Spearfish Creek Fishing Guides and Conditions, South Dakota

About the Spearfish Creek

Spearfish Creek runs about thirty miles down Spearfish Canyon from the high country near Cheyenne Crossing to the town of Spearfish, and for most of that distance it is a limestone-influenced spring creek in a canyon of white cliffs and dark spruce. The canyon road follows it the whole way, which makes it one of the most accessible good trout streams in the country: you can park, walk twenty yards and be fishing.

Brown trout dominate and a good share of them are wild, holding in the undercut banks, the plunge pools below the small falls and the long flat runs between them. Rainbows are stocked and hold over well, brook trout live in the upper reaches and the side creeks, and there are cutthroat in places. The stream is small, clear and technical in the flat water and generous in the pocket water, and the standard approach is light tippet, small flies and short accurate casts. Little Spearfish Creek and Iron Creek, which join in the canyon, are worth days of their own.

The gauge at Spearfish reads the bottom of the canyon. Because so much of the water comes from limestone springs, the creek runs cold and stable compared to a runoff stream, and it stays fishable through a Black Hills summer and into the winter. Spring melt brings it up and colors it briefly; a hard summer thunderstorm in the canyon can spike it for a day. Note that a hydroelectric diversion has historically dewatered a section of the middle canyon at times, so check current conditions for that reach.

Spearfish, Lead and Deadwood are all within a few minutes. The canyon road is spectacular in late September when the aspens turn.

Access

Spearfish city park water: the bottom of the creek, in town.
Spearfish Canyon Highway pullouts: continuous roadside access up the canyon.
Bridal Veil Falls and Savoy: mid-canyon access points.
Little Spearfish Creek and Roughlock Falls: the main side creek, small and beautiful.
Iron Creek: a second tributary with wild fish.
Cheyenne Crossing: the top of the canyon.
Rimrock and the upper reaches: smaller water, brook trout.

Seasons

Open year-round; the spring-fed flow keeps it fishable in winter.
April through June: runoff early, then the best hatches of the year.
July and August: terrestrials, small dries and cool canyon water while the plains bake.
September through November: fall browns, aspen color and very little pressure.