The Boone Lake Cut-Through forms an island.  The island is TVA property and we get a lot of folks that camp out on that island.  There’s actually rumored to be a bear on the island, so if you’re camping over there, keep your food up in a tree.

Find Point 18

We’re at Point 18 on the Watauga Side of the river on Boone Lake.  You can see that that sign is green and it is on our right, so we’re going downstream.  To get to the Cut-Through look for Point 18.

The Cut-Through is a narrow passage; it’s about 15 feet wide.  For most boats, it’s passable.  Anything under 30 feet that doesn’t draw more than 3 feet, should be able to go through here when the lake is all the way up.

Watch Out For The Hidden Rock

But there is one tricky spot.  There is a hidden rock, that catches a lot of props and a lot of bottoms of a lot of boats.  The idea when entering the Cut-Through is when you get into the “no return” point, if you’ll give your horn a couple of beeps to let folks know that you’re coming through.

On a bow rider like we have today, we’re drawing about 4 feet of water.  I’m going to bring my trim up to about a quarter on this boat.  On another boat it might be a little more.  Depth gauge right now is showing about 8.5 feet.

As we go through, you’ll see this rock on our right.  The rock you want to miss is right down below here.  As you look over the edge you can see the dirt over the top of that rock.  Now we’re at about 3.7 feet at the shallowest point.

Careful In A Bow Rider – Trim Your Motor

Approaching the Cut-Through from the upstream side, when you’re coming through this way, you just have to know that rock’s on the other side of the boat.  I try to stay about 2 feet off of that rock and it leaves you plenty of room on the other side.

If you’re in a pontoon boat, it’s really a no-brainer.  You can leave the trim all the way down as you come through.  We’ve got one guy over at our dock at Rockingham Marina who swears he’s water-ski’d through this slot.  I would not recommend that — pretty dangerous little feat.  If the water is down even a couple of feet, I wouldn’t bring a bow rider through, I’d go around the island.

The Cut-Through is so popular because it cuts about 2 miles off your trip.  It also makes you miss Rockingham Marina which has the best hamburgers on the lake, so you might want to skip the Cut-Through and go by Rockingham Marina and get a cheeseburger and come ice cream.

Navigated The Cut-Through? Leave A Comment!

Have you navigated through the Cut-Through? Let us know what boat you were in and how it went in the comments.

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