Dale Hollow Lake Water Level
Dale Hollow Lake is at 640.14 ft today (Oct 6), 10.86 ft below its 651 ft full pool, down 0.59 ft this week.
Kentucky & Tennessee · Obey River
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Water level history
About Dale Hollow Lake
Dale Hollow Lake is a reservoir on the Obey River in Kentucky & Tennessee, operated by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It produced the world-record smallmouth bass. Its full summer pool sits at 651 ft above sea level. Live water levels come from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (CWMS) and update hourly.
Understanding Dale Hollow Lake's water level
Dale Hollow Dam sits on the Obey River about three miles east of Celina, Tennessee, and 7.3 miles above the Obey's mouth on the Cumberland. The Corps closed the dam on August 30, 1943, the lake first reached minimum pool on May 7, 1944, and generators followed in 1948, 1949 and 1953. Behind it lie 27,700 acres of water straddling the Tennessee and Kentucky line, with 620 miles of shoreline and a 936 square mile drainage. Building it meant the government bought out the community of Willow Grove in 1942 and moved its residents; the name lives on as a Corps campground. The number to know is 651 feet. That is the crest of the concrete spillway and the top of the power pool. Water between 631 and 651 is what the Corps runs through the turbines, the twelve feet between 651 and the tops of the six spillway gates at 663 are held for floods, and everything below 631 is dead storage.
The level follows the seasonal guide curve the Nashville District uses on all four of its Cumberland storage reservoirs: fill in spring, draw down in late summer and fall. The typical target is 651 by mid May, the historical median for early June is about 650, and by winter the lake usually sits somewhere around 635 to 640. Spring rain decides the summer. After a dry spring in 2023 the lake was at 648.4 on June 5, and the Corps said it would take more than two inches in a single storm over the watershed to reach summer pool. Releases cannot simply stop, because Dale Hollow water turns turbines at the dam and at four more hydropower plants downstream. The spring of 2026 was drier still. On April 21 the lake stood at 644.4 feet, 5.3 feet under its April 20 median and the lowest April reading since 2000, with water managers holding releases to the minimum. At levels like that, rocks and snags sit closer to the surface, and the Corps asks boaters to carry lake maps and follow the regulatory markers.
On July 9, 1955, David L. Hayes of Leitchfield, Kentucky, boated an 11 pound 15 ounce smallmouth here, and it remains the state and world record. It spent nine years out of the books. In 1996 an affidavit from a former Cedar Hill Resort employee claimed three pounds of weights had been shoved into the fish, and the IGFA disqualified it; the record was reinstated on December 12, 2005, after the affidavit was shown to be fraudulent. The fish measured 27 inches long with a girth of 21 2/3 inches. TWRA still calls smallmouth the lake's premier fishery, with walleye supported by annual fingerling stockings and black crappie stocked every year. There have been setbacks: in the record drought and heat of summer 2012, about 250 smallmouth, mostly older and larger fish, turned up dead between mid lake and the dam, and tests found no virus, bacteria or parasite behind it. Below the dam the Obey River holds rainbow and brown trout, and the Dale Hollow National Fish Hatchery, built in 1965 to offset fishery losses from the dam, raises trout for waters affected by federal dams across the region.
Dale Hollow Lake — frequently asked
What is Dale Hollow Lake's full pool?
651 feet above sea level. That is both the crest of the spillway and the top of the power pool, and the Corps aims to reach it by mid May each year. Anything above 651 is flood storage, which runs up to 663 feet at the tops of the spillway gates. The power pool reaches down to 631 feet, the ordinary minimum, so the power pool alone spans twenty feet.
What is the highest Dale Hollow Lake has ever been?
660.98 feet on March 15, 1975, nearly ten feet above summer pool and about two feet short of the top of the spillway gates. The lake has reached 660 or higher three times, and each time the Corps opened the spillway to pull it down quickly. Spillway releases are rare here: eleven since 1953, though seven of them came in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2024. The gauge on this page keeps only readings since 2024, so the high and low it shows are recent marks, not the lake's records.
What is Dale Hollow Lake's record low?
The lowest level since the reservoir filled is 631.1 feet, set in 1956, essentially at the 631 foot ordinary minimum pool. You may see a lower figure, 630.63 feet on September 11, 1944, in federal records, but that was the lake still filling for the first time, not a drawdown. Ordinary winter lows today run roughly 635 to 640 feet.
Why is Dale Hollow Lake so low?
Usually because of the calendar. The Corps draws the lake down through late summer and fall to make room for winter and spring floods, then refills it in spring. When spring is dry, it never catches up. In June 2023 it sat at 648.4 feet against a 651 target, and in April 2026 it was at 644.4, its lowest April level since 2000, even with releases cut to the minimum.
When does Dale Hollow Lake refill?
Spring. The guide curve has the lake rising from its winter level of roughly 635 to 640 feet toward 651 by mid May, but water managers only control what goes out, not what comes in. In 2023, after rain dried up from mid March on, the Corps estimated it would take more than two inches of rain in a single event over the Dale Hollow watershed to reach summer pool.
Why was water going over Dale Hollow Dam in May 2024?
Memorial Day weekend downpours pushed the lake to about 655 feet, four feet above summer pool, and the Corps opened the spillway gates to bring it down. It was only the eleventh time the spillways had opened in about seventy years, though the seventh since 2009.
Is the Dale Hollow world record smallmouth legitimate?
The IGFA says yes. David L. Hayes caught the 11 pound 15 ounce fish on July 9, 1955. A 1996 affidavit alleged it had been loaded with three pounds of weights, and the record was pulled. After an investigation found the affidavit fraudulent, the IGFA reinstated it on December 12, 2005. TWRA lists it as both the state and world record.
Flow released below Dale Hollow Lake
This gauge reads the water leaving the dam, which is the number to check for fishing, paddling and downstream conditions. Live flow is tracked on riverlvl.com.
Other lakes near Dale Hollow Lake
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