Draining the Lake

The annual draining of Lake Allatoona began this past week. I'm still not 100% clear as to why this is done, but this effort leaves the muddy floor of the lake exposed for the fall and winter months. There is still water flowing in from the north Etowah River, along a channel in the lake bed, and out into the lower Etowah at the dam, so I imagine that the path is somewhat similar to what the Etowah flow must have looked like pre-dam. The draining efforts have just begun, so although the lake has water in it, the level drop is noticeable. There is a second small dam on Allatoona that separates the main body of Lake Allatoona from the small secondary body of Lake Acworth. Lake Acworth has water year round and has been my fishing spot this year. It doesn't go untouched though when the draining begins, and I was out last night to see what the impact is going to be there. Already, the water level has dropped several feet and has left one of the better fishing spots with a depth of about 4 inches over about a 5 acre area. As I paddled under the narrow bridge last night, there was a visible current as the water flowed from the extremities of the lake toward the dam. So the downside to this is it's going to shrink my fishing area, but the up side (besides providing drinking water to AL and FL) is that it should make the Etowah River nice and predictable as far as water level goes for river float trips this fall.

Same area pre-drain and mid-drain