Marshall State Fish & Wildlife Area

We had the entire campground to ourselves on a cold weekend stay. There isn’t much area to explore- just the campground and the river shoreline within it. However we witnessed the most spectacular sunset over the river. It was well worth the night’s adventures. 

We stayed in the non-electric loop. A bunch of sites with divisions obscured by crunchy, fallen leaves. We had a picnic table and fire pit. A pit toilet and water pump are located at the building used to clean up your fishing/hunting catches. The electric sites are on the opposite side and have a couple sites that look more long term campers. The host is over there but we never saw them. Once it was dark half a dozen bright lights came on in the parking area between the two camping loops. It was close to us so our teardrop camper was well lit up inside. I covered the window to block some of the light but I would suggest camping further down away from the building and those lights. 

A main road runs right behind the campsites. They have a wood fence on the electric side but not on our side. It obscures some of the headlights. Sound died off pretty early even with a few locals pulling in to meet up with friends in the parking lot. We walked to the river and found a short trail. We stood out by the boat ramps for a nice view across the river. 

A sign shows a hiking route that you can drive to. We planned to hike it in the morning but unexpected events changed our minds. At 5 AM diesel pickup trucks pulling boats began to pull into the parking area. It was cold and dark so we stayed inside. Eventually we heard the boats heading out along with gun shots- some were nearby. We started packing up and in the process saw that they were hunting birds from the boats along the river. We chose to skip the hiking trail with the onset of hunting season. 

A 30 minute drive got us to the Hennepin Canal Trail and we hiked along it for a few miles before returning to our car and heading home. We did make one more stop at the Flour House Bakery in Princeton and highly recommend it. 

The spectacular sunset made this worth a weekend getaway but it doesn’t seem like a nice spot for an extended stay unless you plan to make more use of the river access.

Busy rural highway is behind you, host let multiple sites get trashed. Fishing is great tho.

This is a great site if you don’t mind a very busy rural highway right behind you. Very easy access to fishing. The host was non-existent I.e one site was completely trashed and they never made themselves known. If it wasn’t for the water access I probably would not have stayed here.

Went Friday 6/19. Made the mistake of not checking the weather and thought it was going to be nice enough to fish the whole next day, ended up storming. Great camping spot #10 very close to the Illinois river and great views. The host was like non-existent, the site by the vaulted bathrooms were trashed and right behind you is a very busy rural highway. Wouldn’t recommend if you have young kids.

Grassy waterfront campsites, clean convenient restrooms, quiet, nice!

Very small CG with maybe 10-15 sites. All electric hookup, Has dump station a little down the road.
Slough just behind you from the river, many boaters and blinds set up. You have to drive a bit to find the trails but they are nice trails. CG is right off the main road so you do hear a lot of traffic and I would be worried with small children moving around there. There are vault toilets, no sinks or showers.
There is a sportsman’s club around the area so you’ll hear a lot of gun shots, it’s public hunting land so watch what time of year you go out for hiking or boating. We hunt small game there and I know locals hunt deer and duck.