Kentucky Utilities owns it, no pool schedule is published, and all ten ramps charge a fee

A dam on the Dix River that KU says was completed in 1925 backs up a lake KDFWR puts at about 2,500 acres across Mercer, Boyle and Garrard counties, in its Central Fisheries District. We found no state park, wildlife management area, or Corps or Forest Service land on it, and KDFWR lists no free public ramp. KDFWR’s 2026 forecast says, of the largemouth bass, “Good numbers of fish over 12 inches and many over 15 inches” — KDFWR’s sentence, about 2026, not a promise about this weekend.

The lake in one paragraph

Herrington Lake sits on the Dix River, and KDFWR’s 2023 bass assessment says the lake is “owned by Kentucky Utilities and impounds the Dix River”, “impounded in the late 1920’s”. KU (its pages are LG&E and KU’s) says Dix Dam was “built in the 1920s” with construction “completed in 1925”, and calls it “hailed as the world’s largest stone-filled dam”; its pages also call it “Kentucky’s first hydroelectric dam, the world’s largest rock-filled dam and the highest dam east of the Rocky Mountains” — KU’s claims, attributed, not checked. The generating station has three units and, “with all three units running, the plant produces 33 megawatts of power”. KU’s study page gives the lake “35 miles long and up to 1,200 feet wide”, “more than 2,300 acres and 325 miles of shoreline”, “an estimated 175 billion gallons of water”, “one of the deepest lakes in Kentucky”, and says it has frozen over “only twice: 1936 and 1978”. It sits in Garrard, Mercer and Boyle counties. The two agencies’ dates differ — KDFWR’s “late 1920’s” against KU’s 1925 — and we print KU’s year with its attribution.

No Corps, no free public ramp, no public land we could find

Unlike every Corps lake on this site, Herrington has no Corps pool schedule and no Corps ramps. KDFWR’s waterbody record (wid 117) lists ten access sites, and we read all ten detail pages: every one is a fee ramp. KDFWR lists no free public ramp, no carry-down launch and no bank access on the lake. No KDFWR public-lands record, state park, wildlife management area, Corps land or Forest Service land turned up either; the shoreline is private and KU-owned. Reasoning from names and marina flags, nine of the ten are private camps or marinas, and Keys Landing’s record lists no operator or facility, so who runs it is status pending; a boater or a paddler launches from one of these ten fee ramps and pays.

Two consequences shape the rest of this page. First, no fee amount, no marina hours and no camping dates are printed, because KDFWR prints none; its access records say fee yes, give each marina a flag — mostly “Year Round - Limited Hours” — and each campground a year-round or seasonal flag, and the businesses set the rest. Second, there are no lake-specific boating rules, no-wake zones or shoreline rules on any agency page we read; whatever shoreline or dock rules exist are KU’s. Status pending.

The pool: what is published, and what is not

There is no published operating curve on any page we read. No summer pool, winter pool, or fill and drawdown dates appear for Herrington, and this page does not pretend otherwise. What exists is thinner. KU says of the hydro plant that it is “now used mainly when heavy rainfall results in above normal lake elevation” — so a “normal” elevation exists in KU’s operations, but no KU page we read states the number. In April 2025, KU said the spillway gates were operated “in a controlled manner following established dam safety protocols” and that “only four gates are currently open” (7 April 2025), and that the facility releases only inflow. Secondary reporting puts the summer pool and a winter drawdown at figures that disagree with each other, and none is KU’s own statement, so none is printed here.

Four roads in

KDFWR’s direction strings for the ten sites start from three towns and sort themselves: “KY 152 E of Harrodsburg” opens five, four that stay on KY 152 and Mid Lake, which turns onto Hwy 33 S; “US 27 N of Lancaster” with a mileage opens three; “KY 33 N of Danville” opens Gwinn Island; and “US 150 E of Danville; left on KY 34 E” opens the last. The corridors below follow those strings, not compass quarters — a compass split would put Camp Kennedy and Pandora, a bridge apart, in different regions (reasoning). A corridor is one trip’s worth of road: the highway in, then every ramp that road serves. Reasoning, labelled: the KY 34 corridor could be folded into the KY 33 one as a single “Danville roads” section, since Keys Landing is one ramp; we kept it separate because it is a different road and a different trip.

That is four multi-lane ramps — Camp Kennedy, Mid Lake, Gwinn Island and Bryants Camp — and six single-lane ones. Two of the single-lane ramps, Royalty’s Camp and Pandora, take “any light trailerable boat” only; the other eight say “any trailerable boat”. Courtesy docks: Camp Kennedy, Herrington Marina and Bryants Camp, and no other ramp. Paved parking for 26 to 50 at Royalty’s, Chimney Rock, Herrington Marina and Mid Lake; unpaved lots for 25 or fewer at Cane Run, Camp Kennedy and Keys Landing. Every ramp is flagged year-round, 24 hours. The facility flags are what KDFWR lists; they are not a check that a business is open today. Directions are KDFWR’s, verbatim.

Corridor 1 — KY 152 through Burgin: Royalty’s Camp, Cane Run, Chimney Rock and Pandora

The northern cluster, reached from Harrodsburg. KY 152 east serves Cane Run (left on Cane Run Camp Road), Chimney Rock (Chimney Rock Road) and Pandora (right on Ashleys Camp Road, where KDFWR says the ramp “is next to Kennedy Bridge”); Royalty’s Camp is through Burgin, left on KY 33, right on Curdsville Road (KY 342) and right on Normans Camp Road. All four are single lane; Royalty’s and Pandora are light-trailer only; none has a courtesy dock. By KDFWR’s coordinates these are four of the five northernmost of the ten — Camp Kennedy, in corridor 2, is the fifth — and KDFWR publishes no ramp on the lake side of the dam. Field card: No. 16-1, Herrington Lake · KY 152 · Burgin.

Corridor 2 — US 27 north of Lancaster: Camp Kennedy, Herrington Marina and Bryants Camp

The Garrard County shore, reached from Lancaster. All three KDFWR strings start “US 27 N of Lancaster” with a mileage: Bryants Camp at 5.7 miles (left on Paper Mill Road, right on Fork Church Road, KY 3373), Herrington Marina at 8.3 miles (left on KY 1355, right on Fisher Ford Road, right on Sharp Road, “located by mouth of McKecknie Creek”) and Camp Kennedy at 10.3 miles (left on KY 152 for 4.1 more). These are the three courtesy-dock ramps on the lake, and the two with year-round camping are Camp Kennedy and Bryants Camp. Reasoning, labelled: from its name and its KY 152 route, Camp Kennedy is the Garrard end of Kennedy Bridge, which corridor 1’s Pandora ramp sits beside, so it can also be reached across the bridge from Burgin; it is filed here because KDFWR routes it from US 27. Field card: No. 16-2, Herrington Lake · US 27 · Lancaster.

Corridor 3 — KY 33 north of Danville: Gwinn Island and Mid Lake Marina & Campground

Two multi-lane ramps whose KDFWR strings both name KY 33. Gwinn Island (Boyle County) is “KY 33 N of Danville; right on Gwinn Island Road”. Mid Lake Marina & Campground (Mercer County) is routed by KDFWR from Harrodsburg — KY 152, right on Hwy 33 S, left on Hughley Lane, then right on Cedar Lane — which, by the route names, is KY 33 driven the other way (reasoning; KDFWR does not say so). Neither has a courtesy dock; both list a marina and retail at limited hours. Gwinn Island lists lodging year-round; Mid Lake lists camping seasonally and is the only one of the ten to list accessible restrooms and parking — and, in the same record, no accessible ramp or pier. Field card: No. 16-3, Herrington Lake · KY 33 · Danville.

Corridor 4 — US 150 and KY 34 east of Danville: Keys Landing

One ramp on its own road: “US 150 E of Danville; left on KY 34 E; left on Taylor Creek Road” to Keys Landing (Coffey’s Cove), in Boyle County. It is a paved single-lane launch for any trailerable boat, fee, with an unpaved lot for 25 or fewer and no other facility listed. KDFWR does not say who collects the fee. It is a separate trip from the KY 33 ramps: both leave Danville, on different roads, and the directions do not join them. Field card: No. 16-4, Herrington Lake · KY 34 · Danville.

What the regulations tell you about the lake

Nothing special, and that is the finding. KDFWR’s waterbody record for Herrington Lake lists two species and one rule for each:

No other species is listed and no additional note appears. The words “Herrington Lake” appear in 301 KAR 1:201 only in §3(23), the two-mile tailwater below the dam, so the lake itself is under the statewide limits for every species. The ones that matter here, as the regulation prints them in §2(1):

What the agencies say about the fish

KDFWR’s 2026 Fishing Forecast lists these species for Herrington Lake: bluegill, common carp, crappie, flathead catfish, hybrid striped bass, largemouth bass and white bass. What it says of each, verbatim, and about 2026 — a forecast, not a report:

• Largemouth bass: “Good numbers of fish over 12 inches and many over 15 inches.” See our largemouth bass guide, which carries the other lakes’ forecasts.
• Hybrid striped bass: “Number of fish is increasing slightly and 2- to 5-pound fish are present; fish over 25 inches possible. Stocked annually.”
• White bass: “Good numbers of fish in the 12- to 16-inch range; larger fish possible.”
• Crappie: “Black Crappie stocked annually since 2021. Numbers improving; most fish 8-10 inches. Crappie 12-15 inches present.”
• Bluegill: “Stable numbers of fish up to 8 inches; fish ≥8 inches possible.”
• Flathead catfish: “All sizes present; usually feed at night on sunfish and shad.”
• Common carp: “Fish in coves or headwaters with grain-based baits on bottom.”

KDFWR’s Herrington Lake Largemouth Bass Fishing Quality Assessment 2023, quoted as a 2023 document: the agency has electrofished the lake since 1994; the length of an age-3 Largemouth Bass “has averaged 13.1 inches (average from 1994-present)”; the age-1 catch “averaged 32.5 bass/hr” and 2023 was “below average”; fish 12.0–14.9 inches “averaged 28.8 bass/hr”; fish 15.0 inches and over “averaged 20.8 bass/hr” and “steadily decreased, dropping below average in 2023”; fish 20.0 inches and over “averaged 1.4 bass/hr since 1994”; the 2023 overall rating was “good”; supplemental largemouth stocking happens in poor-reproduction years; and monitoring is planned through 2026. Hybrid striped bass are “stocked annually” and black crappie “stocked annually since 2021”; no KDFWR page we read gives a number, size or date for either, so none is printed. Herrington Lake is on none of the KDFWR trout-stocking pages we read (only the tailwater is), and it is not on KDFWR’s list of lakes with fish attractors, so there is no GPX file or map to link.

Water quality, algal blooms and what we do not say about eating the fish

Kentucky’s Department for Environmental Protection confirmed a harmful algal bloom on Herrington Lake on 19 June 2025, at “Paradise Camp on Herrington Lake and near Tanyard Branch (also known as Redgate)”, and the Division of Water lifted the advisory on 3 July 2025. That is history, dated; it is not the lake’s status. Current advisories are on the Division of Water’s HAB viewer; check it directly. KU publishes a water-quality study it calls independent (by Ramboll, completed in summer 2019) on its Herrington Lake Study page; it is KU’s study, and we link it and do not summarise its findings. We also publish no fish-consumption statement: the state’s fish-consumption advisories belong to the Department for Public Health, and no advisory text was read for this page. Look them up before you eat what you catch.

What we have not verified

• Summer pool, winter pool, fill and drawdown dates. Not published by KU on any page read. Status pending. The only number here is the gauge to read.
• Current pool elevation. Live. Read USGS 03286000, parameter 62614 — not a number printed on a website, including this one.
• Dam height and length, maximum and mean depth. Not on a KU or KDFWR page read; secondary sources print figures that we do not repeat. Status pending.
• Acreage and shoreline miles. Four agency acreages, one KU shoreline figure; see the callout above.
• The dam’s coordinate. No KU or KDFWR page publishes one; the dam is drawn at the USGS gauge and captioned as drawn.
• Launch fees. Every ramp is fee yes; KDFWR prints no amount and, for Keys Landing, no collector or operator. “Fee ramp” is what we print.
• Marina hours, camping seasons and lodging. KDFWR prints flags such as “Year Round - Limited Hours” and seasonal or year-round camping; the businesses set the hours and dates, and none are printed.
• Boating rules, no-wake zones, dock and shoreline rules. None on any agency page read. Kentucky Utilities owns the shoreline; any such rule is KU’s. Status pending.
• Hybrid striped bass and black crappie stocking numbers. KDFWR says “stocked annually” (hybrids) and “stocked annually since 2021” (crappie), and no more.
• Algal bloom status. Live; viewer linked, 2025 shown as history only.
• Thermal discharge and warm-water fishing near E.W. Brown Generating Station. No agency page read describes it, so we do not.
• Fish consumption. No advisory text read; not summarised.
• Herrington Lake Tailwater. Its own water and its own page; here only the KDFWR record and the artificial-bait rule.
• Pages that could not be read. The Harrodsburg Herald’s piece on the dam’s centenary (403 twice), the monitoring-location page for USGS 03285000 (an error once; the legacy page confirmed the site), and a secondary-source post on the winter pool (the fetch returned the site’s home page). None is used on this page.

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.

• 15 Nov 2026Renegade Fall Division 4 Herrington LakeRenegade Bass TournamentsHerrington Lake, Pandora (as printed by the organiser) · 7 AM to 3 PMSpecies not stated · Renegade fall division event; format not statedEntry fee: not stated (read 28 Oct 2026)Organiser’s details as published, read 28 Oct 2026 · Organiser’s page
• 6 Dec 2026Renegade Fall Division 4 Herrington LakeRenegade Bass TournamentsHerrington Lake, Pandora (as printed by the organiser) · 7 AM to 3 PMSpecies not stated · Renegade fall division event; format not statedEntry fee: not stated (read 28 Oct 2026)Organiser’s details as published, read 28 Oct 2026 · Organiser’s page
• 20 Dec 2026Renegade Fall Division 4 Herrington LakeRenegade Bass TournamentsHerrington Lake, Pandora (as printed by the organiser) · 7 AM to 3 PMSpecies not stated · Renegade fall division event; format not statedEntry fee: not stated (read 28 Oct 2026)Organiser’s details as published, read 28 Oct 2026 · Organiser’s page
• 17 Apr 2027Bluegrass Bass Trail #4Boyle County High School Fishing TeamPandora Ramp · 6:00 AM to 3:00 PMBlack bass · Closed Tournament; youth (7th to 12th grade SAF members)Entry fee: not stated (read 28 Oct 2026)Organiser’s details as published, read 28 Oct 2026 · Organiser’s KDFWR filing

Related on this site

Waters

• Herrington Lake tailwater

Guides

• Largemouth bass