Guntersville Dam Tailrace
The Guntersville Dam tailrace sits at Tennessee River mile 349 below TVA's 1939 Guntersville Dam — the head of Wheeler Lake pool, known for autumn and winter sauger, early-spring white bass, winter stripers, and summer catfish.

Dam Face / Spillway Discharge
Direct spillway and turbine discharge below Guntersville Dam — 94 ft dam height, 18-bay spillway with 478,000 cfs combined discharge capacity, deep scour hole, concrete face, and current-driven eddies against the lock walls · Vertical jigging spoon for sauger on suspended shad (TVA-published autumn/winter fishery); heavy bucktail and big swimbait for wintering striped bass; live shad or skipjack for stripers on maximum-generation days · Winter + Fall

Main Lock Wall Eddy
Slack-water eddy along the 110 ft x 600 ft main lock (built 1965) on the Marshall County side — 45-foot lift between the Guntersville and Wheeler pools, with the auxiliary 60 ft x 360 ft original lock still in use. Commercial grain, petroleum, and wood-products traffic keeps current shifting · Drop-shot and float-and-fly on the slack-water edge for smallmouth; live skipjack or medium shiners for stripers; jigging spoon for sauger in winter · Year-round

Downstream Chunk-Rock Current Seam
First half-mile of chunk rock and riprap downstream of the dam where the tailrace boil breaks into defined eddies over broken bedrock — classic current-seam water on both the Marshall and Morgan banks · Hair jig and 3-inch curly-tail grub drifted through the seam for sauger and smallmouth; live threadfin shad on medium spinning tackle when TVA is generating; bucktail for stripers · Year-round — peak fall and winter

Eddy Current Off the Main Flow
Slack-water eddy pockets just off the main current seam on the Morgan (south) bank — the water Brian Barton's published Tennessee River tailrace template names for catfish and for bass in low-generation windows · Drifted skipjack chunks and cut bait for blue and channel catfish (TVA-published summer fishery); live-bait shad on light spinning tackle for multi-species action in the fall transition; shaky head and finesse worm on the rocky edges · Summer + Fall

TVA Guntersville Dam Reservation / Public Access
TVA Guntersville Dam reservation at 3464 Snow Point Road on the Marshall County (north) side — visitor center, day-use access, and the one-mile loop hike past a Civil War-era saltpeter cave. Boat access in the broader tailrace reach is through neighboring Marshall and Morgan-county public ramps · Bank anglers work jigging spoons, hair jigs, and cut-bait rigs from the permitted day-use shoreline on sauger and striper days; boat anglers run up from the nearest upper-Wheeler-pool ramps to fish the dam face and eddy line · Year-round

Guntersville Dam Tailrace — Lake Center