colour that has earned it the nickname the Caribbean of the Rockies, and it looks nothing like any other water in the region.

The lake is biologically unusual. It was isolated long enough to develop several endemic fish found nowhere else on earth, the best known being the Bonneville cisco, a small silvery fish that spawns in enormous numbers along the rocky eastern shore in January. Anglers wade in with dip nets to take them during a short, tightly regulated season, and it is one of the strangest and most enjoyable fishing events in the West.

For rod and line anglers the main quarry is lake trout, which grow large here, and Bear Lake cutthroat trout, an adapted strain that feeds on the cisco. Both are fished by trolling and jigging, with the cold months the most productive.

The lake is shared between two states with separate regulations and a reciprocal arrangement in places, so it is worth confirming what applies where you intend to fish.

The cutthroat here deserve a note of their own. The Bear Lake strain evolved to hunt cisco in open water rather than to hold in a river, and they behave accordingly, cruising and chasing rather than sitting on structure. Anglers who fish them like stream trout tend to struggle.

The gauge below reports lake elevation. Bear Lake is used for irrigation storage as well as being a natural lake, and its level moves substantially between wet and dry cycles, which changes beach access and how far the marinas reach.

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Pool right now

5,918.47ft NAVD88
  • 24 hours+0.04 ft → steady
  • For the dateLow for the date

Reading taken 56 min ago at USGS 10055000, BEAR LAKE AT STATE PARK MARINA NR GARDEN CITY, UT. Elevation is the surface of the lake above the survey datum, not depth. Source.

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Posting to Bear Lake.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Lake level alert

Tell me when the pool at Bear Lake ft (NAVD88)

Now: 5,918.47 ft pool elevation, read 6:15 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 10055000, BEAR LAKE AT STATE PARK MARINA NR GARDEN CITY, UT).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Bear Lake State Park Marina at Garden City: the main Utah access.
Rendezvous Beach on the south shore: camping and launching.
Cisco Beach on the east shore: the rocky shoreline and the January cisco run.
Idaho state park access at North Beach and East Beach.
Garden City and Laketown have services and rentals.
The lake is shared between two states with separate regulations.
Note: high elevation and open water. Weather changes quickly here.

Seasons

Winter: the cisco run in January and the best lake trout fishing of the year.
Spring: cutthroat and lake trout accessible as the water warms.
Summer: deep lake trout, warm weather and heavy recreational traffic.
Fall: cooling water, feeding trout and the lake quiet again.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Bear Lake?

Anglers target Bonneville Cisco, Bonneville Whitefish, Cutthroat Trout, Lake Trout on the Bear Lake in Utah.

Where can you access the Bear Lake?

Bear Lake State Park Marina at Garden City: the main Utah access. Rendezvous Beach on the south shore: camping and launching. Cisco Beach on the east shore: the rocky shoreline and the January cisco run. Idaho state park access at North Beach and East Beach. Garden City and Laketown have services and rentals. The lake is shared between two states with separate regulations. Note: high elevation and open water. Weather changes quickly here.

When is the best time to fish the Bear Lake?

Winter: the cisco run in January and the best lake trout fishing of the year. Spring: cutthroat and lake trout accessible as the water warms. Summer: deep lake trout, warm weather and heavy recreational traffic. Fall: cooling water, feeding trout and the lake quiet again.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Bear Lake?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Utah agency site: https://wildlife.utah.gov/guidebooks.html