Davis Lake Campground

Davis Lake Recreation Area is home to beautiful Davis Lake, its campground and a day use area, popular for all kinds of recreation including swimming, fishing, boating, birding and wildlife viewing. The campground is situated in a hilly, mixed hardwood and pine forest that stretches along the eastern shore of the lake. Davis Lake covers 200 acres. A grassy swimming beach is situated on the shore, where many anglers cast for largemouth bass, hybrid striped bass, crappie, catfish and bream. The campground has 27 sites on the lake, many of them with space to anchor a boat, and a 2-mile trail wanders along the north edge of the lake to several earthen fishing piers. Visitors can also spend time birding, watching for a variety of geese and ducks that migrate through the area; hawks, herons, bluebirds and doves are also plentiful, among many other species. Foxes and bobcats call the area home. The recreation area offers more than two dozen campsites, a picnic area, a group shelter, accessible flush toilet facilities and a dump station. Campsites are equipped with tables, lantern posts and campfire rings with grills, plus electric and water hookups. There are no sites with sewage hookups; however, there is a dump station located near the front entrance. Drinking water is provided, Davis Lake has multiple fishing docks including some that are accessible, and a picnic shelter can be reserved on-site for an additional $40 per day fee. The Chickasaw OHV Trail is a newly renovated 12-mile motorized trail within three miles of the campground, open between April 1 and Oct. 31 and accommodating off-road vehicles 48 inches in width or less. Its trailhead lies between the Davis Lake recreation area and the Natchez Trace Parkway, within a mile of the Owl Creek Mounds archaeological interpretive site. Cyclists and hikers will enjoy the Tanglefoot Trail, a multiple-use Rails-to-Trails path 5 miles west of Davis Lake that runs 43.5 miles from Houston to New Albany through Houlka, Algoma, Pontotoc, Ecru and Ingomar. The recreation area is located 21 miles south of Tupelo, Mississippi, and 12 miles north of Houston, and is within 4 miles of the Natchez Trace Parkway, a 444-mile drive through exceptional scenery and 10,000 years of North American history. The Owl Creek Mounds, an archaeological interpretive site containing Native American ruins, is half a mile south on the paved road heading toward the Natchez Trace exit. The Witchdance Horsetrail is an 18-mile horseback riding trail that can be accessed from the Payamatha Trailhead on Highway 32 or the Witchdance trailhead on the Natchez Trace Parkway, approximately 5 miles east of Houston.