Seven feet down from October, on a Corps lake fifteen minutes from Nashville

Fourteen thousand acres of the Stones River held behind a dam 2,716 feet long and 130 feet high, located “between miles six and seven of the Stones River”, with 19,000 acres of land around it (both acreages are Nashville’s mayor’s, quoted in a 2018 Corps release) and “nearly five million” visits in 2022 by the Corps’ own count. The Nashville District runs it for flood reduction, water supply, hydropower and recreation, to a 490-foot summer elevation and a 483-foot winter target. TWRA regulates the fishery with a crappie creel twice the statewide one and a 15-inch largemouth and 18-inch smallmouth minimum. The live level is the Corps’ record: we found no active USGS series for this lake.

The lake in one paragraph

J. Percy Priest Dam is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District, project on the Stones River, a Cumberland tributary, with the dam “between miles six and seven of the Stones River”. Congress renamed it from Stewart’s Ferry on 2 July 1958; ground was broken on 29 June 1963 and President Johnson dedicated it on 29 June 1968. The dam is 2,716 feet long and 130 feet high and carries a single 28,000-kilowatt hydropower unit. A 2018 Corps release quotes Nashville’s mayor giving the project as “19,000 acres of land and 14,000 acres of water”; the Corps gives the lake as “42 miles long” with “18,852 acres of public lands” (2023); it runs three campgrounds with 183 sites, and in 2018 said it operated six picnic areas and “15 launch ramps”. Recreation.gov puts it “15 minutes from downtown” Nashville; the Corps’ water-data record names Donelson as the nearest city. Which counties the lake lies in is status pending: a Corps page that would have said so would not load, and the addresses we read are in Nashville, Hermitage and Antioch, Smyrna and LaVergne.

The pool year, in the Corps’ words

Two Corps releases state the targets. In May 2016, with a dry spring, the District said that “without significant rainfall the lake may not reach its typical summer elevation of 490 feet above mean sea level”. In February 2025, with the lake at “490.11 feet and falling”, it said: “Expect to be close to winter target elevation of 483 feet by next weekend”. The District’s general statement (April 2026) is that “Many Nashville District lakes operate to seasonally varying elevations”: they are lowered in the fall for flood storage and refilled on spring rain. The Corps’ water-data record for the lake carries no label called “summer pool” or “winter pool”; its labelled levels are a different set of quantities and are printed below as the record gave them on 5 November 2026, so nobody mistakes 487.23 for the summer pool. The Corps’ data service carries Bottom of Flood, Top of Power, Top of Recreation and Bottom of Power as levels whose values change through the year, so those four rows are that day’s values, not fixed ones: between our readings of 2 and 5 November, Top of Power moved from 487.5 to 487.23 and Bottom of Flood from 487.84 to 487.55.

The same record gives storage of 651,500 acre-feet at Top of Flood and 1,038,000 at Top of Dam (read 5 November 2026). The drawdown schedule itself comes from the July 2026 release: the District was “soliciting feedback on proposed changes to delaying the start of the annual winter drawdown by up to 30 days from Oct. 5 to as late as Nov. 12”, as part of “the revision of the 1998 J. Percy Priest Water Control Manual”. A public meeting was held on 23 July 2026 at the Donelson Branch of the Nashville Public Library and the 30-day comment period closed on 9 August 2026. Whether the delay was adopted is status pending. No Corps release after the comment close was found when we searched on 5 November 2026, and the draft Environmental Assessment and draft manual linked from the release timed out on every attempt. The lake read 489.79 feet at 00:00 UTC on 5 November 2026 (489.16 three days earlier), with 30 cubic feet per second going out, 10,339.05 coming in and 9.59 percent of flood storage in use — a dated reading, printed as one, and not evidence of a decision either way.

What seven feet does here

Three things about the lake in autumn and winter are documented, and one is not.

First, the Corps closes Smith Springs for the winter: 1 November 2024 to 3 March 2025 in the Corps’ 2024 release and 3 November 2025 to 2 March 2026 in its 2025 release, which pointed people who wanted a nearby launch to Hamilton Creek Park and Four Corners Resort and Marina. A 2026–27 closure had not been announced when we searched the District’s releases on 5 November 2026; the pattern says to expect one, and that is our reading, not the Corps’. Second, Long Hunter State Park’s new main gate opens at 5 AM and closes at 8 PM, and “Entry will not be permitted outside of the operational hours listed above”; boat-ramp users may still launch if they arrive before 8 PM, and exit is unrestricted. Third, the spring refill can fall short: on 21 April 2026 the Corps reported the lake at 485.6 feet, dropping “About 0.2 feet” a week, against a historical 20 April median of 489.7 — the “Lowest April elevation observed since 2019”.

What is not documented is which ramps lose water at 483. No Corps page we read gives a closure elevation for any area, and TWRA’s lake page would not open. So this page prints the pool figures and the closures that are published, and nothing about which ramp goes dry.

Three roads in

The Corps Lakes Gateway lists 19 USACE-managed areas on this lake and 12 run by others. Its table of which areas have a ramp would not render for us, so this guide confirms a launch only where an agency page says so in words or a photo caption: five Corps areas on Recreation.gov, Cook Day Use Area in the Corps’ 2024 parking plan, Hamilton Creek Park on Metro Parks’ page and the Corps’ own release, and Long Hunter State Park on the state’s reservation site — eight launches. Smith Springs, a Corps day-use area whose ramp is status pending, makes nine sites, and they sort under three roads. A corridor is one trip’s worth of road: the highway in, then every site that road serves without doubling back through another.

Fees are printed only where an agency page states one. The Gateway lists six fee areas with Recreation.gov reservations: Anderson Road, Cook, Jefferson Springs, Poole Knobs, Seven Points and Smith Springs. Whether the $5 day-use fee at Anderson Road and Cook covers launching, and what a day visitor pays to launch at a campground, is status pending. Directions are quoted from the agency records where they exist; the rest is an address.

Corridor 1 — Bell Road and Anderson Road: the dam end

Bell Road crosses the dam — the Corps closed it “to all traffic due to icing” in February 2025 and closed it weekdays 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. from 1 June to 31 July 2026 for scheduled replacement of the mechanical and electrical equipment that operates the spillway gates, saying the “Right Bank Tailwater areas will remain open”. The project office and visitor center are at 3737 Bell Road. Hamilton Creek Park is Metro Nashville’s, on the same road. Anderson Road “dead-ends into the day use” past the Corps campground. Smith Springs, off Smith Springs Road in Antioch, is the area the Corps shuts for the winter.

Corridor 2 — Hermitage: Cook, Seven Points and Long Hunter State Park

The north and east shore. Cook Day Use Area is on Old Hickory Boulevard, Seven Points on Stewarts Ferry Pike, both in Hermitage, and Long Hunter State Park is on Hobson Pike. Cook has a parking rule worth knowing before a summer weekend: under the Corps’ 2024 traffic plan, on weekends and holidays from 18 May through Labor Day the ramp lot was for “vehicles with boat trailers only”, kayaks and paddleboards could use the ramp lot, and staff restricted entry when the lots were full. That plan was dated 2024; whether it ran in 2026 is status pending.

Corridor 3 — Smyrna and LaVergne: Poole Knobs and Jefferson Springs

The upper lake, from Smyrna and LaVergne. Poole Knobs is the largest of the three Corps campgrounds by site count and the one with “No designated swimming area or beach”; Jefferson Springs is the farthest up the lake of the ramps we could confirm, and the one whose record gives highway directions.

The rest of the Corps’ list

The Gateway’s 19 USACE-managed areas are Anderson Road, Cook, Dodson Chapel, East Fork, Fall Creek, Fate Sanders, Hurricane Creek, J. Percy Priest Lake Overlook, Jefferson Springs, Lamar Hill, Mona, Nice Mill, Poole Knobs, Seven Points, Smith Springs, Stewart Creek, Visitors Center Park, Vivrett Creek and West Fork. Its 12 areas “managed by others” are Elm Hill Marina, Fate Sanders Marina, Four Corners Marina, Gregory Mill, Hamilton Creek, Joe C Davis Outdoor Center, Long Hunter State Park, Nashville Shores, Percy Priest Dam Trailhead & Dog Park, Sharp Springs, Stones River Hunter Education Center and Volunteer Park (Smyrna). The Corps said in 2018 that it operates 15 launch ramps; which areas hold the ones not confirmed above — Elm Hill, Fate Sanders, Vivrett Creek, Hurricane Creek, Stewart Creek, Mona, East Fork, West Fork, Fall Creek, Lamar Hill, Nice Mill — is status pending, and so is everything about the four marinas beyond their names on the Corps’ list. Metro Parks’ own ramp page lists a Heartland / Stones River Access at 3135 Heartland Drive, Donelson (“Tennessee Wildlife Resources and Metro Parks manage jointly”; concrete ramp, 10 gravel parking spaces, no lighting or restroom); from its address we read it as the river below the dam, not the lake, which the page does not say in words.

Camping and day-use rules the Corps prints

“Camping limit is 14 days in any 30-consecutive-day period on J. Percy Priest Lake.” “This rule applies to all campgrounds combined.” No drive-throughs Friday to Sunday. No off-road vehicles. Firewood from outside the area is not permitted. Every Corps page carries the invasive-species line: “CLEAN, DRAIN, DRY boats and any other recreational equipment that contacts water” and “Dispose of unwanted bait, worms, fish parts, or other organisms into the trash and not into the environment.” Nightly rates on the Recreation.gov gateway, read 5 November 2026: Anderson Road $28–$40, Poole Knobs $24–$50, Seven Points from $36. Rates change; the gateway is the authority.

What the regulations tell you about the lake

TWRA’s 2026–27 Tennessee Fishing Guide, as published on eRegulations, heads the entry “Percy Priest” in the Region 2 reservoir section (page last updated 11 September 2026, read 2 and 5 November 2026). Every line, verbatim:

Two general lines on the same page govern the rest: “Statewide regulations apply for any species not mentioned under each listed reservoir section” and “Reservoir full pool elevation is the boundary between reservoir and tributary streams or rivers for harvest restrictions.” Read the table as a description of the lake. The crappie line is the one most people get wrong: the statewide rule (page last updated 15 September 2026) is 15 fish with a 10-inch minimum, and Percy Priest doubles the creel to 30. The 15-inch largemouth and 18-inch smallmouth minimums are reservoir-specific too; statewide black bass is five a day, “No more than 5 Black Bass per day in any combination may be taken.” Striped and hybrid (2, 15 inches), white bass (15), rock bass (20), redear (20) and the catfish line match the statewide table. Statewide fills the gaps: sauger 10 at 15 inches, walleye 5 at 16 inches, paddlefish “may be harvested from April 24 through May 31”, two a day, “Culling is prohibited”; and “Unless otherwise noted in this guide or by proclamation, there is no limit on the number of poles an angler may use at one (1) time”, counting lines “actively used (baited or deployed in the water)”. A regulation line is not a population statement: that TWRA sets a smallmouth minimum here says the agency manages for smallmouth, not how many there are.

Licences, and the Kentucky question

This is Tennessee water, and no source we read says so in a sentence: every agency address for the lake is in Tennessee, and that is the inference. A Kentucky angler needs to know one thing more. Tennessee’s reciprocal agreements page (last updated 15 September 2026) says the state “has several reciprocal agreements with adjacent states” under which “any fishing license from either Tennessee or the corresponding state is valid in the following waters”, and the Kentucky waters it lists are the Big South Fork from Leatherwood Ford Bridge to KY 92 at Yamacraw, the Wolf River arm of Dale Hollow, and Kentucky Lake between the McWherter and Eggner’s Ferry bridges excluding Blood River. KDFWR’s own reciprocal page, read the same day, lists the same three waters. Neither mentions Percy Priest or the Stones River. So a Kentucky licence is not valid here, and a Kentucky resident fishes on a Tennessee non-resident licence — our reading of the two lists’ scope, not a sentence either agency prints. Compare the arm of Dale Hollow where the agreement does carry a Kentucky licence into Tennessee.

No non-resident one-day fishing licence is listed. Residents: “County of Residence Fishing - No Trout” $10 (ages 13 and over), “Junior Hunt/Fish/Trap” $9 (13–15), senior licences $4 annual and $49 permanent, “Annual Trout Supplemental” $21. TWRA’s general statement of who must hold a licence and its exemption list were on a page we did not read: status pending. “Purchase your license 24/7/365 through the Go Outdoors Tennessee licensing system”, the TWRA app or a licence agent. The “Bobby Wilson FREE Fishing Day/Week” is Saturday 12 June 2027; anglers 15 and younger fish free through 18 June.

What TWRA says about the fishery

Less than we would like, because the agency’s site refused us. TWRA’s lake page for J. Percy Priest Reservoir returned HTTP 403 on both URL forms; its Warmwater Stocking Reports for 2022 and 2024 did the same; and no reservoir survey or creel report for the lake was found. Search results attribute to those pages a black-bass share of angler effort, a count of fish attractor sites with GPS files, and striped and hybrid striped bass stocking. None of it was read, so none of it is printed as a fact: status pending, every item, and the first thing to re-fetch. What is sourced is the list of species TWRA writes a Percy Priest rule for — largemouth, smallmouth and spotted bass, crappie, catfish, striped and hybrid striped bass, white bass, yellow bass, rock bass, redear, bluegill and warmouth — and that is a list of rules, not of abundance. No seasonal pattern is printed because no agency statement of one was readable, and we do not print our own in its place. There are no spots on this page or its cards; attractor positions, where TWRA publishes them, are TWRA’s to give you.

Hazards the agencies name

The Corps, 19 February 2025, with the project “Generating and spilling at 11,000 cfs”: “Boaters and the public are urged to exercise caution near dam releases and to heed all posted warnings.” “High flows and rapid water level changes can be dangerous, particularly near spillways and turbines.” The same day “Bell Road over the dam has been closed to all traffic due to icing.” In 2026 the Corps scheduled replacement of the equipment that operates the spillway gates, closing Bell Road on weekdays from June to July. No restricted-zone distance above or below the dam, no siren and no release-warning system was described in anything we read; status pending, and this page does not describe one — obey the posted signs and buoys. Cold water: no agency statement specific to this lake was read, so the only thing we will say is editorial and general — a winter-pool lake in Tennessee is cold enough to matter, wear the vest.

Who manages what

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Nashville District, owns and operates the dam, the lake and the 19 USACE areas; the Resource Manager’s Office and Visitor Center are at 3737 Bell Road, Nashville 37214, (615) 889-1975. The fishery is the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency’s, Region II, 5105 Edmondson Pike, Nashville 37211, 615-781-6622 (toll free 1-800-624-7406); violations 1-800-255-8972; License Division 615-781-5270. Long Hunter State Park is Tennessee State Parks’, 2910 Hobson Pike, Hermitage 37076, 615-885-2422, reservations 1-888-867-2757. Hamilton Creek Park and its marina are Metro Nashville Parks’, 2901 Bell Road, 615-862-8472 (Metro Parks 615-862-8400). Comments on the Water Control Manual revision went to CorpsLRNPlanningPublicCom@usace.army.mil; the period closed 9 August 2026.

What we have not verified

• Current pool. Live. Read the Corps record jpht1, Elev-Pool, not any number printed on a website, including the dated reading on this one.
• Whether the drawdown start moved. Proposed as late as 12 November; no Corps decision found after the 9 August 2026 comment close. The draft manual and Environmental Assessment timed out on every attempt. Status pending.
• TWRA’s lake page, stocking reports, surveys and creel. tn.gov 403. Acreage from TWRA, angler-effort share, attractor count and any stocking are status pending.
• Counties and shoreline miles. No readable source. Status pending.
• Which areas hold the 15 ramps, including whether Smith Springs has one. The Gateway’s amenity table would not render. Status pending.
• Launch fees at Jefferson Springs, Smith Springs, Hamilton Creek, Long Hunter and the unconfirmed Corps areas, and whether the $5 day-use fee at Anderson Road and Cook covers launching.
• Long Hunter’s park page (acreage, ramp count, Couchville Lake rules, any swimming prohibition at the ramps): tnstateparks.com refused; only the reservation site’s alerts were read.
• TWRA’s licence-age statement and exemptions. Page not read.
• Restricted zones, sirens or release warnings at the dam. Nothing read.
• The marinas (Elm Hill, Fate Sanders, Four Corners, Nashville Shores): named by the Corps as lessees; nothing else read.
• A 2026–27 Smith Springs closure. Not announced when we searched on 5 November 2026; the last two ran early November to early March.
• A typical generation schedule. 0 megawatt-hours in the hour read on 2 November, 11,000 cfs in February 2025; nothing published in between.
• The Cook parking plan in 2026. The Corps’ plan we read was for 2024.