LAKE OCONEE COMES TO HGTV this Sunday night @ 8 pm !!!!!

[MikeyL]

Does the lake maintain its level all year?

Yup ........ Sure does. It was the last lake Georgia Power did .. and they decided to do it "right" (added as a sidenote, when compared to some of their older existing Georgia lakes they created), back in 1979.

It is designed as a "Pump-Back Reservoir." What that means is simply this:
Our water fluctuation rate is less than 18" a day. Normally a LOT LESS than that ... maybe 8-9 inches or less (daily). And we normally stay "FULL POOL" all year long. There have been a few years where due to severe droughts Oconee has gone down 4-5+ feet (and that's a lot for this lake), but thanks to the late fall normal rainfall, we would always be full by New Years.

So this also means we all have FIXED docks, which is why it's such a great bass fishing lake. GREAT fishing, for BASS (Largemouth, stripers, hybrids), and crappie, and catfish, as part of their overall plan.

Lanier and Allatoona, and Hartwell, due to the significant level changes, all have floating docks.

How this works is this: First, you gotta know "power" does NOT have the same "value" at all times of the day. It's worth the MOST starting about 5 pm, when you get home, turn on the lights & the AC or heat, start the ovens, turn on the TV's, etc.

Now, however ........... at 9 am the next morning, when everyone has left for work, school, shopping, whatever, POWER has a lot less value.

Remember those hydro power generators @ and in Wallace Dam, connecting Lakes Oconee and Sinclair ?

Well, they take some "excess power" and feed it back INTO those same generators, and they then in turn become automtically PUMPS !

And so, they take water FROM Lake Sinclair, and pump it back into Lake Oconee !

Now, also, an added benefit of doing this is that this water flow causes the shad to move .......... The shad move, the bass move . and Voila ! Great fishing ! The shad move TWICE ...... both when they are generating power, and then when they are putting water back into Oconee.

Now a little extra Bonus (!@!!) information thanks to Uncle Mikey:

I call this "God's LAW OF WATER"> And this is not a joke. The Good Lord said you CANNOT simply dam up a body of flowing water and decide to keep it all for yourself. HIS plan called for the water to flow and feed and suffice other areas of his creation. And none of this is a joke. Ya just cannot do that ! You must allow for water flow to "continue" after you have constructed a dam. SO, If Ga Power (part of the Southern Company, like Alabama Power - Lake Wedowee - where Wedowee Marine is located, and other operating Southern Company companies) decides they wanna make a little extra power by Hydro from Lake Oconee ... and if they take out say 100 gallons, they CANNOT later "put back in" 100 gallons. It must be less than what they took out. So the water continues to flow downstream.

We don't run into problems like Lake Lanier where a body of water is trying to fulfill an ever-growing Metro Atlanta population. While we may have 1/10th the quantity of water of say Lanier (or less) since we are a shallow lake (Lanier is VERY deep, being in the foothills/mountains of N.E Georgia), we do have the added benefit of having 10 times + the water SUPPLY coming into Oconee, from the Oconee and Appalachee Rivers (and Richland Creek).

Well, this is a little long, but thought some might be interested in this diatribe. If I can answer more, please ask and I'll try.
Many Best Wishes your way, Mikey Lulejian - Lake Oconee, GA