Sandhills WMA Primitive Campground #1

public land records

Likely — The record is good enough to put a pin on, but thin in places. Treat the details as a starting point, not gospel.

GA DNR layer values for this point, verbatim: Camping='Primitive', Access=None, Maintained='Yes', Management='GM', Comments=None, Name=None. Coordinate is Georgia DNR Wildlife Resources Division's own, unrounded, from the agency's public WMA feature service, layer 6 "Campgrounds" (188 points statewide, read 2026-08-16): https://services6.arcgis.com/9QlSLDqa0P1cHLhu/arcgis/rest/services/WRD_WMA_Public/FeatureServer/6 . Not derived, not geocoded, not rounded by us. SECOND SOURCE - the property's own page (https://georgiawildlife.com/sandhills-wma-west, read 2026-08-16) affirms camping: "Primitive camping is allowed in designated areas." - that sentence is on the Sandhills WMA: WEST page. The EAST page says "No camping is allowed." Both GIS points were point-in-polygon tested against GA DNR's own WMA boundary layer (https://services6.arcgis.com/9QlSLDqa0P1cHLhu/arcgis/rest/services/WRD_WMA_Public/FeatureServer/14) and both returned Tract_Name="WEST", Acres=2483.929 - and 2,498 acres is the size DNR prints on the West page. So both sites are on the tract where camping is allowed. GA DNR publishes no street address; the WMA is in Taylor County about 2.5 miles west of the square in Butler. FEE BASIS: Georgia DNR prints a "Fees & Passes" block on every property page and none of the 135 WMA pages read this fire names a camping fee. State-managed WMAs and PFAs print "Land Access: Hunting License, Fishing License, or Lands Pass" - i.e. a licence or Lands Pass is required to BE on the property at all, camping or not. GA DNR (https://georgiawildlife.com/LicenseChanges, read 2026-08-16): "The WMA License is no longer available or required." / "A basic hunting or fishing privilege that allows hunting or fishing on state lands is all that is needed to be present on designated state WMAs". We found no first-party page printing the Lands Pass price, so no price is claimed here. This is an ABSENCE-OF-CAMPING-FEE finding, not a published "free" statement; fee=0 means "no camping charge", not "free to enter". REVIEWER: decide whether a pass-gated site should be labelled on a free-camping map. STATEWIDE WMA RULE, Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. R. 391-4-2-.61 (Camping Regulations on Wildlife Management Areas), verbatim: "All camps or fires shall be in designated campgrounds unless otherwise posted at the check station, except that camping is allowed anywhere on National Forest lands unless otherwise indicated or signed."; camping limited to "a period of time not to exceed 14 consecutive days; after which the campsite shall be vacated and all personally owned property or physical features of the camp removed for a period of not less than 7 days."; "It is unlawful for any person to use any musical instruments, radios, televisions, generators or other noise making devices after 10:00 p.m. daily, in such a manner that such devices may be heard by other WMA visitors." SOURCING CAVEAT: Georgia's official rules host (rules.sos.ga.gov) renders rule text via JavaScript and returned no body text; its API paths returned 403. This rule text was read at https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/georgia/Ga-Comp-R-Regs-R-391-4-2-.61 (Cornell LII), a REPRODUCTION, NOT a .gov source. Clause (1) is corroborated by GA DNR's own per-property pages. --- REVIEW 2026-08-18 (nightshift-verified) --- PRIMARY SOURCE RE-FETCHED TODAY: GA DNR WRD_WMA_Public FeatureServer layer 6 "Campgrounds", https://services6.arcgis.com/9QlSLDqa0P1cHLhu/arcgis/rest/services/WRD_WMA_Public/FeatureServer/6 - still live, still returns exactly 188 points. This point still exists, at the SAME coordinate to 1e-6 deg (no drift), with the SAME Camping/Access/Maintained/Management/Comments/Name values recorded at discovery. Checked for coordinate duplicates against all 35 published+approved GA camps: nearest is over 250 m away, so this is not a re-listing of something already on the map. TRACT RESOLVED TODAY - this mattered. Sandhills WMA is split into two units with SEPARATE DNR pages that say OPPOSITE things: https://georgiawildlife.com/sandhills-wma-east says "No camping is allowed." and https://georgiawildlife.com/sandhills-wma-west says "Primitive camping is allowed in designated areas." I resolved which unit this point is in using the agency's own Boundary layer (https://services6.arcgis.com/9QlSLDqa0P1cHLhu/arcgis/rest/services/WRD_WMA_Public/FeatureServer/14, read 2026-08-18), which carries Tract_Name EAST / WEST; point-in-polygon puts this campground inside the WEST tract (OBJECTID 821, 2483.9 ac). So the camping-allowed page is the governing one. Layer marks this point Camping='Primitive', Maintained='Yes'; Access is NULL - not marked seasonal, but DNR simply does not populate it here, so no year-round claim is made. VERDICT: HOLDS UP -> approved.

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.