Quick question

[byronbears84]

Hello all!

I hope the beginning to your Fall has begun the way you want it too! 7 and a half months from now i will be at the TFF for another wonderful trip that I can not wait for! I was lookin at the map, and I want to camp down by Rat Lake this year as it seemed like there were some decent looking campsites down there. I understand that during May it gets to be very windy, so im a tad worried about filling my boat up with people and all of our stuff to get to the campsite while there are some real rollers out there. I am just curious to see if any of you know of any landings public or private that are farther south towards that region that arent marked on the map? I went out of Sportmans last summer and the wind hit us pretty hard.

Goodluck to all that go out!

[Hot Runr Guy]

I've seen a pretty simple ramp down here in Rat Lake, but I have no idea how you'd get to it.
HRG
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[byronbears84]

Thats a great start, i will do some research and look into that. Thanks a lot

[BlueRanger]

I'm guessing that's private - aerial photos show a house/cabin straight north of there on the south shore of Lake Nine, and it looks like there are mowed trails heading south from the house. There are also some people on West Road that have a path down to the east shore of Beaver Creek - I saw them having a picnic many years ago.

[byronbears84]

That could very well be, but if you look on google maps, there looks like a road that runs right up to the south part of Rat Lake. If you track it back it runs just south of Hay Creek Flowage and it splits off of a road named Fed Forestry 128. Is this all public? I wonder if anyone has been down around that area on this site

[George]

Was up last week and in Rat Lake. There was, what sounded like, heavy equipment operating close to where your * is on the map. A while later we saw a dump truck go down the dike on the north side of the lake turn off and disappear back somewhere in there. No idea what was going on.

[Tom502]

Greetings to All,

Several years back the TFF Property Owners Association (working with WI-DNR) built cribs down in Rat Lake and we had to get special permission to stage the crib logs near that landing. From what I remember, the unimproved landing is on public land, but to get to that area we had to take USFS Road 153 (off Hwy 182) to another USFS road, then down some private roads and through a locked gate or two.

That landing is not open for public use and it is difficult to get to. The closest public landing to the Rat Lake area is Sportsman's, there is nothing closer to the "big water" area of the TFF.

As for the construction down that way, Xcel Energy is making improvements in the earthen dike to comply with potential high water levels from a 500 or 1000 year rain/flood event. That work started this past summer, and will continue next summer on dike improvements that are nearer to the TFF Dam and to the Sportsman's Landing area.

If anyone has specific questions, your best bet is to call the TFF Property Mgr, Chris Paulik, at the Mercer DNR office. Her # is: (715) 476-7846.

Tight Lines,

Tom502

[byronbears84]

Thanks a lot for all of the help Tom. Kind of a bummer as I thought I may be getting somewhere! Oh well, if anything else hears of anything dont be afraid to shoot me an email at ByronBears84@gmail.com

Thanks a lot!

[BlueRanger]

Just want to mention that if you haven't compared them, at the moment the aerial photography on Bing Maps is vastly superior to what's on Google Maps for the TFF and a lot of other places - look at this side-by-side comparison of Springstead Landing:

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Make sure you select Aerial, not Bird's Eye. The Bird's Eye coverage is mainly available in metropolitan areas and uses even more detailed low-altitude imagery, but if you select it in an area without coverage, you get a distorted version of the same satellite imagery that's used for Aerial.