John Kyle State Park in Sardis MS

Fall has finally arrived in northwest MS and we have been dreaming of camping for a while.  After several weekends of working on a construction project at home (a cover for our camper), we are finally finished and can take a weekend off to go camping.


Sardis Lake is a pretty large lake in northwest MS, east of the town of Sardis and a little north of Batesville, MS.  It has a state park (John Kyle state park) with a campground as well as multiple Army COE campsites, day use areas and boat ramps.  There is a large "upper lake", a dam, and a smaller "lower lake".  While

we were there, the spillway at the dam was open but not full blast.

We watched a guy pull catfish out with minnows one after the other near the spillway at the lower lake.






This is our first time camping at this state park.  It is an older park with mature trees scattered throughout the campground.  There are over 200 campsites and must of them are spaced very close together.  There is electricity and water at the campsites and some have sewer on site.  There is a dump station in the campground.  One thing to note - some of the utilities are in odd places.  We noticed some of the electric pedestals are a long way from the campsite.  Some of the electric pedestals are shared as are the water hookups.  It is best to be prepared with a proper extension cord/long freshwater hose.  We camped at Premium campsite #216 which backs up to the lower lake.

Here is a picture I took out of the camper's back window as the sun was coming up.

We picked this site due to the large living area at the "living" side of the camper.

This campground has laundry facilities, 2 older bathhouses and one new/updated bathhouse.  All of the facilities were cleaner than I thought they would be.  The older bathhouses were .....well, old.  We did notice quite a few unoccupied campers in the campground - not sure what that's about.

There is a short trail - I think it is called Clear Creek trail.  At the beginning, it is a raised trail that goes into the marshy wetlands area.

The trail circle around to the street then crosses the street and climbs a ridge through the hardwoods.  It ends with a staircase back down to the parking area.

This is a GREAT area if you are interested in fishing.  We are also considering camping at the adjacent Army COE campground at Sardis called Oak Grove COE campground.  That campground had around 80 sites and they were spaced nicely.  There is a boat ramp between the 2 campgrounds.

We camped here Nov. 1-3, 2013.  The fee for this campsite is $24 (lake site with sewer).