Wolf Creek Dam

Lake volume is measured in acre feet of water. There is more water in Lake Cumberland than Kentucky Lake even though Kentucky Lake has more surface. Cumberland averages over 160 ft deep in the river channel at summer pool and even deeper sometimes. Kentucky Lake is long and broad but fairly shallow. Cumberland at its largest is about 63,000 acres surface area but most of that is over 100 ft deep so we are talking alot of water. I have fished both lakes and I can tell you even though Ky Lake Covers alot of surface it is fairly shallow compared to the lakes in Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. Barkley is even shallower. Reelfoot lake looks big on the map but it only averages 3 ft deep so not alot of water (you hit a stump every 50 ft.). I grew up on Cumberland and when I went to Kentucky and Barkley for the first time I could not believe how shallow it was compared to Cumberland. To be in the middle of a bay and only be in 20 ft of water sometimes was hard to believe. It is nothing out of the ordinary to be a cast from shore and be in over 100 ft of water in Cumberland (even back in the creeks). Hope this helps.

I think Ky Lake is a considered a river and not a reservior.

Ployboy is dead on the money with his post.

i dont think cumberland is the 2nd largest man made lake in the world...
aswan in egypt is currently the largest, and lake mead is much larger than cumberland, that off the top of the head, cant think of anymore right now, but at best its 3rd. anyone heard about the dam under construction in china on the huang ho??? saw a show last week on the sci channel, this new lake slated to be complete in 2010 will dwarf all others with a surface area around
20000 sq miles thats almost 30 times the size of okeechobee.

Your right, Cumberland is no where near the second largest in the world or even the USA. It is just the largest (by volume) East of the Mississippi in the USA according to the Corps. Not sure how that rumor got started.