Spavinaw GMA (Spavinaw WMA)

public land records

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

UNRESOLVED: ODWC's GIS calls this whole area "Spavinaw Wildlife Management Area", but its regulations split it into "Spavinaw GMA" and "Spavinaw PHA" with DIFFERENT camping rules -- and one of those two may forbid camping outright. A coordinate alone does not tell us which sub-unit this point falls in. Do not publish this row until someone checks which unit it is on. AREA RULE (https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/regs/public-hunting-areas-special-regulations, read 2026-08-16): ODWC Special Regulations heading "Spavinaw GMA" (county: Delaware, Mayes) -- Additional Restrictions, verbatim: "Closed to all nonhunting activities, except hunter camping, from Oct. 1 - Jan. 31 and during spring turkey season. Hunter and angler camping is allowed in designated areas only during open hunting seasons on the area." ALSO: ODWC Special Regulations heading "Spavinaw PHA" (county: Delaware) -- Additional Restrictions, verbatim: "Closed to all nonhunting activities, except hunter camping, from Oct. 1 - Jan. 31 and during spring turkey season. Hunter and angler camping is allowed in designated areas only during open hunting seasons on the area." 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. ODWC camp type: "Primitive". ODWC open dates: "January 1-December 31". Restroom per ODWC: No. Showers per ODWC: No. Picnic area per ODWC: No. Grills per ODWC: No. ODWC site counts: 10 tent, 10 RV. 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: Spavinaw ~5.6 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 2026-08-19 (fire 1090, Oklahoma pass 3, reviewer=nightshift-verified). BULK RE-CHECK done this fire against ODWC's own live ArcGIS layer 4 'Camping Areas' (https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/server/rest/services/PublicWILMA/WILMAFeatures/MapServer/4/query?where=1=1&outFields=*&outSR=4326&f=json, read 2026-08-19; 299 features returned): of the 144 pending Oklahoma odwc_camp rows, 0 had vanished from the layer, 0 had moved more than 0.02 mi from the stored coordinate, and 0 had lost OPENTOPUBL='Yes'. The two rules pages cited above were also re-read verbatim on 2026-08-19 and are UNCHANGED: Department-Managed Area Rules (https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/regs/department-managed-area-rules) still states "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" and "Public lands not specifically listed as open are closed."; the licence-fee table (https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/licensing/regs/license-fees) still states the Wildlife Conservation Passport is "Required of all persons 18 or older who enter Department owned lands, regardless of residency, unless exempt". So the coordinate and the statewide rules HOLD UP. DECISION: APPROVED. Independent second source fetched this fire that this row did not previously cite -- ODWC's own Spavinaw GMA area page, https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/hunting/wma/northeast/spavinaw-gma (read 2026-08-19), Camping/Facilities section, verbatim: "One designated primitive camping area is offered on the area, allowed only during open hunting seasons, while both lodging and restaurants are available in Jay." ODWC's GIS layer carries EXACTLY ONE Spavinaw point and this is it (SITENAME='Spavinaw GMA'), so agency prose and agency GIS agree on the count. CRITICAL RESTRICTION -- special-regulations page, heading "Spavinaw GMA", verbatim (read 2026-08-19): "Hunter and angler camping is allowed in designated areas only during open hunting seasons on the area." and "Closed to all nonhunting activities, except hunter camping, from Oct. 1 - Jan. 31 and during spring turkey season." BOTH ODWC sources therefore agree this is hunting-season-only camping, NOT a year-round campsite. The field_note MUST carry that before publication. ODWC's layer records OPENDATES='January 1-December 31' for this point, which CONTRADICTS both prose sources; the prose is the regulation and governs. DE-DUPE: matched on COORDINATES against all 163 published+approved Oklahoma rows; nearest is 36.6 mi. Not a duplicate. ||| ADDENDUM (same fire, 2026-08-19) -- RESOLVING THE PRE-EXISTING 'UNRESOLVED' FLAG AT THE TOP OF THIS NOTE, which said a coordinate alone cannot tell us whether this point is on the GMA or the PHA sub-unit, and told a later fire not to publish until someone checked. RESOLVED, and in this case the question turns out to be MOOT for camping. I pulled the special-regulations entries for BOTH Spavinaw sub-units this fire (2026-08-19) and their camping rules are word-for-word IDENTICAL. "Spavinaw GMA" reads verbatim: "Hunter and angler camping is allowed in designated areas only during open hunting seasons on the area." and "Closed to all nonhunting activities, except hunter camping, from Oct. 1 - Jan. 31 and during spring turkey season." "Spavinaw PHA" reads exactly the same two sentences. So unlike Okmulgee -- where the GMA forbids camping outright and the PHA permits it -- at Spavinaw it does not matter which sub-unit this point falls in: the camping rule and the seasonal closure are the same either way. Independently, ODWC's own SITENAME on this feature reads verbatim 'Spavinaw GMA' (layer 4, read 2026-08-19), so the agency does label it. LIMIT, stated plainly: ODWC's MapServer publishes no WMA boundary polygon layer and its layer 1 'Entrances' carries no sub-unit label, so this is resolved from the regulations text and ODWC's own SITENAME, not from geometry. It did not need geometry, because both readings give the same rule.

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.