I did manage to do some trout fishing in the Black Hills of South Dakota on one of my recent vacations. I fished Castle Creek, near Deerfield Lake. August is prime time for hopper fishing Black Hills streams. The first fish I ever caught on a fly rod was in a Black Hills' stream with a regular hook and a live hopper I caught in the grass. Unfortunately, the eastern side of South Dakota, where I grew up, did not offer much for fly fishing so my fly rod pretty much lay untouched until my move to Pennsylvania. Fortunately for me, my few Black Hills’ hopper fishing experiences in my teenage years stayed with me and helped me look into fly fishing PA streams. I would describe Blacks Hills fly fishing as a mix between big western streams and rivers and small eastern streams. The Black Hills is a mountainous region with elevations up to 7,000 feet but it also has a lot of open prairies. I fished Castle Creek for a couple of hours and hooked into 2 Bows, both on hopper patterns. I "probably" would have landed one of the Bows but my line got caught around a sunken log and I ended up breaking the line. I missed a few other trout that rose to my fly. Castle Creek is very narrow (3-5 ft) with a lot of tall grass along its banks. I was unable to do much casting there other than flip upstream - drift - and then flip again.
Yesterday, I checked my trail camera for deer, bear, turkey's, etc.. Below are a couple of the pictures. No big bucks or bears caught on camera yet but I finally took the time to fish a stream that runs through the property I hunt. My father in law, who owns the property, told me 4-5 years ago that there were native brook trout on the stream but my obsession with fly fishing only started this year so I never bothered. I had seen some "fish" in the stream during previous surveys but I couldn't tell if they were trout or a "chub" like fish. The only rod I had in my trunk yesterday was a 9' 5 weight which is very large for this extremely wooded property. I think a small weight 7’ rod or maybe even a Tenkara rod would work great for this stream. I tied on a #18 royal wulf, snuck close to the stream, hid behind a tree, and started making a couple of casts. On my third cast, I saw a rise so I set the hook. Fish on! I had a smile on my face for at least the next 20 minutes. I didn’t take long to land the small brookie but for their size, they do fight well. As you can see, the colors on it are beautiful! I’m excited to fish this stream again. When the big streams are too high to fish, go find that little mountain stream and start exploring. Now that I know my father in law was right, I’ll be carrying both my bow and fly rod into the woods next time I go hunting.
Native Brook Trout Stream
Brook Trout
Smaller Bear
2 more years and he'll be ready
