Gun Creek
October 2026
About
Overview
Gun Creek Campground is located on the eastern shore of Rend Lake— the perfect place to enjoy a wide variety of activities, events, and nature at its best. Rend Lake is made up of 20,633 acres of water and 19,523 acres of land. Whether you're looking for high adventure, a peaceful retreat, or something in between, you'll find it here in the heart of Southern Illinois.
Recreation
Gun Creek Campground is conveniently located near the Gun Creek Day Use Area, which includes a boat ramp and a reservable picnic shelter. The area offers abundant opportunities for boating, hiking, fishing, hunting, swimming, and general outdoor exploration. Additional recreation features around Rend Lake include the Rend Lake Bike Trail, an archery complex with a 3D trail and elevated shooting platform, a dog park with a swimming feature, and two public swimming beaches (including the pet-friendly North Marcum Beach).
Facilities
Gun Creek Campground offers 98 reservable campsites equipped with electric hookups, a picnic table, and a firepit. The campground offers a dump station, hot showers, flush toilets, and drinking water to provide a comfortable camping experience for guests. A playground is also conveniently located within the Nighthawk and Eagle camping loops.
Natural Features
The fields, forests and waters of Rend Lake provide a natural haven for wildlife and an outdoor wonderland for you. Woodland areas are made up of hickory, oak, and beautiful maples providing habitat to white-tail deer, turkeys, racoons, and many more native species. The shorelines are an excellent viewing area for waterfowl, shorebirds, and bank fishing our known crappie population.
Nearby Attractions
Rend Lake Golf Complex, which includes a 27-hole golf course, restaurant, and lodge.
Rend Lake Shooting Complex
Rend Lake Archery Complex
Rend Lake Mountain Bike Trail
Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park
North Marcum Day Use (Beach and Boat Ramp)
Amenities
Phone: 618-724-2493
Is GUN CREEK 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 GUN CREEK in Whittington, IL 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 GUN CREEK for cancellations is the paid part.