LIMESTONE
DRIFT
KENTUCKY WATER, TOLD STRAIGHT
FIELD CARD
Pool & Access · No. 25-3
Corps lake · Nashville District · Smyrna and LaVergne · Poole Knobs and Jefferson Springs · Tennessee
J. Percy Priest Lake
The upper lake from the Smyrna and LaVergne side: Poole Knobs, the lake's largest Corps campground at 87 sites, off Jones Mill Road out of LaVergne, and Jefferson Springs, the farthest-up ramp we could confirm, off West Jefferson Pike from I-24.
JONES MILL ROAD · W JEFFERSON PIKE · THE UPPER LAKE
Corps areas at Recreation.gov coordinates · roads schematic · shoreline schematic
Three numbers to get right
| What you hear | What the primary sources actually say |
|---|---|
| "The upper lake goes dry in winter." | Nobody has published that. The Corps' winter target is 483 ft against a 490 summer elevation, a seven-foot drop. No Corps page states a ramp's closure elevation or which areas lose water. |
| "Camp as long as you like." | Fourteen days. "Camping limit is 14 days in any 30-consecutive-day period on J. Percy Priest Lake", all campgrounds combined (Recreation.gov). |
| "Statewide limits apply." | Not for crappie or bass. TWRA's Percy Priest entry sets its own size and creel: table on the back (2026-27 guide, Region 2, 11 Sep 2026). |
Where the reservoir rules stop
TWRA, Region 2: "Reservoir full pool elevation is the boundary between reservoir and tributary streams or rivers for harvest restrictions." The exceptions page names no East Fork or West Fork Stones River entry, so we read the statewide rules as applying above full pool — our reading, not a sentence TWRA prints. Live level: Corps record jpht1, Elev-Pool, NGVD29.
Spring 2026 was low. On 21 Apr 2026 the Corps reported the lake at 485.6 ft, falling "About 0.2 feet" a week, against a 20 April median of 489.7, the "Lowest April elevation observed since 2019". Many Nashville District lakes are lowered in autumn for flood storage and refilled on spring rain (Corps); in a dry spring the lake "may not reach its typical summer elevation of 490 feet" (Corps, 2016).