I dive Summersville Lake a lot.
I've been diving once with Sarge's. Yes, they require a minimum number of divers. No sure what, they are closed for the season. Usually they only get enough divers on weekends. I usually dive during the weekday.
It is possible to do plenty of shore diving, so that's what I usually do. There are only a few places for this.
My favorite, the easiest, and the most popular, is shore diving from the winter access road
here. The wall drops rather steeply down to about 100 feet. There is usually a pronounced thermocline at about 20-25 feet, and it drops to 50 degrees (early summer) or 60 degrees (late summer) below this. I always wear a dry suit with plenty of insulation if I am going deep. Dry gloves early in the summer. You can head east or west from the ramp and explore the surrounding area. There is the wreck of a small motor boat
here at the buoy.
Just west of the winter access ramp is a government-run campgrounf
here. You can shore dive from the campground. I have never done it, can't tell you anything about it.
You can also shore dive from a cove at Mountain Lakes Campground, which is located out by the Summersville Airport
here. This campground is rather nice but the owners do a very poor of running the place, so I hate staying there unless I have to. The cove is up to 60 feet deep or so, the visibility can be very poor (inches).
Anywhere else there is a problem with access. You will have to carry your gear a long ways and there are a lot of cliffs.
