Where to get on the lower Weber, Morgan to Riverdale.

The short version

The Weber below Morgan is a good brown trout river with very little public bank. The DWR's own page for this stretch says it is mostly private land, so the access is a set of specific spots, and the rest is someone's field. Go to the spots below, carry the free Walk-in Access number where it's required, and check the flow at Gateway before you drive.

The spots

Peterson, off I-84 exit 96. A small parking area a quarter mile west of the exit, on a Walk-in Access parcel. Small means small: when it's full, it's full, and the field around it is not parking.

Morgan. Park at Riverside Park at 195 East 125 North, or at the fairgrounds, and follow the Riverwalk Trail along the river. The Walk-in Access map shows several parcels along the river around Morgan, each with its own boundary, and the map is the thing to look at before you cross a fence line.

Riverdale. The fisherman's access trail starts near 1050 West and River Park Drive, off the Weber River Parkway. It's the closest public river bank to most of Ogden.

Between those, the river runs past Stoddard Diversion Dam about four miles below Morgan, where water is taken off for the Gateway Canal, and on down Weber Canyon beside I-84. The canyon is a scenic drive, not an access point.

The rules on this water

• From the Great Salt Lake up to Echo Dam, cutthroat trout must be released. The trout limit is four. Anyone 12 or older needs a license.
• Walk-in Access parcels take a free authorization number, which you add to your license in the DWR's online cart at no charge. Foot travel only on the parcels.
• The Blue Ribbon stretch the DWR names is Rockport to Echo, upstream of all of this. Down here the fish are the same browns, often 16 to 18 inches by the DWR's description, with fewer people and less bank.

What the flow is doing

The lower Weber is a regulated river. Echo Dam sets the base, the irrigation season keeps it up through summer, and the DWR's reports say flows stay high until the irrigation calls end in October and then drop hard for winter. This September Echo's release fell from 269 cubic feet per second in the middle of the month to 50 by the last week, which is the turn from summer water to fall water.

Two USGS gauges tell you what you'll find: Weber River at Gateway, at the mouth of the canyon, and Weber River near Plain City, below Ogden. The place hub for the Weber shows both readings, live, with the time they were taken.