Sky Lake WMA camp site 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.

Sky Lake WMA designated camping area, Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. LEGAL BASIS: 40 Miss Admin Code Part 2 Chapter 1, Rule 1.37, from the COMPILATION 2025-26 WMA Regulations (Rev. 04-2025), downloaded from mdwfp.com and read 2026-08-13. That rule says, verbatim: "Camping is allowed in designated areas only. Camping is limited to 14 consecutive days. Camping equipment may not be left unattended for more than 24 hours. All camping equipment and garbage must be removed before final departure." ACCESS PERMIT, NOT A CAMPING FEE: MDWFP Rule 1.6 requires every user of a WMA on land NOT owned by the U.S. Forest Service to carry an Annual, Individual or Family WMA User Permit -- Resident Annual $15.00, Non-Resident Annual $30.00. On USFS-owned WMAs the annual permit is required only of people hunting, fishing or trapping. Anyone exempt from buying a hunting/fishing licence under Miss. Code Ann. 49-7-5 / 49-7-9 is exempt from the permit. MDWFP publishes NO separate per-night camping fee for these sites. Coordinate is MDWFP's own GIS: public ArcGIS service https://arcgis.mdwfp.com/arcgis/rest/services/Website/WMA_New/MapServer layer 0 ('WMA POINT FEATURES'), queried 2026-08-13 for TYPE IN ('CAMPING','CAMP SITE','CAMP SITES'). It is the agency's mapped camp-site point, NOT a field visit and NOT a geocode. MDWFP does not publish per-site facilities, so table/fire-ring/toilet presence is UNKNOWN. No water source is claimed. MDWFP Rule 1.1 also bans alcoholic beverages on WMAs and target shooting outside designated ranges. Hunting seasons run on these areas -- check mdwfp.com/wma for the current season dates and any draw-hunt closure before you go, and wear hunter orange in season. Nearest town: Isola ~7.2 mi -- STRAIGHT-LINE distance to the nearest OpenStreetMap place=city/town/village, NOT a driving distance; in the Delta and the Pascagoula bottoms the road in can be far longer. MDWFP does not name its individual camp points, so the number in this row's name is ours, assigned in MDWFP OBJECTID order, not a sign on the ground. Ingest 2026-08-13. --- NIGHT SHIFT REVIEW 2026-08-18 (reviewer=nightshift-verified) --- Coordinate re-checked against the live agency source this fire: MDWFP ArcGIS https://arcgis.mdwfp.com/arcgis/rest/services/Website/WMA_New/MapServer layer 0 ('WMA POINT FEATURES'), re-queried 2026-08-18 for TYPE IN ('CAMPING','CAMP SITE','CAMP SITES'). 182 camp points came back and this row's lat/lon still matches its agency point EXACTLY (0 m): OBJECTID 38086, TYPE 'CAMP SITE', WMA label 'SKY LAKE WMA'. All 92 pending MDWFP rows in this state matched exactly, so the coordinate provenance recorded above holds. CONTAINMENT re-checked this fire against layer 2 ('WMA PROPERTY BOUNDARY') with a point-in-polygon query: the point falls inside 'SKY LAKE WMA'. Rule text re-read 2026-08-18 at https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/mississippi/40-Miss-Code-R-2-1.37 (40 Miss. Code R. 2-1.37, marked '[Effective 6/30/2025]'). The camping paragraph still reads verbatim as recorded above: "Camping is allowed in designated areas only. Camping is limited to 14 consecutive days. Camping equipment may not be left unattended for more than 24 hours. All camping equipment and garbage must be removed before final departure." SOURCING CAVEAT: the 2025-26 compilation PDF cited above could NOT be re-fetched from mdwfp.com this fire. The live WMA page (https://www.mdwfp.com/wildlife-hunting/wildlife-management-areas, read 2026-08-18) now links only a 5-page '2024-25 WMA Rules FINAL.pdf' that contains Rules 1.1, 1.3 and 1.4 and no per-WMA rules, and sos.ms.gov returned HTTP 403 to every request. The rule text was therefore re-read at Cornell LII's copy of the Mississippi Administrative Code, which is a MIRROR, not a first-party state page. Treat the rule text as verified-by-mirror. WMA User Permit re-verified 2026-08-18 at 40 Miss. Code R. 2-1.6 [Effective 6/30/2025]: Resident Annual $15.00, Non-Resident Annual $30.00; required of ALL users on WMA property not owned by the U.S. Forest Service, and on USFS-owned WMA property only of those hunting, fishing or trapping; persons exempt from a licence under Miss. Code Ann. 49-7-5 / 49-7-9 are exempt. Unchanged from what is recorded above. DUPLICATE CHECK: every pending Mississippi row was compared BY COORDINATE (haversine, never by name) against all published and 'later' Mississippi camps. This row has no published camp within 1500 m and no other pending row within 120 m. VERDICT: HOLDS UP. Agency-mapped camp point confirmed inside the Sky Lake WMA boundary. One caveat found this fire that is worth carrying forward: MDWFP's point layer mislabels the WMA field on some features. Four points tagged 'MAHANNAH WMA' (TRAIL HEAD, PAVILION, BATH HOUSE, OFFICE -- OBJECTIDs 32021-32024) actually plot at 33.285,-90.483, about 1.1 km from this Sky Lake camp point and roughly 89 km from Mahannah; they are almost certainly Sky Lake features. This row's own point was confirmed inside the Sky Lake boundary by point-in-polygon, so the row itself is sound, but do not trust that layer's WMA text field without a containment check. Facilities UNKNOWN, no water claimed.

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.