Lake Owyhee is a desert-canyon reservoir on the Owyhee River in Malheur County, Oregon, about 30 miles southwest of Nyssa. Owyhee Dam, a concrete thick-arch structure built from 1928 to 1932, impounds the river for the Owyhee Project. At the time it was finished it was among the world's highest dams. The reservoir covers 12,742 acres at a normal water-surface elevation of 2,670 feet and stores 1,120,000 acre-feet, of which 715,000 acre-feet are active conservation. Reclamation owns the dam. The Owyhee Irrigation District and the South Board of Control operate the project works.

The lake runs about 53 miles up a narrow canyon of volcanic rock. Reclamation describes about 150 miles of shoreline. The normal operating depth at the dam is 325 feet, so the lower lake is a deep, confined channel rather than a broad floodplain reservoir. Much of the geology is visible only from the water. Boat ramps and docks move with the irrigation drawdown, which commonly leaves the pool well below 2,670 feet by autumn.

Lake Owyhee State Park leases the shore from Reclamation and has campgrounds and ramps at McCormack and Indian Creek, plus the year-round Gordon Gulch day-use area. Oregon State Parks describes a warmwater fishery of largemouth bass, white and black crappie, and catfish, with rainbow trout stocked in some years. Malheur County and the Bureau of Land Management also provide ramps. The park is remote: the nearest services are in Nyssa, and cell coverage at the canyon is poor.

The pool is held for irrigation. Normal water surface and the top of the active conservation pool are both 2,670 feet; the dam crest is 2,675 feet and the morning-glory spillway crest is 2,658 feet, controlled by a ring gate. Up to about 100,000 acre-feet of space is used to reduce flooding on the Owyhee and Snake rivers. Through the irrigation season the lake is drawn well below full pool, and late-season ramp and dock access depends on that elevation.

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