27,700 acres of Obey River behind a 200-foot concrete gravity dam at Celina, Tennessee, 620 miles of shoreline, 61 miles long, three generating units, and the lake that gave up the world-record smallmouth bass in 1955 — from the Kentucky portion, KDFWR says. A 16-to-21-inch protected slot on smallmouth, a 15-inch minimum on largemouth, five black bass with only two of them smallmouth, ten-inch crappie with a creel of fifteen, and a reciprocal agreement with Tennessee that was dead for three years and came back in October 2025 covering one arm. This page is about the Kentucky arms.
The lake in one paragraph
Dale Hollow Dam and Lake was, in the Corps’ words, “authorized by the Flood Control Act of 1938 and the River and Harbor Act of 1946.” The contract was awarded on 30 December 1941, construction began on 2 March 1942, and the wartime government “rushed Dale Hollow Dam to completion on Oct. 20, 1943”; “The Corps fully impounded Dale Hollow Lake May 7, 1944.” The dam is a “200-foot high concrete gravity-type dam having a total length of 1,717 feet” at mile 7.3 on the Obey River, with an ogee spillway crest at elevation 651, six tainter gates each 12 by 60 feet, and three generating units placed in service in December 1948, January 1949 and November 1953 — “18,000 kilowatts for a total of 54,000 kilowatts.” The lake behind it is “27,700 surface acres of water” with “620 miles of shoreline”, 61 miles long, in “Clay, Fentress, Overton and Pickett Counties in Tennessee, and Clinton and Cumberland Counties in Kentucky.” The Corps’ Nashville District runs it from 540 Dale Hollow Dam Road, Celina, Tennessee; the Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery, “the largest federal trout hatchery east of the Mississippi”, sits a short distance below the dam. KDFWR files the Kentucky water under Clinton and Cumberland counties in the Southeastern Fisheries District: 6,614 acres. What makes this lake different from every other Corps lake on this site is that the office, the dam, every Corps campground and the tailwater are in another state, and the only Kentucky facilities are four commercial marinas and a state resort park on 98 leased Corps acres.
The pool year, and where to read it
The Corps publishes two figures on pages we could read, both in its own releases. Summer: “The typical target is elevation 651 feet by mid-May” (Nashville District, 6 June 2023), and the historical median for early June is 650. Flood: “The flood control pool extends from elevation 651 to 663” (Nashville District, 21 February 2019). The 1991 Master Plan puts the spillway crest at 651 — the same number. What the Corps does not publish on any page we could open is the winter pool. The Nashville District’s dam page and its water-management project page were unreadable, the newer water.usace.army.mil site is a JavaScript application, and the master-plan update returned no text. So the table below has a gap in it, on purpose.
| Elevation (USACE) | What it is | When |
|---|---|---|
| 663 ft | Top of the flood-control pool — “from elevation 651 to 663” | — |
| 651 ft | Summer target; spillway crest | “by mid-May” |
| Status pending | Winter pool — not stated on any Corps page we could read | — |
Those are targets. The Corps warns that “A large amount of water may be discharged without warning at any time” and that “Water release schedules often change without notice due to unanticipated changes in weather conditions and power system requirements.” No Corps page we read names a datum — not NGVD29, not NAVD88, not “mean sea level” — so the elevations above are printed as the Corps prints them, with no datum label. Status pending.
dlht1) and mirrored on TVA’s Dale
Hollow page; both are JavaScript applications with no static number, so we link them and never print a
level. TVA also runs a telephone line — 800-238-2264, reservoir code 35 for Dale Hollow —
which is the one source on this page you can use with no signal bar. All three are under “Check it
yourself”. The one live USGS series nearby is 03416000, Wolf River near Byrdstown, an inflow gauge
above the arm with a record from 1929: it tells you whether the Wolf is running high and dirty, not what the
lake is doing.What the drawdown does here
Without a Corps winter-pool figure we will not tell you how many feet come out or when. What the KDFWR records do say is which launches are built for it. Four of the five Kentucky launches are paved and multi-lane with a courtesy dock — Hendricks Creek, Sulphur Creek, David L. Hayes and Wisdom. The fifth, Wolf River Marina, is paved single-lane with no courtesy dock. And one of the five, Sulphur Creek, carries a season on its record: ramp, shoreline, restrooms and camping all “Seasonal”, with the note “closed 1 November - 30 March”. None of the five carries a winter-pool warning of the kind five of Cave Run’s do.
Three roads in
KDFWR’s waterbody record lists five access sites in Kentucky, with a direction string for each, and every string starts from one of two towns: “KY 61 S of Burkesville” for the two on the western shore, “US 127 N of Albany” for the state park, and “KY 553 (Wisdom Dock Road) southwest of Albany” and “KY 738 W of Albany” for the two eastern marinas. The corridors below are built from those strings, not from a map divided into quarters. A corridor is one day’s worth of road — the highway in, then every ramp, marina and campground that highway serves without recrossing the lake. The Tennessee approaches — the dam and Corps office at Celina, the four Corps campgrounds, the Obey arm from Livingston, the Wolf River’s Tennessee shore from Byrdstown — are a different state’s water and are noted at the end, not carded.
| Corridor | Road in | Launches | Marina · camping |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · KY 61 | KY 61 south of Burkesville; KY 2064 east to Hendricks Creek; KY 485 south to Sulphur Creek | 2 (1 no-fee) | Hendricks Creek, Sulphur Creek · Sulphur Creek (commercial, seasonal) |
| 2 · State park | KY 90 from Burkesville or Albany; KY 449; KY 1206 “to park” | 1 (no-fee) | Dale Hollow State Park Marina · the state park campground, two miles from the ramp |
| 3 · Albany | KY 553 (Wisdom Dock Road) southwest of Albany; KY 738 west of Albany | 2 (1 no-fee) | Wisdom, Wolf River · Wolf River Marina (commercial, seasonal) |
That is five KDFWR access records, every one of them a trailered ramp — KDFWR lists no carry-down-only or bank-only site on the Kentucky portion. Two carry a fee, both private marinas: Sulphur Creek and Wisdom. The other three are “Fee: No” on the record: Hendricks Creek Marina, the David L. Hayes ramp and Wolf River Marina. Four are multi-lane; Wolf River Marina is the single lane. Every one accepts “any trailerable recreational boat”. Directions are KDFWR’s, verbatim. The Corps names eight free day-use ramps of its own — Moody’s Access, Compton Bottom, Gum Grove, Gunnels Camp, Keisling Bottom, Plank Yard, Wolf River Bridge and Jones Chapel — and places none of them in Kentucky on any page we read; none is on KDFWR’s list, so none is in the tables.
Corridor 1 — KY 61 south of Burkesville: Hendricks Creek on KY 2064, Sulphur Creek on KY 485
The arrival from Glasgow and Columbia on KY 90 and KY 61, and the western Kentucky shore. Both launches turn off KY 61 south of Burkesville onto a side road that dead-ends at its own creek arm. Hendricks Creek is the free one, paved multi-lane with a dock and 26–50 paved spaces, ramp and shoreline year-round, marina year-round on limited hours, no camping. Sulphur Creek is the fee one, paved multi-lane with a dock, a seasonal campground, year-round lodging and a cleaning station — and it closes: the record’s note, verbatim, is “closed 1 November - 30 March”. From November to March this corridor is Hendricks Creek.
| Launch | Getting there (KDFWR) | What is there |
|---|---|---|
| Hendricks Creek Marina | KY 61 S of Burkesville; KY 2064 E to lake | Any trailerable, paved multi-lane, no fee, paved parking 26–50, courtesy dock, restrooms year-round limited hours, no camping, marina year-round limited hours, no picnic area, no retail, accessible parking and ramp. Ramp and shoreline year-round, 24 hours. |
| Sulphur Creek Marina | KY 61 S of Burkesville; KY 485 S to lake | Any trailerable, paved multi-lane, fee, paved parking, courtesy dock, seasonal restrooms, camping seasonal, marina seasonal limited hours, retail year-round limited hours, cleaning station seasonal, lodging year-round, accessible parking, ramp and (seasonal) restrooms. Ramp and shoreline seasonal. “closed 1 November - 30 March” |
Corridor 2 — The state park: KY 90, KY 449 and KY 1206 to the David L. Hayes Boat Ramp
KDFWR routes it from the east — “US 127 N of Albany; left on KY 90 W; left on KY 449; left on Hwy 1206 to park” — and a Burkesville visitor takes the same KY 449 and KY 1206 turns off KY 90 eastbound. This is the one public launch on the Kentucky portion that is not a marina: free, paved, multi-lane, courtesy dock, “51 Plus” paved parking, restrooms and ramp “Year Round - 24 Hours”, a picnic area, retail, lodging year-round and a seasonal campground, inside Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park on 98 acres the Corps leases to the Kentucky Department of Parks. The ramp is named for David L. Hayes; KDFWR’s species page puts it in one sentence: “The world angling record is 11 lbs., 15 oz., which was taken from the Kentucky portion of Dale Hollow Lake in 1955.”
| Launch | Getting there (KDFWR) | What is there |
|---|---|---|
| David L. Hayes Boat Ramp | US 127 N of Albany; left on KY 90 W; left on KY 449; left on Hwy 1206 to park | Any trailerable, paved multi-lane, no fee, paved parking 51+, courtesy dock, restrooms year-round 24 hours, camping seasonal, marina seasonal limited hours, picnic area year-round limited hours, retail year-round limited hours, lodging year-round, accessible restrooms, parking and ramp, no cleaning station. Ramp and shoreline year-round, 24 hours. |
Corridor 3 — Albany: KY 553 to Wisdom Dock, KY 738 to Wolf River Marina
The arrival from Somerset and Monticello on US 127 and KY 90, and the eastern Kentucky arms. Two spurs leave Albany and each ends at a marina. Wisdom Marina, “KY 553 (Wisdom Dock Road) southwest of Albany to lake”, is a fee ramp: paved multi-lane, dock, 51+ paved spaces, marina year-round on limited hours, a year-round cleaning station, seasonal lodging, no camping. Wolf River Marina, “KY 738 W of Albany to lake”, is free and is the odd one out on the lake: paved single lane, no courtesy dock, 51+ paved spaces, restrooms year-round, seasonal camping, a year-round cleaning station. It is also the launch on the Wolf River arm, which is the reason this corridor has its own callout.
| Launch | Getting there (KDFWR) | What is there |
|---|---|---|
| Wisdom Marina | KY 553 (Wisdom Dock Road) southwest of Albany to lake | Any trailerable, paved multi-lane, fee, paved parking 51+, courtesy dock, seasonal restrooms, no camping, marina year-round limited hours, retail year-round limited hours, cleaning station year-round, lodging seasonal, accessible parking, ramp and restrooms. Ramp and shoreline year-round, 24 hours. |
| Wolf River Marina | KY 738 W of Albany to lake | Any trailerable, paved single lane, no fee, paved parking 51+, no courtesy dock, restrooms year-round 24 hours, camping seasonal, marina seasonal limited hours, retail year-round limited hours, cleaning station year-round, accessible parking only. Ramp and shoreline year-round, 24 hours. |
What the regulations tell you about the lake
| Species | KDFWR special regulation, verbatim (waterbody record wid=99) |
|---|---|
| Smallmouth bass | “16-21 inch protective slot limit. All fish between 16 and 21 inches must be released, except 1 fish under 16 inches and one fish over 21 inches may be kept, Limit 5 per angler all black bass species combined, only 2 of which can be smallmouth bass.” |
| Largemouth bass | “Must be 15 inches or over, Limit 5 per angler all black bass species combined, only 2 of which can be smallmouth bass.” |
| Spotted bass | “Limit 5 per angler all black bass species combined, only 2 of which can be smallmouth bass” |
| Black crappie | “Must be 10 inches or over - Limit 15 Crappie, Black or White, per angler” |
| White crappie | “Must be 10 inches or over - Limit 15 Crappie, Black or White, per angler” |
| Muskellunge | “Limit 1 per angler, Statewide size limits apply” |
| Rainbow trout | “Limit 7 fish per day, Rainbow Trout and Brown Trout combined” |
| Brown trout | “Limit 7 fish per day, Rainbow Trout and Brown Trout combined” |
| Sauger | “Limit 10 per angler” |
The printed Kentucky Fishing and Boating Guide, March 2026 – February 2027, carries the same water and adds one line the online record does not: “Walleye: 16-inch minimum size limit, 5-fish daily limit.” It restates the rest in its own words — “Black Bass: includes largemouth, smallmouth and Kentucky (spotted) bass – 5 fish daily limit on black bass singly or combined, only two of which may be smallmouth bass”; “Smallmouth Bass: 16- to 21-inch protective slot limit. One fish over 21 inches and one fish under 16 inches may be kept daily” — and carries no muskellunge line. The regulation settles both. 301 KAR 1:201 Section 3(21)(b), verbatim: “Walleye and walleye hybrids, daily limit, five (5); size limit, sixteen (16) inches.” So the walleye rule is law, not just a printed-guide line. Section 3(21) has no muskellunge subsection, so the record’s muskellunge row is the statewide rule restated: “Muskellunge daily limit, one (1); size limit, thirty (30) inches” (Section 2(1)(d)). On trout, Section 3(21)(d) reads “Rainbow trout and brown trout, no size limit; daily limit, seven (7), singly or in combination” — so the statewide 16-inch brown trout minimum does not apply on this lake.
Read the table as a description of the lake. A 16-to-21-inch protected slot with one fish allowed on either side of it is what a state writes on the water that holds the world record — it protects the fish that are about to become the fish people drive here for, and lets a trophy go home. Two smallmouth inside a five-fish black-bass creel says the same thing a second way. A 15-inch largemouth minimum, ten-inch crappie with fifteen, seven trout combined and ten sauger are a harvest lake with a cold-water floor: the 1991 Master Plan calls it “a two-story lake with two distinct temperature layers”, and the hatchery below the dam stocks the tailwater, not the Kentucky arms — KDFWR’s September 2026 stocking schedule has no Dale Hollow entry, so we print no stocking claim for Kentucky water.
Who manages what
The Corps’ Nashville District operates the dam, the pool, the shoreline and the Tennessee recreation areas. The Kentucky Department of Parks operates Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park on 98 Corps-leased acres (1991 Master Plan). The four Kentucky marinas — Hendricks Creek and Sulphur Creek in Cumberland County, Wisdom and Wolf River in Clinton County — are the four Kentucky names on the Master Plan’s list of fourteen commercial marinas and on the Corps Lakes Gateway. Trooper Island, on the Gateway list, is the Kentucky State Police group camp and is not public access. No KDFWR wildlife management area record for Dale Hollow was found on the pages read, and no national forest or federal recreation area applies on the Kentucky shore, so the only rules that reach the ramp are the lake-wide ones: “Kentucky and Tennessee prohibit all vessel sewage discharge (treated or untreated)” — the lake is an EPA-designated No Discharge Zone — and “Dale Hollow Lake is included as a firewood quarantine area.” The Corps’ own beaches, day-use fee (“$5 per vehicle”) and “Diver Down” flag rule are Tennessee-side facts.
Beyond the Kentucky arms — the Tennessee side, noted, not covered
Everything the Corps builds is south of the line. The office and the Dale Hollow Dam campground are at Celina; Lillydale, Obey River, Willow Grove and Pleasant Grove are Corps campgrounds on the Tennessee shore (Recreation.gov 232564, 232623, 232654, 232747); the primitive-camping programme is dispersed sites by reservation (234782); and the eight free Corps day-use ramps named above are Tennessee ramps as far as any page we read can tell. The Obey River tailwater below the dam is Tennessee trout water stocked from the national hatchery and is not a Limestone Drift water. TWRA’s one Dale Hollow-specific rule is a walleye-run regulation on the East Fork of the Obey. Road numbers for the Tennessee approaches are not given by any Corps page and are not printed. Different agency, different limits, different licence: status pending for everything south of the line.
What KDFWR’s 2026 forecast says
The Fishing Forecast is a dated document, so these are quoted as the agency’s 2026 statements, not as this week’s report. The entry is “DALE HOLLOW LAKE 6,614 acres in Kentucky (Clinton and Cumberland counties) Southeastern Fisheries District”.
- Smallmouth bass: “Stable population with good numbers of fish across all sizes, with fish over 3 pounds available. Jigs and soft plastics are good options during the year, as well as the float-n-fly technique in the winter months. Target main lake points and rock walls for your best chance, but creek channels can also be productive during late fall and early winter.”
- Largemouth bass: “The population remains strong with fish over 15 inches making up a good portion of the population. Target Largemouth in cuts and coves in creeks and around sunken structure in the spring and fall and grassy areas during the summer.”
- Spotted bass: “Low density population with most fish under 13 inches.”
- Walleye: “Walleye numbers remain good, with many fish over 20 inches. Target main lake points and bluff walls earlier in the year, and troll nightcrawler rigs and crankbaits over flats in 20- to 25-feet of water in the summer months and into the fall.”
The forecast names main-lake points, rock walls, bluff walls, creek channels and flats rather than creeks by name, so read it against the corridors: the creek channels and cuts it sends bass into in fall are the five Kentucky arms in the tables above; the main-lake points and bluff walls are mostly Tennessee water and a licence question. No KDFWR page we read gives a stocking figure for any species on this lake, so we do not print one.
Where the state has put cover
KDFWR’s Lakes With Fish Attractors index does not list Dale Hollow Lake, and the waterbody record carries no map, GPX or KML link. KDFWR says the list “is a partial one”. There is nothing to link, so unlike Cave Run or Lake Barkley there is no file here.
What we have not verified
- Winter pool. Not stated on any Corps page we could read. The site prints no figure — not 631, not anything — until a Nashville District source gives one. Status pending.
- Current pool and release. Live. USGS 03416500 serves no data. Read the Corps’ water-management site, TVA’s Dale Hollow page or TVA’s lake line (800-238-2264, code 35), not any number printed on a website, including this one.
- Elevation datum. No Corps page we read names one. Status pending.
- Acreage. Corps 27,700; KDFWR 25,519 total and 6,614 in Kentucky. We print both with the note.
- Dam height. The 1991 Master Plan says 200 feet; a Nashville District community-history page says 185. We print 200 with the Master Plan cited.
- Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park address, phone, lodge name and day-use rules — parks.ky.gov unreadable. Status pending. Reservation-system facts printed with that citation.
- Whether Wisdom Dock is inside the Illwill Creek embayment. KDFWR’s reciprocal-area map PDF rendered only a legend. Status pending.
- The 2025 reciprocal agreement document. Incorporated by reference in 301 KAR 3:160; not readable. The KDFWR page and release are the working text.
- Corps day-use ramps and primitive sites in Kentucky. None placed in Kentucky by any Corps page; “Hendrick’s Creek”, “State Line Point” and the like have no published coordinates. Not mapped.
- Master plan revision. The Corps invited comment in 2019; the release and the update document were unreadable. The 1991 draft is the only readable plan. Status pending.
- Storage, maximum depth, Kentucky shoreline miles. No primary figure. Status pending.
- Marina hours, slips, fuel, fees. Live and operator-stated; linked, not printed (the state-park marina’s 213 slips is the operator’s figure, dated).
- Muskellunge stocking or presence. KDFWR lists a creel rule; no stocking statement was read. The rule only.
- Algal bloom status. Kentucky publishes advisories only through the Division of Water’s interactive HAB viewer. Check it directly in summer.
- The Tennessee side. Named from Corps sources; not researched. Status pending for everything south of the line.
Upcoming tournaments on this water
Filed or published by the organisers; each row is the organiser’s own wording, read on the date shown, and a closed or youth event still tells you when the ramp will be busy. Confirm the date, the ramp and the entry with the organiser before you go. The full calendar is at Tournaments.
- 7 Nov 2026MCHS Regional Qualifier #4Montgomery County High School Bass Fishing TeamDavid L. Hayes Boat Ramp · 7:00 AM to 3:00 PMBlack bass · Open Tournament; high schoolEntry fee: not stated (read 28 Oct 2026)Organiser’s details as published, read 28 Oct 2026 · Organiser’s KDFWR filing
Sources and how confident we are
Check it yourself
- USACE — Dale Hollow Dam, water management (the Corps’ live pool and release; a JavaScript application)
- TVA — Dale Hollow lake levels (observed and predicted; JavaScript) and TVA lake levels by phone — 800-238-2264, reservoir code 35
- USACE Nashville District — Dale Hollow Lake (27,700 acres, 620 miles, campgrounds, office, No Discharge Zone, firewood)
- USACE Nashville District, 6 June 2023 (“elevation 651 feet by mid-May”) and 21 February 2019 (“from elevation 651 to 663”)
- USACE — Dale Hollow Lake Master Plan, February 1991 (dam, spillway, counties, marinas, the state-park lease)
- USGS 03416500 — Dale Hollow Lake near Celina (no data served as of 14 September 2026) and USGS 03416000 — Wolf River near Byrdstown (inflow)
- KDFWR — Dale Hollow Lake waterbody record (regulations and the five access sites)
- KDFWR — Kentucky Fishing and Boating Guide, 2026–27 (the walleye line)
- KDFWR — reciprocal hunting and fishing agreements and 301 KAR 3:160
- KDFWR — Smallmouth Bass (the world-record sentence)
- Kentucky State Parks — Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park campground (site counts, season, alerts)
- Recreation.gov — Dale Hollow Lake (the Tennessee campgrounds and primitive sites)
- Kentucky Division of Water — HAB viewer
Sources: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District — the Dale Hollow Lake page, the Dale Hollow Lake Master Plan (February 1991 draft, USACE Digital Library), the Great Lakes and Ohio River Division project and recreation pages, the Corps Lakes Gateway, and the District’s DVIDS releases of 22 October 2018, 21 February 2019, 6 June 2023 and 21 April 2026, for the dam, dates, acreage, shoreline, counties, generation, the 651 and 663 elevations, the office and the lake-wide rules; Recreation.gov for the Tennessee campgrounds and primitive sites. Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources — waterbody record 99, the five access-site records, the 2026 Fishing Forecast, the 2026–27 Kentucky Fishing and Boating Guide, the Smallmouth Bass page, the Reciprocal Hunting and Fishing Agreements page, the 17 October 2025 release, the fish attractor index and the monthly trout stocking page. Kentucky Legislature — 301 KAR 3:160 and the expired 301 KAR 1:220. Kentucky State Parks — the ReserveAmerica campground record; Loggerhead Marinas for the state-park marina. Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency — the 28 October 2025 release, the Dale Hollow Reservoir page and the regulation-exceptions page, for context only. Tennessee Valley Authority — the lake-levels-by-phone page. USGS NWIS for sites 03416500, 03417000 and 03416000. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — the Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery page. Verify current conditions before travelling.