In late June James and I set off for a combination tourist/fly fishing trip to South Dakota and Wyoming. I left it late to book, but it turned out that there were cabins in Custer State Park that are also a surprisingly cheap $50 a night. They aren’t as nice as the ones here in Backbone for the same price. They are called “camping cabins.” They have electricity, but no washrooms or kitchens, just lights and an air conditioner. They have two sets of bunk beds, a little table, a chair, a couple of benches, and that’s all. You’re not allowed to cook in them, but there’s a big wooden porch and picnic table outside, so you can bring a cooler and cook on a Coleman stove, or whatever. There are also showers and modern washrooms in the campground.
Anyway, another massively long drive up through western Minnesota and most of the breadth of South Dakota. It was at least new, if not really much of an improvement on Nebraska. We got into Keystone, a tourist trap town near Mount Rushmore, in time to get dinner.
I may as well give the overall Black Hills review at the outset to get it out of the way. I’m glad we went. I wouldn’t rush back. It was incredibly crowded, bumper to bumper traffic on the little roads a lot of the time, and not just in the vicinity of Rushmore. It was a little better off the beaten path, but still usually congested. If you like hordes of fat white people shuffling along, then tailgating you in their massive SUVs, then I recommend it. Otherwise, the scenery is stunning and it’s worth it to see it once.
The next day we got up and did the obligatory Rushmore. James is American, best he see it. I’m with the Lakota on this one. That’s all I’m gonna say.
We did everything there was to do at Rushmore – bounced through the crowds of white people, took the little trail that gets you fairly close to the base, looked at the museum exhibits in various places, bought some merch. We watched North by Northwest shortly before we came out, so that was maybe the most relatable thing.
I’d budgeted for a full day at Rushmore, but there just wasn’t a day’s worth of entertainment. We were due to check into the cabin at Custer State Park but still had hours to kill. So I cracked open the out of print fishing guidebook I’d paid 75 bucks for on Amazon to look for inspiration.
Not far from our campground was a segment of Grace Coolidge Creek which was on my list of targets. So we drove there and geared up. South Dakota bans felt soles, so we each had brand new rubber-soled wading boots, the cheapest models Orvis sells. James elected to just go in running shoes, as it seemed you didn’t have to get your feet wet if you didn’t want to.
We fished a popular walk in segment of the stream. It’s a series of little dams and is regularly stocked with rainbows. There were lots of people fishing and hiking.
I was kind of at sea. Not only was this a new stream, it was an entirely new place. I always feel like I’ve forgotten how to fish until I get my bearings. It didn’t take too long, though. Where the creek entered the first of the dams there were some rainbows visible. I caught one of them on my second South Dakota cast.
I fished the now-ubiquitous slump buster on the TUSA Rhodo.
Once we figured out the basic deal – crowds of people, fish available but not in great numbers, we kind of settled in and just enjoyed ourselves. I’m pretty sure I spent more time speaking with curious onlookers than fishing. Some saw me catch fish and seemed to regard it as exotic, some knew a bit about fishing but hadn’t seen tenkara before, some just wanted to talk.
Aside from the igneous rocks and the stream colour, as things went along they started to seem awfully familiar. Creek chub. Yup. Just the same as home.
At the fourth dam I climbed across the spillway to the deeper water on the far side and was rewarded with two decent sized rainbows. Two different groups of people stopped to watch me here. The first was a father and son outfit, the son probably in his mid-teens. He was all boy-howdy I wanna catch my first fish. I smiled at the enthusiasm, but he had a spin rod with some metal contraption lure that looked like it weighed half a pound. It went in like a bomb, though it must be said he had impressive casting range. His best chance would be to land it on a trout and stun it. A second group were middle aged Serious Fly Fishers. They were all nice. Nobody I spoke with had caught any fish and most seemed to think I had some secret. Chuck fly in water. Twitch fly. Fish bite.
The crowds started to get kind of unreal, so we packed up and just strolled up as far as the path went, to where the creek drains a little lake.
It was very pleasant and we enjoyed it (James caught some creek chub). But it was about like this everywhere. Now, I can’t fairly judge a whole area on a few neophyte days on just a few streams. But the impression was: perfectly nice. But for a place with a blue ribbon reputation…well, honestly, the fishing’s better in eastern Iowa. But the Black Hills are lovely, and the fishing was never worse than pleasant.