Did a little fly fishing in Spearfish Canyon, this time I tried a stretch of Spearfish Creek upstream from the Homestake Hydro Plant No. 2. This stretch of creek flows fast, but if you pay attention to the flow there are lots of good fish holding spots. The first spot I fished was a little pocket of slack water right next to a smaller waterfall. A couple casts and I caught a nice rainbow on my beaded pheasant tail nymph. I purchase my flies through Cabela’s, but dang, they sure don’t hold up very well. Not many fish and they are starting to unwind! I clip off the unwinding thread and they still catch fish, so that’s what counts I guess.
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- Rainbow Trout
This area of the canyon had a tornado come through, or just some really strong wind. There are fallen trees all along the creek making it hard to navigate. But, they make for some good fishing spots. The fallen trees slow down the flow and I saw some browns hanging out among the branches.
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- Quite a few fallen trees in this stretch
I ended up catching a nice brown trout, probably one of the bigger browns that I have caught in the canyon. My first cast into a pocket he nailed my pheasant tail nymph and put up a great fight with my 4 weight fly rod. I love how dark some of the brown’s are in the canyon. Some are lighter colored, so I’m not sure if they are either males or females that have different colors, or just the age of the fish?
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- One of my bigger brown’s in the canyon
I ended up fishing for a couple hours, caught maybe a dozen fish, one rainbow and the rest brown trout. Got some good exercise and of course enjoyed the beautiful scenery.
