Black Hills Fishing Report May 24th 2024

The Fishing outlook for Memorial Day weekend looks great in the Black Hills. Some chances for rain in the forecast. However, streams have dropped this past week and a little rain won’t hurt. Cloudy days should bring patches of blue wing Olive May flies. We are starting to see some caddis show up on most streams.

All of our Black Hills streams are in good fishable shape for the weekend. We have heard good reports from streams throughout the Black Hills. Get out and make the most of it. As things warm up and dry out through the summer, some of those options may not continue to fish as well. 

Some of the top producing streams this week were spring Creek below Sheridan lake French Creek and Custer State Park, Spearfish Creek in Spearfish Canyon, and Castle Creek below Deerfield. On rapid Creek fishing was good above Pactola reservoir near Silver city fishing on rapid Creek in town Continues to be quite good.

Look for dry fly fishing opportunities almost every day starting around nine or 10 in the morning. Dry fly fishing will pick up with overcast skies. Nymph fishing will continue to be the best overall producer. But it’s probably not too early to start fishing dry-dropper rigs, using a small chubby Chernobyl or Klink hammer as your dry and running a size 16 to 18 paragon as your dropper will work in pretty much any stream throughout the hills.

Black Hills Lakes are fishing well. However, they may be quite busy this holiday weekend. The best bet for fishing a quiet lake will be on Deerfield. 

Top fly patterns for dry flies will be parachute Adams sizes 16-18, Parachute Blue Winged olives size 18, Tan Elk Hair size 16, and ant and beetle patterns. At the very highest elevations there there may continue to be a few little black stone flies. 

The top nymph patterns will be peacock or ice blue perdigon in sizes 16 and 18. Jig SF in Olive or PMD in sizes 14 through 20.  Zebra midges are also working quite well.