Ford State Fishing Lake

My girlfriend and I were driving across country and spent the day in Dodge city. We were looking for a place close by and this Lakeside campsite popped up. Our GPS took us to a different place so be careful when you are trying to find this lake. It is actually a very nice little public campground. It’s fantastic that it’s free. We found a very nice campsite that was apparently more level than other people have found here, and set up camp. Unfortunately, for us, we stayed on a Saturday night. And apparently locals like to come out and party. We had a group about 50 feet away who wanted to fiesta all night instead of siesta all night. They kept us up until 3 AM. My suggestion would be to stay here during the week and not on a Saturday night.

08/10/2025

Use the coordinates here to navigate to about a dozen sites in a loop. All coarse gravel with picnic table and fire pits. I stayed in the second one on the left going clockwise around the loop, and was unable to stake into the ground, but there was a mown strip next to the site that was easy staking. Road is a little rutted along the sides, since it's on a hill, but navigable without issue unless you have really low clearance I would guess.

This place is set up like a picnic area more than a camping area; no electric, no water. no particular camp spots, complete boondocking style. A favorite local fishing spot, but cleared out by nightfall. No flush toilets and pods were pretty filthy while I'm here, but it's early in the season. Surely they will have them cleaned up and window replaced in men's before season really starts. The toilets are the reason for just avg rating. Everything else was very nice.

An obvious camping loop with picnic tables had one small car parked in a spot when I got here. He woke up and drove away. I saw another couple people sitting in a car at the stop sign. Looked suspicious to me. The flattest most level site I could find is barely adequate. All the rest have quite a tilt.

Lots of trash look like methlab has been out there very Do not go here

Small park, very quiet and nice, right off the lake. No facilities, has dumpster . Bathroom dirty - so only 4 stars. Just side road parking, but enough to park a trailer. Amazingly, even if parking is right near the lake - no bugs!!!

Not much of a lake, right now? Kinda a puddle, but it’s an awesome place and bet it will fill up nicely. Sign says, harmful bacteria in water, so do t swim or let your dogs in the water. And kinda steep and not many of the sites are level. It’s January, so I’m the only crazy one here.

The sites are gravel and have their own picnic tables. Didn't realize kansas could be so beautiful! Nice view of the lake

I stayed two different nights this week. I was there Tuesday night and Friday night. Tuesday night I had the place to myself. Friday night just had two other rigs there. I wouldn't recommend this place to big rigs. The vault toilets were trashed Tuesday and out of TP. Friday the trash was picked up and TP was stocked. Vault toilets were a bit gross, but they did their job. Toilets are a bit of a walk from the camp sites.