Boles Field Campground
We don’t think it should be. Every campground should hold some sites for whoever drives up.Tell your representative →
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 30 of the next 30 nights read 14:58 UTC
- A night
- $6From, per site
- Sites
- 20All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 4 notices
In the agency’s own words
Boles Field is located in the northern portion of Sabine National Forest in eastern Texas, near the border of Louisiana. The area centers around a cemetery for fox hounds established at the turn of the century, and some of the world's most well-known hunting dogs are buried here. Campsites: First come, first served; 20 campsites with electric and water. Camping Fee: $6; 14 days camping limit; up to 2 tents;8 people per site Recreation With the Toledo Bend Reservoir just six miles miles away, Boles Field offers an opportunity to visit one of the nation's most regarded freshwater fishing sites. The National Forests and Grasslands in Texas provide excellent opportunities for bird watching and wildlife viewing. East Texas lies in the path of warblers, vireos and other species of neotropical migrants, and birders look forward to the spring migration. Keep reading
Facilities
Uniquely developed for large gatherings, Boles Field has an amphitheater which holds approximately 100 people and group shelter that accommodate family events. Both are for day-use only. Campsites: First come, first served; 20 campsites with electric and water; equipped with water and electric hookups. Horses are allowed in the campground. Camping Fee: $6; 14 days camping limit; up to 2 tents;8 people per site Day Use Shelter & Amphitheater available for Reservation: 877-444-6777 or through website (www.Recreation.gov)
Natural Features
The campground sits in a pine and hardwood forest near the Toledo Bend Reservoirs, two large east Texas lakes. Wildlife is abundant, and the area is a hot spot for migratory birds. Nearby Attractions
What the agency tells you
Events comprising groups of 75 or more people require a special use permit; requests must be made minimum of 30 days in advance
All campsites are on a first-come, first-served basis; fees payable self-pay station on the north side of the recreation area
Click here for more about the National Forests and Grasslands in Texas
Everything else this campground posts · 1
Don't Move Firewood: Help protect our forests! Prevent the spread of tree-killing pests by obtaining firewood at or near your destination and burning it on-site. Moving firewood is illegal in some states. Visit dontmovefirewood.org to learn more.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 20
- Hookups
- 20 electric, 20 water
- Accessible sites
- None listed
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Camp host
- On site
- recreation.gov lists “Host”
Around the campground
- On the water
- Reservoir, Lake
Full this Saturdayread 14:58 UTC
How full the weekend is nationally.
OpenBooked
The one site on offer is taken this Saturday. 2 are free on Mon, Oct 19. read 14:58 UTC Why the weekend fills and the week doesn’t
Watch for a cancellation
Watch this campground
One email when a night opens, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We read recreation.gov once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time a site in your window is free for the nights you asked for.
Scanners that check every few minutes exist, and most of them charge. This one is free, it reads the same calendar, and it won’t always be first.
We make nothing when you book. The link goes straight to the government.
Every line of the receipt · 14
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rate for this season, $6 a night, plus one $8 recreation.gov reservation fee for the booking. A weekend here means Friday and Saturday night, booked once. Optional charges (an extra vehicle, a second tent, a dump-station fee) are listed separately and aren’t in this total.
Who keeps the booking fee
The agency’s own policy text says the reservation fee and the cancellation processing fee are “retained by the reservation service contractor”, and that a campground concessionaire will decline to refund them because “they did not receive these fees”. Recreation.gov is run under contract by Booz Allen Hamilton. What share of your booking fee the contractor keeps isn’t published in any federal dataset we can read, so we print no number for it. Our reporting on the contract →
How we know this receipt · 5
recreation.gov availability, read 14:58 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
22 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 22 mapped sitesAll 22 records
The price is derived by CAMPANAC, not published per site: the per-night rate this campground publishes for each site’s own site type. 20 of the 22 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| North Tx FM 2694 | 1 | standard electric | 30 amp | 89 ft | 1.3 mi | $6 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 2 | standard electric | 30 amp | 76 ft | 1.3 mi | $6 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 21 Shelter | day use | 30 amp | 452 ft | 1.2 mi | $25 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 22 Amphitheater | day use | 30 amp | 131 ft | 1.3 mi | $25 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 3 | standard electric | 30 amp | 28 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 4 | standard electric | 30 amp | 28 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 5 | standard electric | 30 amp | 31 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 6 | standard electric | 30 amp | 46 ft | 1.3 mi | $6 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 7 | standard electric | 30 amp | 71 ft | 1.3 mi | $6 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 8 | standard electric | 30 amp | 46 ft | 1.3 mi | $6 |
| North Tx FM 2694 | 9 | standard electric | 30 amp | 78 ft | 1.3 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 10 | standard electric | 30 amp | 48 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 11 | standard electric | 30 amp | 48 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 12 | standard electric | 30 amp | 23 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 13 | standard electric | 30 amp | 23 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 14 | standard electric | 30 amp | 48 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 15 | standard electric | 30 amp | 72 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 16 | standard electric | 30 amp | 67 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 17 | standard electric | 30 amp | 67 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 18 | standard electric | 30 amp | 63 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 19 | standard electric | 30 amp | 63 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
| South Tx Fm 2694 | 20 | standard electric | 30 amp | 138 ft | 1.2 mi | $6 |
The agency files 2 more records here that aren’t sites for the night. It files them as day use. They’re in the table above, marked for what they are, and none of them is counted as a site.
OpenStreetMap has no toilet mapped within 1 km of this campground, so no site here carries a toilet distance. That’s a gap in the map, not a finding about the campground.
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions
Where it is
Red Hills LakeSabine National Forest · 22 mi
TownsendAngelina National Forest · 35 miIndian Mounds: (409) 625-194036 miLakeview Campground: (409) 625-194036 miFrom Shelbyville, Texas, take Highway 87 south. Turn left on Texas FM 417 and proceed east for a mile, then take a right at the fork onto Texas FM 2694 and continue 5.5 miles to the campground.
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Huxley, TX
Typical weather
Typical October night 53°F, day 80°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 36°F. Bring the bag rated for it.
Daily high and lowDays with 0.10 in or more
A normal is the 1991-2020 average for the month, not a forecast: about half of all Augusts are colder than the August line. The seven-day forecast above answers the other question.
The land, and who answers for it
who answers for it · a letter you can send
Who answers for this land
Boles Field Campground is in Texas’s 1st congressional district. Its representative, Nathaniel Moran (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →
Who can change it · 3
Two offices, two different asks. The draft to the agency asks it to set aside a published share of the sites here for whoever drives up. The draft to Congress asks why that share is zero and presses for a published minimum at the campgrounds it funds.
- The member who votes the moneyNathaniel MoranU.S. Representative · Texas’s 1st district
- Your senator, on the same appropriationJohn CornynU.S. Senator · Texas
- Your senator, on the same appropriationTed CruzU.S. Senator · Texas
Read the draft, or change the wording
For the camper who turned up, or tried to book, and couldn’t get in. Every draft is written from this campground’s own record (its agency, its unit, its site count and its own weekend) and the buttons above copy whichever wording is selected here.
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Boles Field Campground, Sabine National Forest, Texas
Dear Nathaniel Moran, I’m a constituent in Texas’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Boles Field Campground, Sabine National Forest, Texas, and couldn’t. All 20 sites at Boles Field Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Boles Field Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Boles Field Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Boles Field Campground (Sabine National Forest, Texas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Boles Field Campground, Sabine National Forest, Texas
Dear John Cornyn, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Boles Field Campground, Sabine National Forest, Texas, and couldn’t. All 20 sites at Boles Field Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Boles Field Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Boles Field Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Boles Field Campground (Sabine National Forest, Texas) via campanac.com
Asks them to put the question to the agency in writing, and to press for a published minimum share of walk-up sites across the campgrounds they fund.
Subject Walk-up camping at Boles Field Campground, Sabine National Forest, Texas
Dear Ted Cruz, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Boles Field Campground, Sabine National Forest, Texas, and couldn’t. All 20 sites at Boles Field Campground are reservable, and the agency's own record lists none held back for somebody who drives up. On Saturday, October 17, the one site recreation.gov was offering there was already booked. 1,623 of the 7,647 federal campgrounds in this country still keep at least some sites for whoever arrives first. Boles Field Campground keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Boles Field Campground. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Forest Service in writing: why is the share of first-come sites there zero, and what would a published minimum share cost? Please press for that minimum at the federal campgrounds you fund. The people who open these campgrounds, collect the fees and keep the water running are seasonal positions. At GS-5, base pay plus the government's own 36.25% benefit factor, one costs about $47,414 a year. One percent of the $13.3 billion the USS Gerald R. Ford cost to procure would pay for about 2,800 of them for a year. Both figures are the government's own (a Congressional Research Service report and an OPM pay table), and I’m glad to send them. Sent about Boles Field Campground (Sabine National Forest, Texas) via campanac.com