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Home › Waters › Kentucky › Royal Springs
Spring creek · Scott County, the karst spring at the head of Royal Spring Branch in the middle of Georgetown, in the Kentucky bluegrass north of Lexington · Kentucky

Royal Springs Fishing Guides

The largest karst spring in the bluegrass, rising in the middle of Georgetown and running cold and clear year round on a gauge that reports discharge and stage.

A wide river below a ridge in full autumn colour in the Appalachians
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

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About the Royal Springs

Royal Springs rises in the middle of Georgetown, a few blocks from the courthouse, and it is the largest karst spring in the Kentucky bluegrass. Water that fell as rain across several square miles of limestone farmland north and west of town disappears into sinkholes, travels underground through a conduit system that has been dye traced for miles, and comes back to the surface here in a single pool before running south as Royal Spring Branch toward North Elkhorn Creek. The spring has supplied the town with drinking water since the eighteenth century, which is why it is gauged and why there is a continuous record of it at all.

What makes it interesting to an angler is the thermal behaviour rather than the size. A true karst spring discharges at close to the mean annual air temperature and barely moves off it, so the water leaves the ground in the middle fifties through the whole year. It does not freeze in January and it does not climb into the eighties in July, and that stability propagates a surprising distance downstream. The gauge reports discharge and stage together, and the discharge trace is the useful one, because a karst system responds to rainfall in hours rather than days and the branch below can go from clear to unfishable and back inside a single afternoon.

The fishing is smallmouth and rock bass water in the branch below the spring, with longear and green sunfish in the slower pockets and channel catfish in the deeper holes. The cold discharge supports stocked rainbow trout through parts of the year in the reach nearest the spring, which is unusual this far into the bluegrass. Access immediately at the spring is limited because it is an active municipal water source, so most fishing happens downstream on North Elkhorn Creek, one of the better smallmouth streams in the state and the reason to come here at all.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Royal Springs.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Royal Springs cfs

Now: 1.3 cfs, read 4:50 pm CDT, Sun Oct 18, 2026 (USGS 03288110, ROYAL SPRINGS AT GEORGETOWN, KY).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Georgetown - the county seat built around the spring, with full services, lodging and the gauge reference point.
Royal Spring Park - the park at the spring itself, with the springhouse and interpretive signage.
North Elkhorn Creek - the receiving stream south of town and the main smallmouth fishery here.
Elkhorn Creek at Forks of Elkhorn - where the north and south forks join, with public bank access.
Great Crossing Park - Georgetown parkland on the creek, with trails and water access.
Lexington - half an hour south, with the nearest airport, tackle shops and guide services.
Frankfort - west down the Kentucky River, with further lodging and access to the lower Elkhorn.

Seasons

Spring: high and often coloured as karst recharge peaks, though the smallmouth fishing downstream turns on quickly once it drops.
Summer: the best of the year, with the cold spring discharge holding the upper branch fishable while the rest of the bluegrass warms.
Fall: low, clear and settled, the easiest wading and sight fishing of the season on the creek below.
Winter: cold above but never frozen at the spring, with slow but genuine smallmouth and trout fishing on mild days.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Royal Springs?

As of Oct 18, 4:50 pm, the USGS gauge ROYAL SPRINGS AT GEORGETOWN, KY reads 1 cfs. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Royal Springs?

Anglers target Bluegill, Channel Catfish, Creek Chub, Green Sunfish, Largemouth Bass, Longear Sunfish, Rainbow Trout, Rock Bass, Smallmouth Bass, White Sucker on the Royal Springs in Kentucky.

Where can you access the Royal Springs?

Georgetown - the county seat built around the spring, with full services, lodging and the gauge reference point. Royal Spring Park - the park at the spring itself, with the springhouse and interpretive signage. North Elkhorn Creek - the receiving stream south of town and the main smallmouth fishery here. Elkhorn Creek at Forks of Elkhorn - where the north and south forks join, with public bank access. Great Crossing Park - Georgetown parkland on the creek, with trails and water access. Lexington - half an hour south, with the nearest airport, tackle shops and guide services. Frankfort - west d...

When is the best time to fish the Royal Springs?

Spring: high and often coloured as karst recharge peaks, though the smallmouth fishing downstream turns on quickly once it drops. Summer: the best of the year, with the cold spring discharge holding the upper branch fishable while the rest of the bluegrass warms. Fall: low, clear and settled, the easiest wading and sight fishing of the season on the creek below. Winter: cold above but never frozen at the spring, with slow but genuine smallmouth and trout fishing on mild days.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Royal Springs?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Kentucky agency site: https://fw.ky.gov/FishBoatGuide/Pages/default.aspx