Tall Chief Cove
- Right now
- Taking bookingsSites offered on 14 of the next 14 nights read 15:08 UTC
- A night
- $24–$34Across the site types the agency prices
- Sites
- 49All of them booked ahead
The place
the agency’s own description · what’s there · 6 notices
In the agency’s own words
Located on beautiful Skiatook Lake in northeast Oklahoma, Tall Chief Cove is one of the most popular campgrounds in the region. The campground has a variety of sites along the forested lakeshore, and visitors can enjoy boating, hiking, swimming, picnicking and fishing from the facility. Keep reading
Recreation
Families enjoy the convenience of this facility's swim beach, picnic areas, nature trail, playground and educational programs. Sport fishing for largemouth bass, black and white crappie, channel catfish and several species of sunfish offers anglers many hours of enjoyment on the lake. About 6,000 acres of public land in the lake area are open to hunters wishing to pursue whitetail, quail, rabbit and squirrel.
Facilities
Tall Chief Cove offers 50 individual sites with electric hookups and one group picnic shelter for day use that can host up to 200 people. All guests with reservations can utilize our professional style volley ball court, basketball court, disc golf course, or horseshoe pits. The campground provides covered picnic tables, restrooms and showers.
Natural Features
Gentle rolling hills of blackjack and post oak trees intersperse with tall grass prairie around the glistening lake. The shoreline is accentuated by steep picturesque bluffs which offer views of the water.
What the agency tells you
Check-in time is 3:00 PM. Check-out time is 1:00 PM.
A campground attendant is available from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday-Monday.
Gates closed 10pm-6am every day.
Everything else this campground posts · 3
Water is shared, it is recommended to bring extra hose.
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.
Basketball, Disc Golf Discs, volleyballs, and horse shoes are available to check out at gate house by registered camper.
Tents and rigs
- Sites
- 49
- Hookups
- 49 electric, 49 water
- Longest rig
- 90 ft
- Paved pads
- All
- Accessible sites
- 2
- Pets
- Allowed
- Campfires
- Allowed, barring fire bans
- Shade
- Every site
Facilities
- Showers
- Yes, the record doesn’t say what kind
- “The campground provides covered picnic tables, restrooms and showers.”
- Playground
- Yes
- Stay limit
- 14 nights
- recreation.gov facility rule maxStay
Around the campground
- On the water
- Lake, Beach
- Boating
- Fishing
- Swimming
- Night sky · 103rd darkest of 106 in OK
- Bortle 4
Something open on 14 of the next 14 bookable nightsread 15:08 UTC
Every site here is reservable, and the record lists none held back for anyone who drives up.
OpenBooked
Watch for a cancellation
Full? Watch it.
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.
Tell me when the season opens
Watch for the season to open
One email when the season goes on sale, plus More Than Just Parks dispatches. Unsubscribe any time.
We check once an hour, at 40 minutes past, and write the first time the agency has that season on sale.
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 · 15
What you actually pay
Derived by CAMPANAC: the agency’s published rates for this season, $24–$34 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 15:08 UTC · rules read Sep 9, 2026 · rates Sep 10, 2026 · How we know all this
The sites
50 records · which ones have room · the site map
The sites, ranked
from 50 mapped sitesAll 50 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. 49 of the 50 sites listed carry one, and a site whose type has no published rate sits out of the price rather than being called free.
| A | 1011 | standard electric | 33 ft | 50 amp | 73 ft | 131 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | 1415 | standard electric | 30 ft | 50 amp | 82 ft | 61 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | 2829 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | 109 ft | 486 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A04 | standard electric | 73 ft | 50 amp | 109 ft | 179 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A05 | standard electric | 90 ft | 50 amp | 90 ft | 172 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A06 | standard electric | 81 ft | 50 amp | 86 ft | 74 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A07 | standard electric | 78 ft | 50 amp | 86 ft | under 10 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A08 | standard electric | 66 ft | 50 amp | 73 ft | 103 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A09 | standard electric | 52 ft | 50 amp | 115 ft | 35 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A12 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 102 ft | 29 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A13 | standard electric | 88 ft | 50 amp | 106 ft | 133 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A16 | standard electric | 75 ft | 50 amp | 86 ft | 117 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A17 | standard electric | 77 ft | 50 amp | 82 ft | 39 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A18 | standard electric | 58 ft | 50 amp | 81 ft | 38 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A19 | standard electric | 90 ft | 50 amp | 91 ft | 142 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A20 | standard electric | 40 ft | 50 amp | 81 ft | 39 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A21 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50 amp | 91 ft | 134 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A22 | standard electric | 63 ft | 50 amp | 113 ft | 53 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A23 | standard electric | 54 ft | 50 amp | 94 ft | 109 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A24 | standard electric | 68 ft | 50 amp | 93 ft | 215 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A25 | standard electric | 60 ft | 50 amp | 93 ft | 203 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A26 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50 amp | 109 ft | 388 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | A27 | standard electric | 66 ft | 50 amp | 95 ft | 308 ft | $24–$34 | |
| A | H01 | standard electric | 63 ft | 50 amp | yes | 70 ft | 551 ft | $24–$34 |
| A | H02 | standard electric | 53 ft | 50 amp | yes | 70 ft | 493 ft | $24–$34 |
| B | 4041 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 103 ft | 44 ft | $24–$34 | |
| B | B32 | standard electric | 51 ft | 50 amp | 170 ft | 65 ft | $24–$34 | |
| B | B33 | standard electric | 74 ft | 50 amp | 109 ft | 146 ft | $24–$34 | |
| B | B34 | standard electric | 56 ft | 50 amp | 109 ft | 35 ft | $24–$34 | |
| B | B35 | standard electric | 45 ft | 50 amp | 71 ft | 45 ft | $24–$34 | |
| B | B36 | standard electric | 50 ft | 50 amp | 71 ft | 52 ft | $24–$34 | |
| B | B37 | standard electric | 62 ft | 50 amp | 78 ft | 102 ft | $24–$34 | |
| B | B38 | standard electric | 55 ft | 50 amp | 65 ft | 28 ft | $24–$34 | |
| B | B39 | standard electric | 43 ft | 50 amp | 65 ft | under 10 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | 4445 | standard electric | 33 ft | 50 amp | 103 ft | 19 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C42 | standard electric | 48 ft | 50 amp | 71 ft | 85 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C43 | standard electric | 47 ft | 50 amp | 71 ft | 41 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C46 | standard electric | 35 ft | 50 amp | 84 ft | 127 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C47 | standard electric | 60 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 146 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C48 | standard electric | 44 ft | 50 amp | 101 ft | 49 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C49 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50 amp | 80 ft | 192 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C50 | standard electric | 52 ft | 50 amp | 101 ft | 60 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C51 | standard electric | 68 ft | 50 amp | 88 ft | 34 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C52 | standard electric | 84 ft | 50 amp | 101 ft | 159 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C53 | standard electric | 54 ft | 50 amp | 88 ft | 36 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C54 | standard electric | 67 ft | 50 amp | 101 ft | 175 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C55 | standard electric | 65 ft | 50 amp | 124 ft | 162 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C56 | standard electric | 70 ft | 50 amp | 105 ft | 40 ft | $24–$34 | |
| C | C57 | standard electric | 57 ft | 50 amp | 163 ft | 82 ft | $24–$34 | |
| Day Use Group Shelter | S01 | day use | 30 amp | yes | 330 ft | 490 ft | $50 |
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.
25 of 50 listed
Getting there
the map and the coordinate · the agency’s directions · the phone number
Where it is
Twin Points6.9 mi
Walnut Creek10 mi
Washington Irving South12 mi
Appalachia Bay Recreation Area13 mi
Brush Creek Public Use Area14 mi
Birch Cove15 miFrom Tulsa, Oklahoma, take Highway 75 north to State Highway 20. Take the Skiatook exit, turn west on State Highway 20 and drive about 15 miles. Turn left on Lake Road and proceed about five 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 Skiatook, OK
Typical weather
Typical October night 51°F, day 74°F.
Coldest month of the year: typical January night 28°F, below freezing. Bring a bag rated colder than that, and expect ice in the water bottle.
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
Who answers for this land
Tall Chief Cove is in Oklahoma’s 3rd congressional district. Its representative, Frank Lucas (R), votes on the laws that decide what happens to this land. Public-lands grade so far: F. See every public-lands vote →