Sportsman's Cove
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 17 of the next 30 nights read 15:39 UTC
- A night
- $80From, per site
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 5 notices
In the agency’s own words
Sportsman's Cove Special Event Area is located in the old Mallard Bay/Intake Hill area on the lake. The special event area includes a 60' X 60' pavilion with lights, electrical outlets, access to potable water, 10 picnic tables and a grill, a restroom with showers and A/C, and a parking lot and boat ramp. This area is a great asset to the Wright Patman Lake Project for large scale Special Events and Fishing Tournaments. To make a reservation, please contact the lake office at least two weeks prior to the event at 903-838-8781 for the entrance code and a Special Event Permit or Lake Activity Permit. The area is accessible 6:00am - 10:00pm. Fees: Pavilion $80 per day. Keep reading
Recreation
The special event area includes a 60' X 60' pavilion with lights, electrical outlets, access to potable water, 10 picnic tables and a grill, a restroom with showers and A/C, and a parking lot and boat ramp. This area is a great asset to the Wright Patman Lake Project for large scale Special Events and Fishing Tournaments. Bass, catfish, crappie and sunfish are found in the lake.
Facilities
The special event area has a beautiful, partially-shaded pavilion, near the waterfront. The special event area includes a 60' X 60' pavilion with lights, electrical outlets, access to potable water, 10 picnic tables and a grill, a restroom with showers and A/C, and a parking lot and boat ramp. A dumpster can be found at the left of the restrooms for disposal of trash.
Natural Features
The park is situated in a mixed hardwood-pine forest next to Wright Patman Lake. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages approximately 55,000 acres of public forestland around the lake, providing habitat for wild turkey, bobwhite quail, squirrel, white-tailed deer, waterfowl and migrating bald eagles, pelicans and ducks. Some poisonous snakes inhabit the area.
Nearby Attractions
The Texarkana region is full of activities such as shopping, movies, restaurants and local historical sites. Shreveport, Louisiana offers river boat gambling and horse races.
What the agency tells you
IMPORTANT: You must call the office after making a reservation to determine if you need a special event permit. Office phone number is 903-838-8781 and press 0
The special event area is accessible 6:00am - 10:00pm with a valid reservation.
Visitors are expected to be aware of and to follow Title 36 rules and regulations.
Everything else this campground posts · 2
Don't Move Firewood: Protect your forests from tree-killing pests by buying your firewood locally and burning it on-site. Visit Dontmovefirewood.org for further information.
STOP THE SPREAD OF INVASIVE SPECIES. Remove plants, seeds, animals, and mud from boots, gear, pets, and vehicles. Clean your gear before entering and leaving the recreation site. Stay on designated roads and trails, and follow local guidelines for firewood. CLEAN, DRAIN, DRY boats and any other recreational equipment that contacts water. Dispose of unwanted bait, worms, fish parts, or other organisms into the trash and not into the environment. For more information visit https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/rec.
Facilities
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- Shower/Bath Type states a shower on all 1 of this campground's campsite records
- Drinking water
- Yes
- “…lights, electrical outlets, access to potable water, 10 picnic tables and a grill, a restroom with…”
- Boat ramp
- Yes
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, River, Coast
- Boating
- Fishing
- Picnicking
Full this Saturdayread 15:39 UTC
The agency files 1 record here and marks it day use, not overnight. On its own record there’s nothing here to spend the night in. How full the weekend is nationally.
6 campgrounds have sites open within 30 miles, read 16:46 UTC. See them
OpenBookedClosedNot reservable
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 lowest per-night amount the agency’s fee record states ($80), 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
Open within 30 miles this weekend · 6
Sites the agency is offering this Friday and Saturday that nobody has taken, nearest first; the nearest 5 of 6. read 16:46 UTC
- Clear Springs (TX)Wright Patman Lake · 1.6 mi · 36 of 197 site-nights open
- Rocky Point(Wright Patman Dam)Wright Patman Lake · 4.9 mi · 15 of 236 site-nights open
- Malden Lake CampgroundWright Patman Lake · 12 mi · 31 of 76 site-nights open
- Beard's Bluff Park (AR)Millwood Lake · 27 mi · 10 of 40 site-nights open
- White Cliffs ParkMillwood Lake · 29 mi · 20 of 46 site-nights open
recreation.gov availability, read 15:39 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
1 records · the site map
All 1 records
| Day Use Loop | Sportsman's Cove | day use | 278 ftWright Patman Lake | $80 |
The agency files 1 more record here that isn’t a site for the night. It files it as day use. It’s in the table above, marked for what it is, and it isn’t 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
Where it is
The weather
the next four days · the thirty-year normal
Next four days, and the thirty-year normal
Forecast
NWS forecast for Texarkana, TX
Typical weather
Typical October night 54°F, day 76°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 35°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 Julys are colder than the July 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
Sportsman's Cove 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 Sportsman's Cove, Texas
Dear Nathaniel Moran, I’m a constituent in Texas’s 1st district. I tried to camp at Sportsman's Cove, Texas, and couldn’t. Every site at Sportsman's Cove is 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. Sportsman's Cove keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sportsman's Cove. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Sportsman's Cove (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 Sportsman's Cove, Texas
Dear John Cornyn, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Sportsman's Cove, Texas, and couldn’t. Every site at Sportsman's Cove is 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. Sportsman's Cove keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sportsman's Cove. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Sportsman's Cove (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 Sportsman's Cove, Texas
Dear Ted Cruz, I’m a constituent in Texas. I tried to camp at Sportsman's Cove, Texas, and couldn’t. Every site at Sportsman's Cove is 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. Sportsman's Cove keeps none, and that’s a choice somebody made rather than a rule. I’m not asking you to run Sportsman's Cove. I’m asking you to put it to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 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 Sportsman's Cove (Texas) via campanac.com