Holcombe Flowage

About Holcombe Flowage

The Holcombe Flowage covers 2,761 acres on the Chippewa River in Chippewa County, backed up behind a dam at the village of Holcombe. It runs six and a half miles at its longest and carries 52 miles of shoreline — a lot of edge for the acreage, which is what a flooded river valley looks like once the water is in it.

Seven public landings serve it, more than most flowages this size.

The state manages musky here as natural reproduction plus stocking, and walleye as natural reproduction only — that second one is the notable classification, because it means the walleye sustain themselves. Smallmouth habitat spans wadable warm water through non-wadable coarse and fine substrate, describing a water with real depth and rock as well as soft flats.

On an impoundment, the drowned river channel is usually the structure that matters, and it does not appear on the surface. Check the current DNR regulations before keeping fish.

Written from Wisconsin DNR hydrography and fisheries data. State water ID WBIC 2184900.

How the state manages it

• musky · Natural reproduction plus stocking (Cat. 2)
• smallmouth · Non-Wadable Coarse Substrate; Non-Wadable Fine Substrate; Wadable Warm Water
• walleye · Natural Reproduction Only

Wisconsin DNR fisheries designations. These describe how the water is managed, not what is in it on any given day.

Fishing license

Wisconsin sells them online. Buy one from the state. We don’t know whether you need one — that depends on your age, where you live, the water, and what your guide’s own license covers.