Pickwick Lake is the

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

created by

Pickwick Landing Dam Pickwick Landing Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Tennessee River in Hardin County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. The dam is one of nine dams on the river owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which built the dam in the 1930s ...

as part of the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...

. The lake stretches from Pickwick Landing Dam in Counce, Tennessee, to Wilson Dam in

Florence, Alabama Florence is a city in, and the county seat of, Lauderdale County, Alabama, Lauderdale County, Alabama, United States, in the state's northwestern corner, and had a population of 40,184 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Florence is l ...

, and is one of the few lakes in the United States to be located in three different states. Pickwick Lake has excellent sportfishing areas, including the Wilson Dam tailwater at the upper end of the reservoir, noted for record-size

smallmouth bass The smallmouth bass (''Micropterus dolomieu'') is a species of freshwater fish in the Centrarchidae, sunfish family (biology), family (Centrarchidae) of the order (biology), order Centrarchiformes. It is the type species of its genus ''Micropterus ...

and

catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order (biology), order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Catfish are common name, named for their prominent barbel (anatomy), barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, though not ...

. Another favorite spot is the discharge basin at Colbert Fossil Plant west of Sheffield, Alabama, where the warm water discharged from the power plant attracts fish during cold weather. The lakeshore plays host to two state parks: Tennessee's

Pickwick Landing State Park Pickwick Landing State Park is a state park in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee, Pickwick Dam, Hardin County, Tennessee, in the southeastern United States around the Pickwick Lake impoundment of the Tennessee River. It is named for Pickwick Landing, a 19 ...

and Mississippi's J P Coleman State Park. Pickwick Lake is the north end of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, which provides a water transportation route to the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

. Yellow Creek Cove is home to the Yellow Creek waterfall and is a popular destination for boaters. A rope swing off the top of the waterfall has been present for many years.

References

External links

Tennessee Valley Authority: Pickwick ReservoirFishing Pickwick Lake
Smallmouth Bass, Largemouth Bass, Crappie, and Sauger

See also

References

External links

Further reading