Hidden Treasure:
Puckett's Point

What Is Puckett's Point?

Puckett's Point is a named geographic point on Center Hill Lake, sitting along the Caney Fork arm of the reservoir near Eagle Creek and Long Branch — one of the quieter, more scenic stretches of the lake's 415 miles of shoreline. It appears on official U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maps of Center Hill Lake and has been a named landmark on this lake since the reservoir was completed in 1948.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maintains a public concrete boat launch at Puckett's Point — a free, no-frills access point that puts you directly onto Center Hill Lake without the queue, the crowds, or the marina chaos. It's the kind of launch that locals with their own boats have been using for decades, and that most tourists never find because they're too busy looking for the sign pointing to the big marina.

The Caney Fork arm of the lake at Puckett's Point is characterized by the kind of scenery that makes Center Hill Lake famous — narrow, wooded fingers of water winding between limestone-capped Highland Rim ridgelines, clear water dropping off rocky ledges, and the kind of quiet that only exists away from the main channel. Bald eagles hunt this stretch. Herons work the shallows at dawn. The water is clear enough to see the bottom in the coves.

A Place with Deep Roots

Before Center Hill Lake existed, the Caney Fork River valley was home to farms, homesteads, and small communities that had worked the rich bottomland of Middle Tennessee for generations. The Puckett family — like many DeKalb County families — were part of that landscape, their name attached to this particular point of land along the river long before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers arrived in 1942 to begin building the dam.

Construction on Center Hill Dam began April 2, 1942, and was completed in February 1948 — six years of work that transformed the Caney Fork River valley into the 18,220-acre reservoir we know today. The dam stands 260 feet high, built from concrete and earth with eight gates 50 feet wide each, and it serves three purposes that have defined life in Middle Tennessee ever since: flood control along the Cumberland River system, hydroelectric power generation, and recreation.

When the water rose, it swallowed the old valley — the farms, the roads, the low-lying homesteads. What remained above the waterline became the 415 miles of forested shoreline that defines Center Hill Lake today. Puckett's Point emerged from that transformation as a named geographic landmark, a place where the old Tennessee countryside meets the modern reservoir — and where the Caney Fork arm narrows into one of the most beautiful stretches of water on the entire lake.

The name has stayed on the maps ever since. It shows up on USACE navigation charts, local fishing maps, kayaking guides, and the official U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facilities list — a quiet acknowledgment that the families who lived here before the dam left their mark on this landscape, even if the lake now covers the ground they once farmed.

What to Do at Puckett's Point

The Puckett's Point boat launch puts you directly onto the Caney Fork arm of Center Hill Lake — one of the most scenic and least trafficked stretches of the reservoir. From here, the lake opens in both directions into narrow, wooded fingers of water flanked by the Cumberland Plateau ridgelines. This is where Center Hill Lake feels less like a popular reservoir and more like a wilderness waterway.

Why It's a Hidden Treasure

Center Hill Lake draws hundreds of thousands of visitors every year. Most of them funnel through the same nine commercial marinas, wait in the same lines, pay the same fees, and end up on the same crowded main channel. The hidden 415 miles of shoreline — the quiet arms, the rocky coves, the named points like Puckett's — mostly belongs to the people who know where to look.

That's the real value of staying at The Little Lake House at Center Hill Lake. It's not just the treetop perch, the mountain-modern design, or the sunrise over the Highland Rim. It's the fact that one of Center Hill Lake's quietest, most beautiful access points is a five-minute walk from your door — a free, USACE-maintained launch onto a stretch of the Caney Fork arm that most tourists never find.

While the rest of the lake is busy, Puckett's Point stays quiet. The coves hold fish. The water is clear. The ridgelines do what they've been doing since before the dam went in — they hold the morning mist, then release it slowly as the sun climbs, and by the time you're back at the house for breakfast, you'll have already had the best hour on the water of your entire trip.