Milford Lake is 14,530 acres and Tuttle Creek is 11,960. On a flat morning that is a long open run with the far bank a good way off, and by four in the afternoon it is a different lake. The big water here is impounded river, so the shape tells you something before you launch: a wide main body, arms that run back up the old creeks, and a deep line down the middle that used to be the river channel. Perry Lake at 10,700 acres and Clinton Lake at 7,314 read the same way once you know to look for it.
The Kansas pack carries 3,261 charted water bodies. Of those, 566 are named, and 48 of the named ones cover more than a square kilometer, which is roughly where a lake stops being a pond with a ramp and becomes water you plan a run across. The largest the pack carries is Kaw Lake at 65.3 square kilometers, or 16,136 acres. The outlines come from the National Hydrography Dataset and the depth beneath them is built from state elevation surveys, which is the reason a reservoir arrives on the chart as water with contours in it.
The pack charts 3,261 water bodies and 566 of them carry a name. Most of the difference between those two numbers is small water: farm impoundments, pits, oxbows and the little community lake at the edge of town. Those still arrive as charted shape and position, which matters more than it sounds like when you are looking for the ramp road off a section line and the map in your hand shows the pond shape you can see out the window.
The 48 named lakes over a square kilometer are the ones people plan a day around. That is a short enough list to know by heart and a long enough one that you could fish a new lake most weekends of the season without repeating yourself. The figures on this page are measured from the chart polygon itself, so the acreage you read here is the acreage of the water the chart draws.
| Lake | Charted surface area |
|---|---|
| Kaw Lake | 65 km² (16,136 acres) |
| Milford Lake | 59 km² (14,530 acres) |
| Harlan County Lake | 52 km² (12,751 acres) |
| Tuttle Creek Lake | 48 km² (11,960 acres) |
| Perry Lake | 43 km² (10,700 acres) |
| Cheney Reservoir | 39 km² (9,711 acres) |
| Waconda Lake | 38 km² (9,291 acres) |
| John Redmond Reservoir | 33 km² (8,204 acres) |
| Wilson Lake | 32 km² (7,809 acres) |
| Clinton Lake | 30 km² (7,314 acres) |
| Melvern Lake | 25 km² (6,252 acres) |
| Cedar Bluff Reservoir | 24 km² (5,906 acres) |
The twelve largest named lakes the Kansas pack carries, by charted surface area, measured from the chart polygon itself. The pack carries 3,261 charted water bodies in all, 566 of them named, and 48 named lakes larger than one square kilometer.
Nobody publishes a NOAA nautical chart for a flood control reservoir in the middle of the continent. That work is done by state agencies running elevation surveys of the lake bed, and that survey is what Helm builds inland depth from, with the water bodies themselves coming from the National Hydrography Dataset. It is the difference between a lake that is a blue shape with a name on it and a lake you can run a route across against your own draft.
The thing to keep in your head on a reservoir is that the bed does not move and the surface does. A lake sits at whatever level it is being held at that week, so a contour describes the shape of the bottom and the pool tells you how much water is sitting on top of that shape today. The creek channel through an arm stays exactly where it was in June. What changes late in the summer is how much of the shoulder on either side of it is still floating a boat. Reading the contour for the shape, and the pool level for the depth over it, is the habit that keeps you off a point you have run twenty times.
Every reading in Helm carries the date its survey was taken, so you can see how old the measurement under you is rather than guessing. Enter your draft once and the water your boat cannot cross shades on the chart, which on a drawn down arm is the part that puts the shoulder on the screen while you still have room to turn.
Kaw Lake at 16,136 acres is the largest the pack carries, with Milford Lake next at 14,530. Harlan County Lake follows at 12,751 and Tuttle Creek at 11,960, and then it tightens up. Cheney Reservoir is 9,711 acres and Waconda Lake is 9,291, close enough that they are effectively the same amount of water to cover on a day trip. Council Grove Lake is the smallest of the twenty largest at 2,891 acres, which makes Kaw more than five times its size. Kanopolis at 3,435 acres and Elk City at 3,385 sit within fifty acres of each other.
Here are the ten largest the pack carries, with the chart polygon area in both units.
Chart packs are cut to a box rather than to the state line. A lake sitting near the line is therefore carried by more than one pack, which is why you will find water on this list that you would name after a neighboring state in conversation. Kaw Lake, Harlan County Lake and Swanson Lake all sit out near an edge. The practical effect is in your favor: download the pack for where you live and the border water comes with it.
The tow between these lakes is long and the ramp on the upper end of an arm is not where phone service is at its best, so the pack goes on the device at home on wifi. After that the chart, the depth shading, routing and the measure tool keep working with nothing in the bars. Drawing a line from the ramp to the point you want to fish gives you distance, bearing and the shallowest water along it marked rather than averaged into a number that means nothing. Mark the spot when you find fish and it is still there next season, on whichever device you have with you.
Inland lake depth comes from state elevation surveys rather than from nautical charts, and a reservoir sits at whatever level it is being held at that week. Treat the shape and the depth as a guide, keep a lookout, and verify locally.
The pack carries 3,261 charted water bodies, 566 of them named, and inland depth built from state elevation surveys. That covers the big reservoirs people tow to, including Milford at 14,530 acres, Tuttle Creek at 11,960, Perry at 10,700, Cheney at 9,711, Wilson at 7,809 and Clinton at 7,314, along with 42 other named lakes over a square kilometer.
Yes. Chart packs are cut to a box rather than to the state line, so water near an edge is carried by more than one pack. Kaw Lake at 16,136 acres and Harlan County Lake at 12,751 are both in this one, as is Swanson Lake at 4,646 acres. You do not have to download a second pack to cover a lake you launch on from the far shore.
The contours describe the shape of the lake bed, and the bed does not move when the pool does. Perry is 10,700 acres and Melvern is 6,252 at the level their survey was measured at, so on a low pool you read the contours for where the creek channel and the shoulders are and add the current pool for how much water is over them. Every depth reading in Helm shows the date its survey was taken.
Helm Boating