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Summary Excellent camping, fishing, and water sports are hallmarks of this ever-popular area, 10 miles south of Lexington. Though relatively small at 68 acres, this SRA packs a lot of outdoor fun and provides three access points to the 2,068-acre lake. Attractions Johnson Lake offers great boating and skiing and excellent angling for a variety of fish, including walleye, white bass, and wipers. Campers will find electrical hookups, nonpad sites, showers, modern restrooms, dump stations, water, picnic tables, grills, shelters, vault toilets, a boat ramp, fish cleaning stations, a swimming beach, and accessible fishing piers. Johnson Lake campground offers 2 campgrounds. The main campground on the southeast side of the lake has 82 camper pads with electrical hook-ups and an additional 30 non-designated campsites. The campground is shady and located close to shower facilities. It has a sandy beach area and plenty of picnic areas. The Inlet campground on the lake's west side has 31 camper pads with electrical hook-ups and 10 non-designated campsites. It has a boat ramp, excellent bank fishing, and a handicap pier. For those golfers, there is an 18-hole golf course close by.
Johnson Lake SRA: From 1-80 take exit 237 and go 7 miles south on Highway 283, then make a right hand turn at the Cenex Ampride station then first left in to the Park.
We had a beautiful campsite #23 on the inlet side. Shady, warm, breezy kept us cool. Shower house is FREE. No charge to campers. There's a boat ramp as you come in, a fishing pier, playground for kids, and the camp host John & Linda are the sweetest.
We arrived in rain then hail. We had booked a different campsite but due to the adverse weather they placed us in another site, otherwise it would have been an extra 2 mile drive around the lake. The site was spacious and flat, there were puddles, due to the downpour, that being said in the morning it was gorgeous and all water had resided. This is a wonderful family friendly state park. A large lake with a beach, playground , fire rings and room for children to have a great time.
The bathrooms were good but the trash bins had not been emptied. Also copious amounts of midges/mosquitoes had met their demise there.
Just remember you are by the water and vegetation so that will attract certain critters in the season, so bring bug spray. We only spent one night passing through, but would have stayed longer.
Great fishing! Lots of camping options. Roads and waste are well maintained and the lake shores are also very clean. There is a neighborhood on part of the lake and most are friendly but a few seem to not like people with dark skin. Sadly still parts of NE are like this. Still my trip with my son was awesome and we caught huge walleye and cats! Pan fish was hard to find but shiners at an hour or two before sunset was the winner for walleye and huge 30 min fights with catfish! See pics.
