I'm starting the legwork for our Rathbun meet.
To those who made it last year - Let's do it again! Bring a friend.
To those who thought about it - don't miss out this time.
Dates;
June 7, 8 & 9 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
General Information:
Lake Rathbun is located in southern Iowa. It is a reservoir on the Chariton River, and is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The maintained surface area is 11,000 acres. With heavy rain, and water levels at the spillway, the maximum surface area nearly doubles to 21,000 acres. The maximum open water length is 21 miles from the dam to the river headway. Evenings often bring a glassy smooth surface ... just ask our group from last year. The lake is rarely busy ... last year's event overlapped a national Crappie Masters qualifier and we wouldn't have noticed without the Marina being crowded for official weigh in.
Speaking of Marina's. There are two. The marina's are privately owned. The Buck Creek Marina has a small hotel, a deep water ramp, plenty of slips, a restaurant & bar, as well as fuel (on water), and a service shop. The South Fork marina is owned by the same couple, they have fuel, bait, some slips ...
Our group will gather at the Honey Creek State Park Campgrounds. Do not confuse the Honey Creek Resort with the Honey Creek State Park. To spell it out, the State Park property is split in two by Honey Creek (hence the name, Honey Creek State Park). The Resort was recently constructed on the north side of the state park, and the state park campgrounds remain on the south side. You are welcome to stay where you are comfortable. This is a great location for being family friendly - the Resort has a small indoor water park, a golf course, a restaurant (a comfortable place, not the greatest food - send me a PM for more details if you'd like to know more), and a bar. The resort has regular hotel style rooms in the main lodge, they have cottages available in small cul-de-sac situations, and they have fully paved RV stations with full hook-ups. There is two-lane boat ramp available on Resort property. The camp grounds last year proved to be comfortable and spacious (Jeff, bring your spikes this time ... I don't want to drag your tent out of the trees again. ;-) ). The state park splits their campgrounds into the north campgrounds and south campgrounds - both of these are on the south side of the state park, so don't think your north campground will put you on the resort side of the creek. The south campgrounds are linear - and individual spaces are marked on both sides of the street. These campgrounds do have room for RV parking, the northern end of the south grounds were more level if you plan to bring a trailer or RV. The north side has pull-thru RV lanes on gravel. All campgrounds offer electricity at each site, the north grounds also offer water hookup.
We will get maps posted so that you can see where these spaces fall in relation to the water & ramps. There are slips available at the resort, no slips at the campgrounds. The positive is that the campgrounds have a huge 6-lane boat ramp with courtesy dock. Ramp fees are included with your state park reservation - the Corps of Engineers charges $3.00 per day for ramp use at their facilities. All boat ramps are concrete and in great shape.
Reservations:
This event is not organized in the same way as our Red Wing event. Each member is responsible for his/her own reservation & payments.
If you'd like to stay at the resort, visit
www.honeycreekresort.com ... I had discussed with their groups manager a reduced event rate, but have not received any specifics from him, yet. Last year they had blocked 10 rooms for us at $109/night with their advertised rate being $169. You do get 4 water park passes with a room at the lodge. You do not have to being staying at the resort to purchase admission to their little water park. The resort property is currently taking reservations as far out as our event, so if this is your choice, please reserve at your convenience.
If you choose to camp at the state park, your reservations cannot be made until March, as they do not accept campground reservations longer than 3 months out. The website is
www.reserveamerica.com ... from the main page, select Iowa in the state drop down menu, and type in Honey Creek under the park name box, enter your arrival date and length of stay. From there, you'll have access to campground maps, etc. You can select your own space. As it turned out last year - we had a lot of reservations made, then some switching around so that we could choose our neighbors. There were some who could not make it, due to various reasons and we had paid for grounds that were unoccupied. The big boat ramp is almost exactly 1 mile away from the south grounds. There is a beach on the back side of the camgrounds, visible from the tents, but the Corps of Engineers does not suggest beaching overnight - should someone decide to let water out of the dam, you could wake up with your boat completely out of water.
T-shirts, etc.
I will complete some graphics again, as I did last year, and make a store available through cafe press for t-shirts. We will have pre-designed t-shirts that you can purchase (this time, I might tack a buck or two "profit" onto the t-shirts to pay for the trophies). I will also create a post under these events with the graphic files so that if you wish to have your own shirts made or personalized, you can.
Shall we use Run On Rathbun II, or Return to Rathbun? I asked Doran the same, privately, and for now I'll keep my opinion to myself ... this is a group event ... let your opinions out ...
OK - that's enough for the first post.