Most of the water on this page was a river valley before it was a lake. Summersville Lake, Sutton Lake, Tygart Lake and R. D. Bailey Lake are impoundments, and they still carry the shape of the thing they flooded. There is a main body that follows the old streambed, and arms that run back up every hollow a creek came down. That shape is the reason local knowledge counts for so much here. Halfway up an arm, the old creek channel and the flat where the creek used to spread out look identical from the surface, and only one of them still has water over it when the lake comes down in the fall.
The West Virginia pack carries 647 charted water bodies. Of those, 262 have a name in the source data and 385 do not, and the unnamed ones are charted the same as the rest. Twenty-four of the named lakes are larger than a square kilometer. The largest the pack carries is Deep Creek Lake at 14.8 square kilometers, or 3,657 acres, measured off the chart polygon itself rather than copied from a park page.
The 647 figure counts every water body inside the box, down to ponds you could throw a rock across. Twenty-four of the named ones clear a square kilometer, and the twenty largest run from 3,657 acres at the top down to 371 acres at Savage River Reservoir. That is the region in one line. A handful of reservoirs big enough to lose a whole day on, then a long tail of small water, 385 pieces of which carry no name at all in the source data and are charted anyway.
The packs are cut to a box rather than to the state line, so this one does not stop where the state does. Deep Creek Lake, Lake Moomaw, Youghiogheny River Lake and Fishtrap Lake all sit close to a border, and a lake near a border can sit in two packs. That works in your favor at any ramp within driving distance of the line, because the water on both sides of it is on the same chart. The Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky packs are cut the same way.
| Lake | Charted surface area |
|---|---|
| Deep Creek Lake | 15 km² (3,657 acres) |
| Youghiogheny River Lake | 12 km² (2,891 acres) |
| Summersville Lake | 11 km² (2,817 acres) |
| Lake Moomaw | 10 km² (2,397 acres) |
| Yatesville Lake | 9 km² (2,273 acres) |
| Tygart Lake | 8 km² (1,853 acres) |
| Sutton Lake | 7 km² (1,631 acres) |
| Cheat Lake | 6 km² (1,359 acres) |
| John W. Flannagan Reservoir | 5 km² (1,161 acres) |
| East Lynn Lake | 5 km² (1,137 acres) |
| Mount Storm Lake | 4 km² (1,112 acres) |
| Bluestone Lake | 4 km² (1,112 acres) |
The twelve largest named lakes the West Virginia pack carries, by charted surface area, measured from the chart polygon itself. The pack carries 647 charted water bodies in all, 262 of them named, and 24 named lakes larger than one square kilometer.
NOAA charts the coast, the intracoastal and the navigable rivers. A dam on a creek in the mountains is not on that list. So the inland water in this pack is built from a different pair of sources. The outline of each lake comes from the National Hydrography Dataset, which is the national inventory of where water is. The bottom under it comes from state elevation surveys, which measure the ground itself.
That pairing is the whole reason Summersville Lake is charted water in Helm instead of a blue shape with a name printed across it. An outline tells you where the bank is. An outline with the ground measured under it tells you what you can cross, and that is what lets you put the draft of your own boat on the chart and plan a line from the ramp to the head of an arm against it.
Sutton Lake, Burnsville Lake and Summersville Lake are all held at a level somebody picks. Summer pool and winter pool are different numbers, and the lake spends part of the year traveling between them. That changes how you read a depth line, so it is worth saying plainly what a depth line is. A contour is drawn on the ground under the water, not on the surface. Pull the pool down and every contour still describes exactly the same ground. The only thing that changed is how much water is standing over it.
In practice the old creek channel is the part of a drawn down reservoir that behaves. It is the lowest ground in the basin and it stays the lowest ground at any pool, so the line you ran in June is still the line in November with less room on either side of it. The shoulders are what come up. With your draft entered, those shoulders are the water that shades, which is how you learn about one while you still have room to turn.
Acreage is the number people argue about at the ramp, so it is worth saying where these come from. Each one is measured from the chart polygon itself. Deep Creek Lake is the largest the pack carries at 3,657 acres. Youghiogheny River Lake and Summersville Lake follow at 2,891 and 2,817 acres, close enough to each other that on the water they are the same size of day.
Below that the drop is steady rather than sudden. Tygart Lake at 1,853 acres is about half of Deep Creek. Sutton Lake is 1,631 acres and Cheat Lake is 1,359. Two pairs come out even: Mount Storm Lake and Bluestone Lake are both 4.5 square kilometers, or 1,112 acres each, and Burnsville Lake and Jennings Randolph Lake both measure 815. Below the twenty listed here, four more named lakes still clear a square kilometer.
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.
Contours and a depth reading on the water itself. The outline of the lake comes from the National Hydrography Dataset and the ground under it comes from state elevation surveys, which is how a reservoir gets charted when there is no NOAA chart for it. Summersville Lake is one of the larger waters in the pack at 11.4 square kilometers, or 2,817 acres, measured from the chart polygon.
Yes. The packs are cut to a box rather than to a state line, so water near a border can sit in more than one pack. Deep Creek Lake is the largest the pack carries at 14.8 square kilometers, or 3,657 acres. The neighboring Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky packs are cut the same way, so a lake near the line tends to appear in both.
They stay where they are. A contour describes the ground in the basin, not the surface, so the old creek channel remains the lowest line at any pool and the shoulders on either side of it are what come up as the level falls. With your draft entered, Helm shades the water your boat cannot cross, and on a lowered reservoir that shading is what puts a shoulder on the screen before you reach it. Sutton Lake measures 6.6 square kilometers, or 1,631 acres, in the pack.
Helm Boating