HERRINGTON LAKE

Only 30 miles from Lexington, Kentucky, picturesque Herrington Lake is the perfect playground for many outdoor and recreational sports. Water skiing, tubing, swimming and even cliff jumping is popular on the lake during the summer months, with many marinas offering boats and cottages for rent. Great fishing is also abundant and the well-stocked lake contains bluegill, catfish, crappie, hybrid striped bass, large-mouth bass, spotted bass and white bass. Herrington Lake is known for producing some of the finest reservoir fishing the state has ever known.

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Did You Know?

The lake was created in the 1920’s when a dam was constructed across the Dix River three miles upstream from its confluence with the Kentucky River. At the time of its construction Dix Dam was the largest rock filled dam in the world, and was truly an engineering marvel of its day. The top of the dam is 287 feet above the riverbed (150 feet higher than Niagara Falls) and stretches 1,087 feet across the Dix River Gorge between Mercer and Garrard County. The dam is 24 feet wide on top and 750 feet wide at its base. Herrington Lake is the deepest lake in Kentucky. It is about 35 miles long, up to 1,200 ft. wide, and covers 2335 acres with 325 miles of shoreline. The deepest area is near the Dix Dam where water depth reaches 249 feet. The mean depth in the lake is 78 feet. Because the lake is so deep it has only frozen over twice – in 1936 and 1978. The estimated capacity of the lake is 175,000,000,000 gallons.​