The Willow Flowage is one of the best kept secrets in Wi. IMO. It's located between Tomahawk and Minoqua. The State of Wi. has purchased all of the land surrounding the area to keep it from development. It consists of 6400 acres of water and 117 islands. There are 35 campsites with a box latrine, fire ring, and picnic table. All are available on a first come first served basis. The fishing can be fantastic, Walleye, Northern, Perch, Crappie, and Bass. It doesn't cost anything to park or get a campsite, you show up and go. The feeling when you are there is about as close to a remote Canadian lake as you can get without the travel.

As an added bonus, you can canoe the Tomahawk river starting right below the dam. This has about 20 miles of canoeing with a few class II rapids for additional excitement.

This is obviously a base camping excursion, and you will see occasional motor boats present, but for the most part it is a peaceful, beautiful, and cost effective area to get out and camp and canoe. You can contact the WDNR @ 715-356-5211 for additional info.

Sounds really nice, I'll have to check it out sometime.

Thanks billbo!

Just put it on the list of weekend trips for the summer.

My grandfather used to hunt and fish there frequently. This was back in the 50's and 60's, and into the 70's. His cottage was on Pier Lake north of Tripoli. Back then there were about 20 cabins on the whole lake.

Another place that is very similar to this is the Turtle Flambeau Flowage.

Cool!

Here is a link to a PDF map of the lake.

I checked out the Willow Flowage last week, but the wind was howling, and I never even ventured out into the breakers. Oh well, some other time. It is a pretty good size body of water.

We did Willow last summer. It is so big that it is much more of a motor boat lake (we rented one in Tomahawk). We brought the canoe but didn't use it much. Fished from sunrise to sunset with some limited success.

The best part of the lake is the WDNR Ranger = Tom Shockley. Went out of his way to make our trip a great time. He will definetly improve your opinion of the DNR. If you want to try this location out just give him a call.

Tom clued us in to a campsite that had trail access yet wasn't one of the sites near the landing. We used bikes. It was nice to ride out and grab a bite to eat when we wanted.