LakeUnited States · US
Secession Lake
Secession Lake — most officially written Lake Secession — is a long, low-key reservoir on the Rocky River in the Upstate's Abbeville and Anderson counties. Born in 1940 as a New Deal hydroelectric project and named for the town that first voted to leave the Union, it has quietly become one of South Carolina's best small-lake escapes: 1,425 acres of warm, fertile water with an outsize reputation for crappie and bass, 52 miles of mostly undeveloped shoreline, and a relaxed, family-friendly atmosphere just 15 miles south of Anderson. It isn't a glossy resort lake and it isn't trying to be. The draw here is open water without the crowds — calm coves, scattered lakeside cottages, a working 1940s dam you can walk up to, and reliably good fishing. For anglers, paddlers, and anyone who likes a sunset seen from the bank, Secession Lake delivers the kind of easy, unhurried day the bigger Upstate reservoirs often can't.