The Louisville District decides your float
Green River Lake Dam belongs to the Corps of Engineers' Louisville District, not Nashville, and it is not a peaking hydropower dam; what it does is release, and Kentucky Fish and Wildlife says water releases from the dam control the fishing. The department's Pool 6 page links the Corps' Daily Lake Report and Three Day Lake Release Forecast, and its stream biologists give the numbers: the best release levels for fishing the Green are under 300 cfs with 100 to 200 ideal, and Lee McClellan's Blue Water Trails article puts good paddling up to 500 cfs and calls the river hairy beyond 750. Taylor County tourism, which runs the tailwater access, says flows over 800 cfs can be dangerous and gives the Corps' number, 270-465-4463. The Corps also changed how it releases, drawing water from depths matched to the season, which biologist David Baker credits for stronger spawns and healthier mussels.
Right below the dam the rule is rod in hand only, artificial bait with a single hook or live bait on a single hook, from the dam down to the end of the concrete wall, and boats are not allowed upstream of the tailwater ramp.
Munfordville, and what its gauge does and does not show
USGS 03308500 at Munfordville is the gauge Kentucky Fish and Wildlife rates for the Hart County section: under 300 cfs low, 300 to 600 good, over 600 high, which is the band on this page. It sits about 78 river miles below the dam by the department's site-to-site mileages, so it reads the release plus Russell Creek, Little Barren River and every spring between, and a change at the dam takes more than a day to show. For the upper floats the department uses the Greensburg gauge in feet instead, 1.0 to 1.75 good. The other hub gauge, Green River at Mammoth Cave, is at Green River Ferry nearly 30 river miles farther down and above the Nolin, so it tracks Munfordville with a lag; the Spottsville gauge at Lock 1 near the Ohio reads negative when the Ohio backs up and is useless here.
In the ten days before September 23, 2026 Munfordville fell from 599 to 267 cfs as the Corps trimmed the release, right through the good band and out the bottom of it. Its long-term means run 816 cfs in October, 948 in September, and over 7,000 in February.
Dam to Greensburg: the smallmouth floats
The Tailwater Recreation Area off KY 55 south of Campbellsville is a lit paved lot with a one-lane concrete ramp, bank fishing from the dam down to the ramp, and the first shoal a quarter mile below the KY 55 bridge. From there the department's mileages run 12.5 to Roachville Ford, a low-water gravel ford off KY 3098 reached from the south side via Thunder Road off KY 417 for the shorter shuttle; 6.6 to Russell Ford, a gravel bar; 2.3 to American Legion Park under the KY 417 bridge; and 2.0 to the Greensburg City Ramp, which has cabins on the hill. McClellan calls the dam-to-Roachville float a serious one, an eight-hour nonstop paddle in a kayak when the release drops below 200 cfs, so put in at first light. The 2019 Kentucky Afield float advice is Roachville to Russell Ford, 6.5 miles with the best smallmouth water from the mouth of Meadow Creek to the takeout, then Russell Ford to Greensburg, where the deep rocky pool halfway to the KY 417 bridge and the flowing stretch above the U.S. 68 bridge are the spots.
David Baker's sampling of this reach is the reason to make the drive: smallmouth to 22 inches, fish over 20 every year, a phenomenal count of 16-inch fish in 2014, largemouth to six pounds, spotted bass, and muskellunge in numbers, 30 or 40 in a sampling run, a 44-inch fish just above Roachville Ford before the big island, and at times a big muskie in every deep hole from the dam to Roachville. Walleye gather below the dam from December through March.
Hart County to Mammoth Cave, with the locks gone
Below Greensburg the floats lengthen: 13.7 miles from the city ramp to Glenview Ford, 19.2 to the Lynn Camp Creek ramp, 18.2 to H. H. Wilson Park and Johnson Spring, 3.6 to Stovall Park in Munfordville, then 21 miles to Dennison Ferry inside the national park, 7.5 to Green River Ferry and 12.3 to Houchins Ferry. Lynn Camp is private land opened to the public, Glenview is surrounded by private land with no bank fishing, and the two Munfordville ramps end in a drop-off. Inside Mammoth Cave National Park no fishing license is required, state size and creel limits still apply, Dennison Ferry is day-use with concrete steps for small boats, Green River Ferry takes trailered boats launched on the downstream side of the ferry, and Houchins is carry-down only.
The Corps removed Lock and Dam 6 near Brownsville in 2017 and Lock and Dam 5 in 2021, ending the artificial pool that had drowned the park's riffles, and the department's Pool 6 label is now historical: the river runs free for 120 miles from the tailwater to the old Lock 6 site. The Park Service's own count is more mussel species than any river in North America, seven of them endangered, and it prohibits touching or possessing live mussels or shells.
Muskie at 30 inches, statewide bass rules, and the summer program
Below the concrete wall the Green carries Kentucky's statewide limits: six black bass a day with a 12-inch minimum on largemouth and smallmouth and none on spotted bass; 15 rock bass; one muskellunge at a 30-inch minimum; six sauger, walleye or hybrids combined at 14 inches; 20 crappie; and no culling. Green River Lake itself has a 40-inch muskie rule, but that ends at the dam. A Kentucky license is required from the dam to the park boundary, none inside the park, and the license comes back at Houchins Ferry.
The summer program the department prints for these floats is a 4-inch green pumpkin stick bait on a light head tumbled through the runs, a Ned-style bait in the Greensburg pool, and for fly rods bass-sized yellow and black cork poppers in the eddies behind boulders, which also draw the largemouth. Strikes are subtle in warm water, so watch the line. Rock bass are thick enough to be a target, and the deeper holes with wood hold crappie for the table.