Arbuckle Springs WMA primitive camp #1

public land records

Thin — A single weak source put this here. Treat the location itself as unconfirmed, not just the details.

AREA RULE (https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/regs/public-hunting-areas-special-regulations, read 2026-08-16): ODWC Special Regulations heading "Arbuckle Springs WMA" (county: Johnston) -- Additional Restrictions, verbatim: "Closed to all nonhunting activities, except for hunter and/or angler camping and fishing, from Oct. 1 - Feb. 15. Hunter and angler camping is allowed in designated areas." LEGAL BASIS -- ODWC Department-Managed Area Rules, https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/regs/department-managed-area-rules, read 2026-08-16, verbatim: "Camping is limited to a maximum of 16 consecutive days, and for no more than 21 days total in any 30-day period on the same WMA. Camping on these areas is limited to two days longer than the period the camper (hunter) is authorized to hunt. Leaving a campsite unattended for a period longer than 48 hours is prohibited. Unattended camp items will be removed. Quiet hours are enforced from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. All dogs or other pets must be kept on a leash or otherwise confined while in camping areas." FIRE -- same page, verbatim: "Fires shall be confined to those areas designated for camping and shall be contained in fireplaces, fire rings, grills, or other facilities designed for this purpose. Fires shall not be left unattended and must be completely extinguished prior to departure." ODWC does not publish a statewide seasonal fire ban on this page; Oklahoma county burn bans are issued separately and are not reflected here. Also verbatim from that page: "Public lands not specifically listed as open are closed." Read the area's own regulation before you go. THIS IS NOT A FEE-FREE PLACE TO ENTER -- fee=0 on this row means ODWC publishes NO per-night camping charge, not that access is free. ODWC's license fee table (https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/licensing/regs/license-fees, read 2026-08-16) states verbatim that an "Annual Wildlife Conservation Passport" is "Required of all persons 18 or older who enter Department owned lands, regardless of residency, unless exempt" at $46 for residents and $239 for nonresidents, and a "3-Day Wildlife Conservation Passport" at $26 / $51. A separate $100 / $200 "Land Access Permit" is "Required for residents ages 18 to 63, and nonresidents of any age, including lifetime license holders to access certain ODWC managed properties." ODWC's fee table says "unless exempt" but does not list the exemptions on that page, so we do not state who is exempt. Treat this as: budget for a permit, and check odwc before you drive. Restroom per ODWC: No. Showers per ODWC: No. Picnic area per ODWC: No. Grills per ODWC: No. ODWC publishes NO site name for this point -- the '#' number in our name is ours, assigned north-to-south within the area for stable identification. It is not an ODWC site number and it is not signed on the ground. WATER: ODWC's layer carries no drinking-water field for camping areas and this row claims none. Do not treat any lake, creek or pond near these sites as potable. COORDINATE PROVENANCE: latitude and longitude are ODWC's own, from its public ArcGIS service https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/server/rest/services/PublicWILMA/WILMAFeatures/MapServer/4 (layer 4, 'Camping Areas'), queried 2026-08-16 with where=1=1 outSR=4326. Every ingested point carries OPENTOPUBL='Yes' in that layer. No geocoding was used. Nearest town: Wapanucka ~8.0 mi. 'Nearest town' is STRAIGHT-LINE distance to the nearest OpenStreetMap place=city/town/village and is NOT a driving distance -- on a Corps lake shoreline or in the Ouachitas the road in is routinely two or three times longer. Ingest 2026-08-16. STATUS=pending: this is a lead for review, not published. --- NIGHT-SHIFT REVIEW PASS 4, 2026-08-20 (reviewer=nightshift-verified) --- EVERY SOURCE BELOW WAS RE-FETCHED LIVE THIS FIRE. (1) https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/server/rest/services/PublicWILMA/WILMAFeatures/MapServer/4 (layer 4, "Camping Areas"), re-queried 2026-08-20 with where=1=1 outSR=4326: 299 features returned. OBJECTID 22420 IS STILL PRESENT -- SITENAME BLANK (ODWC publishes no name for this point), CAMPTYPE BLANK, WMANAME "Arbuckle Springs Wildlife Management Area", OPENTOPUBL "Yes". Its geometry is 0.0 mi from the latitude/longitude stored on this row, i.e. unchanged. Bulk re-check of ALL 112 pending Oklahoma rows against the same pull: 0 had vanished, 0 had moved more than 0.02 mi, 0 had flipped OPENTOPUBL away from 'Yes'. (2) https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/regs/public-hunting-areas-special-regulations, re-read 2026-08-20. This page is PAGINATED -- 13 pages, ?page=0..12 -- and a single fetch of the bare URL returns only the first nine areas; all 13 pages were pulled. The heading for this area is still present, and its Additional Restrictions read verbatim: "Closed to all nonhunting activities, except for hunter and/or angler camping and fishing, from Oct. 1 - Feb. 15." (3) https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/regs/department-managed-area-rules, re-read 2026-08-20: UNCHANGED. The 16-consecutive-day / 21-days-in-30 limit, the 48-hour unattended-camp rule, the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. quiet hours, the fire rule, and "Public lands not specifically listed as open are closed." were each matched verbatim against the live page. (4) https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/licensing/regs/license-fees, re-read 2026-08-20: UNCHANGED. Annual Wildlife Conservation Passport still $46, 3-Day still $26, Land Access Permit still $100 ($200 for nonresidents), and the passport is still described verbatim as "Required of all persons 18 or older who enter Department owned lands, regardless of residency, unless exempt". (5) SECOND SOURCE -- this area's own ODWC page, https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/wma/southeast/arbuckle-springs-wma, read 2026-08-20. Its camping paragraph reads verbatim: "A designated primitive camping area is available, while both lodging and restaurants are available in Tishomingo, Ada, and Atoka." ODWC's GIS maps 2 camping point(s) for this area. CORRECTION TO THE PERMIT PARAGRAPH CARRIED BY EVERY odwc_camp ROW: the fee table's "all persons 18 or older who enter Department owned lands" is not the whole rule. The header of the special-regulations page itself (https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/regs/public-hunting-areas-special-regulations, read 2026-08-20) states verbatim: "CONSERVATION PASSPORT AREA: People who use Department-owned areas for nonhunting or nonfishing activities, such as bird-watching or photography, are required to have either a Wildlife Conservation Passport or any current hunting or fishing license issued by the Wildlife Department." A current Oklahoma hunting or fishing licence therefore satisfies the requirement; the passport is the alternative for someone who holds neither. Say it that way on the page. DUPLICATE CHECK (coordinates, never names): compared against all 1823 published-or-approved camps in Oklahoma and the six surrounding states. Nearest is "Blue River Public Fishing & Hunting Area" (odwc-pfa-blue-river-public-fishing-hunting-area) at 7.859 mi. Well outside any sane duplicate threshold -- this is not a de-duplication case. VERDICT -- APPROVED: ONE CAMPING AREA, DOUBLE-PINNED BY ODWC, AND WE HOLD ONE OF THE TWO PINS. ODWC's prose says "A designated primitive camping area" -- singular. ODWC's GIS maps TWO Arbuckle Springs points, but they are 0.058 mi (102 yards) apart, which is one clearing recorded twice rather than two separate camps. Our database holds only one of the two, so this row publishes one marker for one camping area. This is the same shape as the Atoka WMA case pass 1 held, EXCEPT that at Atoka the two points were 0.18 mi apart and BOTH were in the database, so publishing risked inventing a second camp; here only one is held and the separation is 102 yards. Position check: the point is 0.028 mi from an ODWC-mapped parking feature (layer 2, pulled live this fire). SEASONAL RULE, verbatim above: for four and a half months of the year this area is closed to everyone except hunters, anglers and their camps.

Read from the agency's own season / closure text in this record (data/conditions.py) and checked against the calendar. The words we read are printed under the verdict at the top of the page.

US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.

On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.