Wildcat Recreation Area Primitive Camping

If you love Boondocking in the winter, this place is perfect. Any size rig can fit. It’s easy to find. We saw no other people while we were there, except the guys that worked there, who swung by once to see how things were going. Beautiful waterfront site. It is a bit out of the way, but isn’t that the point?

Nice town 1/2 hour away for groceries, etc. Good cell service.

This is the location that Boondockers don’t want to share! It’s perfect!

We decided to camp at Wildcat rather than Paint Creek since we have dogs and the reviews for Paint Creek suggested it was rough for dogs paws. There are prickers here as well but the dogs only got a couple and they were able to pull them themselves.
Very easy to find and although we have a small trailer, I believe even a large RV would have no problems getting a great spot up the hill from the lake here. I recommend walking the park a bit before deciding where to camp as some of the roads to camp sites (which some are very far apart from each other) may be a bit rough for some vehicles.
This place is great. We had the place to ourselves for a while then one other camper came and camped next to us even though there were a lot of places further away. They may have wanted the security of another camper close by. They were quiet and respectful though.
Very interesting rocks here as well as lots of room to hike all over the park. We had a blast and hated to leave.

GPS: 32.349356, -106.612762
Easy to locate: Yes. The area is easy to locate and when you get to the self pay kiosk we went to the right to the picnic primitive camp areas. There are additional primitive areas to the left and continue past the RV campground.
Public Land: Yes/State land; this is a managed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife and does cost $5 / vehicle for the picnic area where we stayed overnight.
Amenities: There are vault toilets near the group site and each picnic area has a sheltered table and a grill. The picnic areas were well spaced so, even if they filled up during the day, it would be decent camping overnight. The sites are not level as they get closer to the water. There are a few up higher that seem more level for trailers, etc.
Cell: Verizon - 2 bars LTE, T-Mobile - 2 bars, Google fi - 2 bars
Crowded: not at all. This time of year it was completely empty in the picnic areas. The RV campground had some long term users hanging out.
Clean: some debris = many bud light cans along the roads
Would we stay here again: Yes

Note: we also noticed a dump station on the drive in, but it was broken/out of service

Stopped here for one night on the way back to Dallas from West Texas. When the road forked after entering the recreation area, I went to the right for primitive camping. Several sites, most very widely spaced. There was absolutely no one besides myself (and several deer) at any of these sites (a Thursday night). Covered picnic table, grill, fire ring, trash can at the site. Vault toilets at the top of the hill. Great breeze, lovely sunset, Very relaxing location. I would definitely camp here again if in the area.

We always seem to find ourselves camping on reservoirs for nice places to get some peace and quite during the work week. Lake E.V. Spence lived up to the promise and was a perfect place to stay for the week. Access is not hard and the roads in (varying from gravel to paved) were in fine shape for any rig. After entering the Recreation Area there is a split in the road; right takes you to the group shelter and plenty of primitive camping, left takes you to the RV park, marina, boat launch, and more primitive camping. The right fork area is slightly more secluded but has slightly rougher roads to get into the camp sites. We opted for easy and went to the left but still felt plenty secluded over there.

When entering, the sign states a $5 per vehicle day use fee. Upon our arrival on a Sunday we found the marina closed thru Tuesday and the self pay station out of slips, making paying fairly difficult. We waited until they opened again that Wednesday to go pay, but there still seemed to be a bit of confusion over whether the fee applies to primitive campers, a sign in the marina calls it a "lake use fee". Regardless, camping here is either free or $5 per day.

We had a really nice quiet week here with a handful of fisherman coming by each day to use the boat launch, everyone extremely friendly. I don't know any details about the RV Park behind the marina, but there is a free RV dump (no water, just the sewer) on the road in to the Recreation Area before you get to everything.

There are other places on the reservoir that have primitive camping, the website for this listing outlines them as well as it is all managed by the water authority.

Killer Verizon internet and some good OTA TV signals are icing on the cake.