Unit 110

The Flambeau River is the landscape's primary navigation feature, carving a valley that funnels through the unit. Brunet Island sits in the main channel and offers glassing opportunities across river bottom flats. Key lakes—Cranberry, Rusk, Little Bass, and Muskrat—provide reference points for orientation and potential access corridors.

The Flambeau Ridge runs through the unit with modest elevation gain, offering better vantage points than the surrounding plains. Ruby Swamps, a significant wetland complex, acts as a boundary feature separating habitat types. The Narrows, a constrained channel section of the Flambeau, creates localized terrain that influences water-based access and deer movement patterns along the river.

Elevations span barely 600 feet across the unit, clustered mostly between 1,000 and 1,200 feet. The forest cover varies significantly: roughly 35 percent of the landscape combines forest with plains (mixed upland hardwoods and conifers interspersed with grassland openings), while 62 percent is open plains—marshes, grassland, and brush—with minimal timber. This creates a patchwork of cover types that concentrate deer movement along the forest-to-open transitions.

Low elevation means no seasonal altitude migrations; instead, whitetails respond to weather, acorn masts, and local food concentrations. The abundant water—3 percent of the unit's surface area—includes shallow lakes, extensive marshes, and flowages that define habitat quality and movement corridors.

A dense road network—2.53 miles of road per square mile—means the unit is well-connected but also well-hunted. State highways link Ladysmith and New Auburn to regional hubs, and secondary roads provide access to most lake and river systems. However, 90 percent of the land is private, which concentrates public hunting onto a narrow strip of accessible public lands and water corridors.

The straightforward, low-complexity terrain means pressure spreads evenly; there are no hidden corners or difficult terrain to discourage hunters. Opening weekend draws crowds to established access areas. Early season and late-season hunting edges toward underutilized ground as pressure shifts.

The river system offers less-pressured hunting if you have boat or canoe access, accessing shoreline habitat beyond road-proximate areas.

Unit 110 occupies roughly 780 square miles across north-central Wisconsin, straddling Rusk and Sawyer Counties. The Flambeau River system anchors the drainage, with numerous tributaries like the Jump River and McDermott Creek feeding it. Ladysmith and New Auburn serve as the primary access towns, sitting within or adjacent to the unit boundaries.

The terrain is defined by extensive public water access—lakes, reservoirs, and flowages dot the landscape—though public land for foot hunting is limited to roughly 10 percent of the unit. The Flambeau Ridge provides gentle topographic variation in an otherwise low-relief landscape dominated by glacial plains and lake basins.

Water is the defining feature: lakes, reservoirs, and flowages (Ladysmith Flowage, Thornapple Flowage, Redman Flowage, Holzer Flowage) pepper the unit, providing reliable navigation and deer watering points. The Flambeau River is the primary drainage, joined by the Jump River, Swift Creek, and numerous smaller streams. Cranberry Creek and Foster Creek thread through lower elevations, creating seepage areas and marsh transitions.

The abundance of water means predictable deer movement—animals concentrate near these features during dry periods and disperse during spring melt. Spring-fed lakes like North Shattuck and Potato Lake provide reliable water year-round. Marshy lake margins and flowage edges hold deer when they transition between bedding and feeding, making water features critical for tactical planning.

Whitetail deer are the primary quarry; mule deer presence is incidental. Hunt the forest-to-open transitions, where deer feed in grasslands and marsh edges at dawn and dusk before retreating to timber. Early season focus on oak mast areas within forested patches and along ridge edges where acorn concentration is highest.

Rut timing follows the northern Wisconsin peak (mid-November); position near bedding cover in heavier timber adjacent to open feeding areas. Late season shifts focus to remaining brush and conifer cover as thermal protection becomes critical. Use river and lake access to reach less-pressured habitat; canoe or boat access unlocks isolated shoreline timber and marsh edges.

The abundance of water creates bottleneck hunting opportunities—station near outlets, inlet creeks, and marsh narrows where deer concentrate to water during dry spells. Scout private-land boundaries for corridor movement between bedding and feed.