Buck Creek (Rathbun Lake)
October 2026
About
Overview
Buck Creek Campground is located on beautiful Rathbun Lake, just 9 miles northwest of Centerville, Iowa. Camping, boating, swimming, fishing, and picnicking are popular activities at this lakefront campground.
Recreation
The 11,000-acre lake provides a variety of fishing opportunities for any angler. Crappie, channel catfish, walleye, and largemouth bass are most common.
Although power boating is also popular, the prevailing winds on Rathbun Lake, also known as Iowa's Ocean, make it one of the best sailing lakes in Iowa.
Facilities
This campground offers 42 sites with electric hookups. Amenities include flush and pit toilets, showers, drinking water, a dump station, boat ramp and playground. A marina and bait shop are located nearby.
Natural Features
Rathbun Lake is situated in the gently rolling hills of the Chariton River Valley in southeast Iowa. The campground consists of open grassy areas dotted with trees.
Bald eagles, white-tailed deer, Canada geese, wild turkey, and other wildlife can be found at Rathbun Lake.
Contact Info
This location is unstaffed. To speak with our main office for general information, please call: (641) 647-2464.
Nearby Attractions
The Rathbun Fish Hatchery is located near the main dam, and offers self-guided tours Monday through Friday year-round. Hundreds of thousands of catfish and walleye are produced here each year.
Southern Iowa's only Off Highway Vehicle Park is nearby. It is located on the south bank of the South Fork Chariton River and encompasses nearly 125 acres of an abandoned rock quarry.
Amenities
Is BUCK CREEK (RATHBUN LAKE) fully booked?
A campground showing no availability is almost never full for good. People cancel — plans change, weather turns, someone books three weekends and keeps one — and the site goes straight back into the booking system, usually without warning and often at odd hours. The reason sold-out campgrounds feel impossible is not that sites never free up; it is that nobody is watching at the moment they do.
CampHawk watches BUCK CREEK (RATHBUN LAKE) in Centerville, IA for you. We recheck it every 15 seconds, around the clock, and the moment a site opens we send a text, an email and a push notification — and on Recreation.gov we can put the site straight into your cart, so it is held while you get to your phone.
Searching is free and needs no account — the calendar above is live right now. Watching BUCK CREEK (RATHBUN LAKE) for cancellations is the paid part.