Cove Lake Recreation Area
October 2026
About
Overview
The Cove Lake Recreation Area is a perfect summer getaway and an ideal place to camp, picnic or recreate. It envelops the shores of a 160-acre mountain lake near the 2,700-foot-tall Mount Magazine, the highest point in the state of Arkansas.
Recreation
Popular activities include swimming, fishing, hiking, water skiing and scenic drives. A boat ramp is available and an on-site concessionaire provides boat rentals and other equipment available for purchase.
The lake is home to catfish, large mouth bass, bluegill, sunfish, crappie and perch. It is stocked every other year, although a small amount of catfish are stocked annually and just prior to a yearly kids' fishing derby hosted at the lake.
Facilities
The recreation area provides picnic areas, campsites and a group shelter, as well as multiple activities, including miniature golf, canoe and paddleboat rentals. The campground offers multiple single-family sites for tent or RV camping.
Each site is equipped with tables and campfire rings with grills. Accessible flush toilets, hot showers and drinking water are also provided. Multiple picnic areas are available on the lake shore, including a picnic shelter that has electricity.
Natural Features
The recreation area is situated in a mixed forest of mature trees and is located in the Arkansas River Valley in the Ozark National Forest.
Nearby Attractions
The recreation area is about 15 miles south of the town of Paris, in Logan County, Arkansas. A scenic route to the top of Mount Magazine is a beautiful 10 mile drive north from Havana, Arkansas.
Amenities
Phone: 479-963-6421
Is COVE LAKE RECREATION AREA 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 COVE LAKE RECREATION AREA in Paris, AR 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 COVE LAKE RECREATION AREA for cancellations is the paid part.