Payne Lake campground – peace & quiet
This posting was first published in 9/30/2009. That’s almost a decade ago!!!! Well, we have a stop scheduled at Payne Lake Campground this summer. It will be interesting to see if there have been many changes, like the fire ants have moved on. As you can read, I thought it was a nice little campground the first time we were there.
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Early morning at Payne Lake
Fishing on Payne Lake
Our four days camping at Payne Lake campground in the western part of Talladega National Forest are over and we start our research of Bienville National Forest in Mississippi. We really enjoyed our time at Payne Lake and wasn’t just because there were three days of sunshine. (A rare event for us during this season of research.)
We had a lovely pull-through campsite a short distance from Payne Lake with a paved apron and a water and electric hook-up. A modern bathhouse with flush toilets and hot showers was just around the bend from our site. The view from our site included a small water lily-pad dotted bay and a broad view of the lake’s deeper area. There is a pleasant mix of Loblolly and Longleaf pines, Sweetgum, oak, cypress and other tree species, a few were turning color. Until Friday we were the only campers (the four feral cats don’t count) and the quiet was wonderful.
To be honest, there wasn’t much to do at Payne Lake. The hiking trails suffered greatly from the 13-plus inches of rain that had fallen just before we pulled in. The rain had a negative effect on fishing (but, we are told “fishing in Payne Lake is out-of-balance”). The rain and wind has caused serious erosion to the swim beach. And the fire ants are everywhere. As one person told us, at the moment, recreation at Payne Lake is mainly sit, read a book, and roast a wiener. Frankly, that sounded great. We rarely have a chance to sit and relax at our campsite and I can count the number of campfires we have lite in the last 15 years. Yes, we enjoyed every minute of our time at Payne Lake.
