Silver Creek Fishing Guides

About the Silver Creek

Silver Creek rises in the sandy spring country north of Sparta and runs down through the township of Angelo to the La Crosse River, and it is a textbook example of what makes the Wisconsin Driftless such productive trout country. The creek drains fewer than forty square miles, but almost all of its water arrives from springs rather than surface runoff, and that gives it a flow and a temperature regime far steadier than its size suggests. The surrounding landscape is the unglaciated ridge-and-coulee country that gives the region its name, and the creek alternates between open meadow reaches with undercut grass banks and shorter wooded stretches with deeper plunge pools.

Brown trout dominate and most of them are wild. The meadow reaches are the signature water here, where fish hold tight under the grass overhangs and the approach matters more than the fly, and anglers who crawl will do far better than anglers who walk the bank. Brook trout hold in the coldest upper springs and in a few tributary mouths, and the state adds rainbows in places. White suckers, creek chubs and blacknose dace fill out the community and are part of why the browns grow as well as they do. This is wading and walking water, fished with a short rod, light tippet and a willingness to cover ground between the good bends.

The gauge at the Highway 21 crossing is unusually useful because it reports water temperature alongside discharge and stage. That turns the normal guesswork of a summer Driftless creek into a reading: the spring influence shows up as a temperature trace that barely moves while the air swings twenty degrees, and the days when the creek does warm are the days to fish the upper springs instead of the meadow. The flow record is the other half of the picture, because a hard summer thunderstorm over the sand country can put the creek out for a day. Spring and autumn are the prime seasons, and a cool summer here is better than a cool summer almost anywhere else in the state.

Access

Angelo - the township at the gauge crossing and the usual starting point on the middle creek.
State Highway 21 - the gauge bridge and the most used access point on the creek.
Sparta - the Monroe County seat to the south, with tackle, lodging and guides.
La Crosse River confluence - the downstream end of the trout water, where the creek warms.
Fort McCoy - the large installation to the east, bordering parts of the headwater spring country.
Tomah - the nearby town to the north, a second base for fishing the Monroe County creeks.
Coulee country crossings - the township road bridges that provide most of the practical walk-in access.

Seasons

Spring: the strongest and most forgiving fishing of the year, with wild browns active through the meadow reaches and good hatches on mild afternoons.
Summer: the spring influence keeps the creek cool and fishable when other water is not, and the gauge temperature reading is the best guide to where to start.
Fall: browns colour up and feed hard before spawning, and the open meadow banks are at their easiest to approach.
Winter: cold and low, with Wisconsin early-season rules opening a quiet fishery in the spring-fed upper reaches on mild days.