Two forks, one creek, thirteen miles
The North Fork rises east of Lexington and the South Fork southwest of it, and they meet at the Forks of Elkhorn just east of Frankfort. From there Kentucky Fish and Wildlife counts 13 miles of creek to the Kentucky River at Still Waters, most of it between limestone cliffs, the tallest of them the Palisades, with the smallmouth holding where ledges drop into pools, along gravel bars and at the tails of riffles. The department's own biologists use the Elkhorn as their barometer for stream smallmouth statewide, and its 2018 sampling found the highest number of fish over 16 inches ever recorded on the creek.
It is also a studied creek. A 2002 paper in the North American Journal of Fisheries Management tracked how Elkhorn smallmouth responded to regulatory and environmental change, which is part of why the creek carries a slot limit and most of its neighbors do not.
Peaks Mill at three feet
USGS 03289500 is the Peaks Mill gauge, on the main stem below the Forks, and both the state and the Louisville club fish by it. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife's table calls under 100 cfs low, 100 to 600 good and over 600 high, or in stage terms under 2.5 feet low, 2.5 to 4.0 good and over 4.0 high; that 100 to 600 band is what this page compares the live reading to. Derby City Fly Fishers narrow it: about 3 feet plus or minus half a foot is best for fishing and floating, below 2.5 feet the creek is very clear and a float drags every shoal though wading is fine, and above 3.5 feet the creek gets pushy around bends and strainers. The club's other rule is that the fishing is best after a rain on the rise.
The gauge dropped from 300 cfs on September 13, 2026 to 81 by the 23rd, which is what the Elkhorn does in a dry fortnight; the long-term means are about 200 cfs from August through October and over 1,300 in February and March, when it is a whitewater run and American Whitewater owns an access on it.
Where you can stand, and where you cannot
Most of the creek is private, and the state's access list is specific about what each site allows. AMA on the Creek, just below the U.S. 460 bridge at the Forks, is a paid-parking canoe and kayak launch where fishing, swimming and wading are not allowed. Elkhorn Creek VPA 3, on privately owned land opened through the Voluntary Public Access program, allows bank and wade fishing and boat access. The American Whitewater property below Knight's Bridge on KY 1900 is boating access only, no bank or wade fishing. T.N. Sullivan WMA, off KY 1262, is state land and the best walk-in wading, 0.2 mile down an old road bed to the creek, and a hard carry for a boat. VPA 2 and VPA 1 are bank and wade only with no boats.
The Peter W. Pfeiffer Fish Hatchery on Indian Gap Road off U.S. 127 is a put-in, take-out and wading spot, but only 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays. Still Waters Campground at the mouth charges for its ramp and rents canoes, as does Canoe Kentucky, the livery Ed Councill founded on the creek. The float mileages run 4.8 from AMA to VPA 3, 2.6 to the American Whitewater access, 1.3 to Sullivan, 5.8 to the hatchery and 3.5 to Still Waters.
May crayfish, summer poppers, the canoe hatch
Lee McClellan of Kentucky Afield fishes the Elkhorn with a fly rod and writes the department's seasonal advice: in May, concentrate on the bottom and top of riffles and on flowing shoals, where feeding smallmouth pick off disoriented crayfish, sculpins and baitfish, and leave the still water in the deep holes alone because those fish are resting. His topwater window is early morning and dusk, all day when it is overcast, with cork and deer-hair poppers on the fly rod; if 45 minutes of topwater in low light produces nothing, go subsurface. Derby City Fly Fishers put the popper and dry season at June through August in white or yellow, with small Clousers in chartreuse over white or olive over yellow, black or brown Woolly Buggers, and crayfish and sculpin patterns the rest of the time, fished in eddies and seams just below the rapids.
The local flies are the Blue Dixie Devil popper and the D and H Cray from Delamere and Hopkins in Cincinnati, whose Neil Potter guides here and says a good day is 15 to 20 fish over 12 inches. And the club's best tip is the canoe hatch: when the summer flotilla bangs through a rapid it knocks loose bait, so fish the bottom of the rapid after they pass.
The 12 to 15 inch slot below the Forks
Kentucky's regulation 301 KAR 1:201 gives Elkhorn Creek its own rule from the confluence of the North and South forks downstream to the first shoal 3,400 feet above the Kentucky River, as posted with signs: a protected slot on largemouth and smallmouth bass between 12 and 15 inches, with a black bass aggregate daily limit of 10. Fish inside the slot go back; older articles describe a 12 to 16 inch slot with a six-fish limit, but the current administrative regulation reads 12 to 15 and 10, and the signs on the creek follow it. Rock bass are 15 a day statewide with no size limit, and the state prohibits culling.
A Kentucky fishing license is required everywhere on the creek. The slot ends 3,400 feet above the mouth, so the last stretch into Still Waters and the Kentucky River itself fall under the statewide 12-inch minimum and six-bass limit.