FALLS LAKE - After a nearly yearlong drought brought a record 10-foot drop at Falls Lake, the reservoir's level has risen to normal just as spring blossoms, drawing relieved recreational users back to its shores, coves and currents.

Bass and crappie fishermen are lining up again at the lake's boat ramps. Families are fishing from its banks. And the season's first wet suit-clad water skiers are carving its glimmering surface -- without having to dodge exposed tree stumps, submerged masonry and other low-water hazards.

Falls Lake is back -- and appreciated more than ever.

"The lake's never seemed as large," said a grateful Phil Powell, 36, a Raleigh human resources specialist who fished the lake this week on his 18-foot fiberglass Triton SF. "Everybody's excited about being back on the lake. It's beautiful. Finally."

A sign at the lake's Upper Barton Creek boat ramp warns, "Notice: Water Level Fluctuation May Create Navigational Hazards."

Powell found out the hard way in November when he dinged his boat's propeller on an underwater stump near the lake's N.C. 50 bridge. While the lake was down, he kayaked its low water and walked its eerily wide banks, turning up forgotten foundation bricks and rusty plow blades.

Powell worried that Raleigh, which draws drinking water from the lake to its north, might go dry.

"It's wonderful now," he said. "It seems like a normal spring. Now if we could just keep gas under three-something a gallon ..."

Recreation a priority

Falls Lake, built and managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, captures rain that falls in parts of several upper Triangle counties. During the drought that's now abating, the lake dropped 10 feet and shrank to half its normal surface size.

It has several purposes besides providing drinking water.

After heavy storms, Falls Lake is designed to swell with floodwater, protecting downstream property and such towns as Smithfield, Goldsboro and Kinston.

From the base of its dam flows the Neuse River, which provides water for downstream communities and varied wildlife.

For those who visit the 28-mile long, 12,410-acre lake and its various amenities, it's a place of joy, wonder and relaxation.

People visit Falls Lake almost 2 million times a year, said Tom Freeman, the Corps' operations project manager at the lake. Many are coming back after a long fall and winter of discontent.

"We're seeing a lot of folks coming out of the woodwork with cabin fever," he said. "It looks so nice not to see mud banks and stick-ups. We're tickled to death."

'Happy and excited'

Sisters Sarah and Maggie Banko of North Raleigh like to fish the lake with their dad and grandpa. When it dropped, they feared for the survival of the animals who live in and around it -- and for their own family's needs.

"Are we going to run out of water?" Sarah, 12, a seventh-grader at Durant Road Middle School, said she wondered. "Or are we going to run out of fish?"

So Sarah and her younger sister were thrilled by the March and April rains that saved the lake from imminent catastrophe.

"I'm happy and excited," said a smiling Maggie, 8, a third-grader at Durant Road Elementary School, as she lifted her sixth small bream of the day out of the replenished reservoir's popular Upper Barton Creek cove.

"It's great," said their grandpa, Peter Banko, 70, a retired IBM programming manager who retired in North Raleigh. "Now my son and I can get our johnboat out and do some trolling."

From sad to bright

Just around a spit of land, where a small creek flows into the cove, yellow pollen coats trees about a foot above the water line, a sign of recent high water that for many months was only a memory.

Farther down Barton Creek, the Aguilera family fished from the bank unsuccessfully, but happily.

"I just come to relax and spend time with my family," said patriarch Filemon Aguilera, 44, a Mexican grocery store clerk. He moved his wife and five children from Gainsville, Ga., to Durham in February.

When the Aguileras first saw Falls Lake, it was more than eight feet low and ragged.

"It seemed sad," Aguilera said. "Now it looks happier, bright. I like it. But I don't catch nothing."

The lake's resurgence is a boon to downstream recreation, too, starting at the tailrace just below the lake's earthen dam.

That's where, just off Falls of Neuse Road, the Paddle Creek store sells kayaks, canoes and guided trips downriver.

Because the lake is back to normal, the Corps is releasing much more water from its dam into the Neuse -- from a low of about 17 million gallons a day in March to a high of 542 million gallons April 14 and about 213 million gallons Thursday.

A dozen people took Paddle Creek's Neuse ride Friday, with more expected this weekend.

"It makes a big difference in going down the river," said Bob Doty, a clerk at the store. "It's a much better ride with the water."

That's proof that Falls Lake's recovery means more than an end to water shortages and the relaxing of irrigation restrictions.

The fun is back, too, just in time.