American Adventurer
Found · unverifiedIDNR · dispersedFree

Dudgeon Lake WMA

Drive-up · Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources · IA · 42.19587, -92.03042
We haven't personally camped here. Everything below is pulled from public land data, USGS maps and OpenStreetMap — a real place on Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources land, but not field-checked by us. Confirm road conditions, current access, stay limits and fire restrictions before you go.

Iowa DNR Wildlife Management Area — about 2,047 acres, Benton County. Primitive camping is allowed statewide on Iowa DNR wildlife areas by rule — no permit, no camping fee — for up to 14 consecutive days, UNLESS that area posts restrictions on site (Iowa Admin. Code r. 571-51.11). The DNR can close any individual area to camping just by putting up a sign, and there is no statewide list of which ones have, so read the signs at the entrance and treat a posted restriction as final. Iowa DNR's own camping article also says to stay 100+ yards from parking lots, boat ramps and jetties; that sentence was dropped from the rule in the June 2025 rewrite, but it is still good practice and may be posted locally. These are working wildlife areas, not campgrounds: expect a gravel parking area and nothing else — no water, no toilet, no table, no fire ring. Pack water in and everything out. Fall is a hard time to use these: Iowa's shotgun deer seasons and waterfowl season put a lot of hunters on WMAs, and blaze orange plus a different destination is the smarter call. The pin is a representative point inside the official DNR boundary, NOT a campsite or a parking lot — scout the actual access off the DNR atlas before you commit to it after dark.

USGS topo — contours & terrain
USGS topographic map of Dudgeon Lake WMA
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Aerial image of Dudgeon Lake WMA
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Weather outlook
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 772 ft.
Fire & smokeNIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.

Everything you need

Services & drive-time data covers the public-lands states we've mapped so far — not this camp's region yet. Open in Google Maps ↗

The site

Access
Drive-up
Land
Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources · dispersed
Elevation
772 ft
State
IA
Coordinates
42.19587, -92.03042
Cost
Free

Nearby & resupply (OpenStreetMap)

  • Water featurePrairie Creek (stream) · nearby
  • Nearest townVinton · ~2.0 mi
  • Drinking waterDrinking water · ~6.9 mi
  • FuelFuel · ~1.9 mi
  • Propane / LPGCasey's General Store · ~27.7 mi
  • Dump stationDump station · ~8.8 mi
  • GroceriesFareway Meat & Grocery · ~2.1 mi
  • PharmacyWalmart Pharmacy · ~19.0 mi
  • Hospital / clinicVirginia Gay Hospital · ~1.8 mi
  • HardwareAtkins Lumber · ~16.3 mi

Nearby restrooms — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)

Open this spot elsewhere

Google satellite →Gaia GPS →CalTopo →Back to the map →

Other camps nearby

If this one is full, gated or washed out.

How we know this

Source
Iowa DNR (wildlife management areas)
Confidence
Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.
How it was placed
Iowa DNR public ArcGIS, Boundaries/Public_Lands/MapServer/0 (programs.iowadnr.gov), TYPE=State Wildlife Management Area, MANAGER='DNR - Wildlife', all 1 parcel(s) OWNER='DNR'; outSR=4326, fetched 2026-07-20. Coordinate = centroid (verified inside boundary) of the largest parcel, so it is inside the official boundary. Independently cross-checked against OpenStreetMap/Overpass: matched 'Dudgeon Lake State Wildlife Mgt Area' at 0.1 mi. Camping basis: Iowa Admin. Code r. 571-51.11(481A) (IAC 5/14/25, ARC 9226C, eff. 6/18/25) — primitive camping allowed on all game management areas, 14 consecutive days, unless posted; r. 571-51.2 puts all DNR land in that class. No per-area camping flag exists in the GIS, so this is a category-wide rule applied to a verified DNR-owned unit → confidence='med'. Corps/USFWS-owned units excluded on purpose. Batch 1 (top 50 by acreage) of 396 qualifying areas.
Field check
Not verified on the ground. Nobody from here has camped it. It stays at Likely until someone does.

What we don’t know

A land record can put you within a few metres of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.

Before you go

Your first dispersed night →Fire rules & restrictions →Getting unstuck →Power off-grid →All field notes →
Been here? Tell us what changed. This page is built from public records, so the fastest way it gets better is somebody who has actually pulled in. Road washed out, site gone, gate locked, or it is exactly as described — all of it useful. Send a report →