Lake Cumberland

The biggest man-made lake in Kentucky

The Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lake Cumberland fisheries page calls it a 47,688-acre lake in Wayne, Russell and Pulaski counties and says it is well known for its smallmouth, largemouth, striped bass and walleye population. The Recreation.gov listing for Cumberland Point Campground describes Lake Cumberland as the largest man-made lake east of the Mississippi River, with over 1,200 miles of shoreline. The National Inventory of Dams lists the dam as completed in 1951. The Army Corps of Engineers operates the project, and the lake sits at the tail of the Cumberland River basin near the Tennessee line, which is why its fishery list reads more like a southern smallmouth lake than a typical Kentucky reservoir.

The normal pool is 723.0 feet with a flood pool of 760.0 feet, per the Corps’ observed elevation series, so the reservoir can run up to about 37 feet of variation. That range means shorelines, private docks and smaller ramps change a lot between seasons, and the live level card on this site is worth checking before you plan the trip.

A four-species fishery with special rules

The FWS page lists smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, striped bass and walleye as the lake’s headline species, and it publishes special regulations for Lake Cumberland: minimum sizes for crappie, largemouth, smallmouth, striped bass and walleye, and a lake sturgeon that is protected and must be released immediately. The lake also carries a state-record smallmouth fishery reputation that shows up in the special limits, with an 18-inch smallmouth minimum and a two-fish striped bass limit.

The FWS page is the source for the current Kentucky limits on this lake. They change from year to year, so read the current page before you keep fish. Below Wolf Creek Dam the river turns to cold tailwater; the trout there are stocked by the Corps hatchery at the dam, so the tailwater fishery follows trout rules rather than the lake’s warmwater limits above.

Access points around the lake

The FWS page lists dozens of public access sites around the lake, from the small bank and light-boat ramps to the larger paved launch facilities. Three worth naming:

• Cumberland Point Campground, on the main body of the lake in the Recreation.gov directory, is one of the Corps’ main camp-and-launch points on the reservoir.
• Fall Creek Campground, at 1144 New Fall Creek Road in Monticello, is on the north shore arm.
• Kendall Campground, at 80 Kendall Road south of Jamestown, sits just below Wolf Creek Dam and is the closest Corps launch to the dam end of the lake.

Each of those has a boat ramp and is listed on Recreation.gov with its own current rates and reservations; confirm the listing before you go.

The hatchery at the dam end

One of the Corps facilities at the dam end of the lake is the Wolf Creek National Fish Hatchery, established in 1975 per its Recreation.gov listing. The hatchery produces rainbow, brown and brook trout for mitigation stocking into 120 public waters across Kentucky, Georgia and Indiana. It is a public facility with a short trail down to the dam and lake, and it is the logical stop if you are planning to fish the tailwater below the dam rather than the lake itself.

The dam end of the lake is also where the Cumberland River starts its downstream run toward Tennessee, so the water color, clarity and fish behavior change as you move downriver. The live level card on this page tracks the pool elevation, and the water-level page tracks the longer history.