Camp bed put down by North American lake (7)
I believe the answer is:
coterie
'camp' is the definition.
(I know that camp can be written as coterie)
'bed put down by north american lake' is the wordplay.
'bed put down' becomes 'cot' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'north american lake' becomes 'erie' (I've seen this before).
'cot'+'erie'='COTERIE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for coterie that I've seen before include "In-group" , "Group, band" , "Exclusive social circle" , "Literary circle" , "Select group" .)