Magic Reservoir sits in open sagebrush country where the Big Wood River and Camas Creek meet, straddling the Blaine and Camas county line north of Shoshone. Magic Dam, an earthen embankment 128 feet high and about 3,100 feet long, was finished in 1910 to store spring snowmelt for farms around Shoshone and Richfield. It still does that job, irrigating roughly 89,000 acres and turning a small hydroelectric plant below the dam. When full the reservoir covers around 3,700 acres and holds about 195,000 acre-feet, with arms reaching six miles up the Big Wood and two and a half miles up Camas Creek.

Almost all of the shoreline is Bureau of Land Management land, and the BLM runs a string of semi-developed sites around the water: Lava Creek, Lava Cove, West Magic, Myrtle Point, Magic Dam, Moonstone Landing and Richfield Diversion. Expect vault toilets, rough gravel and not much else. There is no drinking water and no trash pickup at most of these spots, so pack in what you need and pack it back out.

The easiest free place to reach the water is Moonstone Landing on the northwest side, just off US-20 about 13 miles west of the Highway 75 junction. It has a concrete boat ramp, a dock, a toilet and a few free first-come campsites. Both the BLM and Idaho Fish and Game list it as a public site. Because Moonstone sits up the shallow Camas Creek arm, the ramp can end on mud in dry late summers, when the water pulls back toward the dam.

Other access points spread around the shore. Hot Springs Landing, at the mouth of Rock Creek, has a ramp. Sheep Bridge and Stanton Crossing on the upper Big Wood arm are mostly bank-fishing spots, and Stanton Crossing allows primitive camping. On the south end, the West Magic area is reached from Highway 75 near mile marker 92 by about ten miles of West Magic Road, with the Lava Point ramp, a small private resort community and a public state airstrip nearby. Myrtle Point, a mile or two south, is a tiny free BLM site with one covered picnic site and an old toilet. From the east, East Magic Reservoir Road leaves Highway 75 between mile markers 98 and 99 and runs a little under five miles to another ramp.

Idaho Fish and Game lists Magic as a Recommended Fishing Water and a Family Fishing Water. Rainbow trout are the main draw and are stocked in big numbers, including triploid fingerlings in the fall and catchable fish in spring. Brown trout, smallmouth bass and yellow perch round out the catch, and perch have been stocked in recent years. From Magic Dam upstream to a posted boundary east of Hot Springs Landing, bass have no bag, size or possession limits. There are no motor restrictions, so you will share the water with trolling boats and the occasional water skier on summer weekends. Kayaks and canoes do best early in the day before the afternoon wind comes up across the flats.

Winter is busy too. When the ice firms up, Magic is one of the better known ice fishing lakes in south central Idaho, with anglers working perch and trout through the ice. Check ice conditions yourself and stay off thin ice near inlets and the dam.

This is an irrigation reservoir first, and the water level can swing hard. Idaho Fish and Game warns that some access points may be high and dry, depending on irrigation demand. In the drought year of 2026, deliveries ended in early July, more than two months early, with the reservoir down to about 7.6 percent of capacity, and Fish and Game opened a fish salvage order on the Big Wood River below the dam. A wet winter can fill it again, and in big runoff years water pours over the concrete spillway west of the dam.

Warm, shallow water also brings algae. In August 2019 health officials posted a toxic blue-green algae advisory and told visitors to keep people and pets out of the water. Swimming is not really the draw here anyway, since much of the shoreline is weedy or muddy. Look for posted advisories before you let a dog swim or wade in.

There is also a small informal hot spring seep near Hot Springs Landing. The source is on private land, and the pool usually stays underwater until the reservoir drops in late fall, so treat it as a maybe rather than a destination.

Bellevue is the closest town by road, about 18 miles and a little over 20 minutes from Moonstone. Fairfield is about the same distance to the west on US-20, and Hailey is a few miles past Bellevue. Fill up on gas, water and ice before you leave pavement.