Dale Hollow info

a group of 8 of us are going down to dale hollow from aug 15th -22nd. just wondering who all has been there before, and what they thought about it. i was also trying to find something about all of the laws down there...like wakeboarding at night, and all that other good stuff. any help on the best places to board at on the lake would be great to. is the whole lake in a dry county??? thanks

Im going Aug. 1-8. Ive been there many times. As far as where to board at on the lake, pretty much anyplace your hear desires. It has a ton of coves and you can pretty much hang in a cove and board on butter all day long. Just to give you an idea of the size, I believe it stretches for 60 miles from one end to the other, and has over 600miles of shore line. The law down there is pretty lax as long as you don't act stupid. You will find you will spend most of the day in a cove, and CO's really don't bother you back there, as long as you don't draw a bunch of attention to yourself. As far as riding at night, I wouldn't recommend it because it is extremely dark there. Its pretty well in the middle of nowhere. If you get out on that lake at night, and are not familiar with the lake, it can be trickey to find your boat (Im assuming your houseboating). Although I believe there is not an idle past dusk law. If you are houseboating, what marina are you renting from? We are going out of Wisdom.
As far as being a dry county, most of it is on the Kentucky side I believe, but Tenn. side is not (don't quote me on that). I know we have gotten beer on the lake, but I would recommend bringing your own, cause you will pay dearly for it. I think it was like 20 or 25 a case!
Have fun on your trip, I will post some pictures when I get back. You will have a great time, the lake is beautiful, clean, huge, and you can find butter all day!

Definitely bring your own beer. I met up with some friend there on a houseboat trip once and the boat was beached on the TN side of the lake, however the back of the cove was in KY. The law went right past us and gave tickets to every houseboat on the KY side for drinking... Lucky I guess.

Yeah, you need to be careful on the KY end of things, it is basically ileagal to drink beer in public, or something like that, and a boat is considered "in public"....I'm too lazy to look up the actual law. Actually, on the other hand....take lots of beer, put a keg in the open bow and drive by CO's at 20ft, less boats on the water is a good thing! You can board without an observer in boy KY and TN as long as you have a mirror.

Actually I have seen the CO's pick up enforcement on the TN side in the past few years, we have been inspected more in the past 4 years, than in my entire 30 years of boating on Dale Hollow. Of course a wakeboard boat stands out a bit more than my dad's old fish 'n ski....haha.

yeah we're trying to do the whole houseboat thing, we just haven't quite gotten around to getting the money. i forget the name of the marin that we talked to, but we are looking to get one for like 1200 for the week, which isn't to bad! so you aren't even allowed to drink on the kentuckey part of the lake?? yeah we're definitely planning on takeing the alcohol with us to! we'll have pictures on here sometime

Here it is ...Drinking in Public and Public Intoxication (KRS 222.202)...
http://www.kdfwr.state.ky.us/fishboat03b.htm
Kentucky law specifically prohibits the drinking of alcoholic beverages in public places (this excludes establishments licensed to sell such beverages) and the waterways of this state are considered public places.

I also don't know of any dry counties on the TN side. 1200 for the week is pretty good for a houseboat..and I would also advise buying a map and not going too far out after dark if it is your first time...I know the lake really well and its still easy to get turned around, even on a moonlit night.

Oh yeah...and watch out for 20' long man-eating cat-fish.

BYOB, CO came up to do a "safety check" July 4th weekend and we all had open containers. We made sure we had a sober boat driver though. No problems, they were actually really cool with us.

Go boarding up the Obey River. It's the best I'd say.

Good idea on the map. Also it seems like there are some low areas as you come out of the mouth of Sulfer Creek, watch for those