Black Hills Fly Fishers; preserving the fishing habitat in the Black Hills

Photo courtesy of Hans Stephenson Facebook page

On an absolutely gorgeous day at Canyon Lake Park you might find Hans Stephenson, an avid fly fisherman doing what he loves. Stephenson is also the owner of the Dakota Angler and a board member of the Black Hills Fly Fishers, which is a organization of nonprofit volunteers whose purpose is to maintain the fishing habitat here in the Black Hills.

“Since 1980, it has been a group of volunteer fly fishers who kind of dedicated the vision of the organization to maintaining the quality of the habitat that we have here in the Black Hills. It includes water quality and in-stream habitat, anything that keeps our fisheries healthy. It’s obviously a group of fly fishermen that want to see the trout fisheries be as healthy and good as possible. I mean, we want the fishing to be good. And for the fishing to be good, you have to have good water quality and good stream habitat.”

Black Hills Fly Fishers have been involved in many projects to help ensure the stream habitats in the Black Hills.

“So, we’ve been involved in a lot of cooperative projects and almost all of our projects take the cooperation of the Game, Fish, and Parks and the Forest Service. And those projects tend to be habitat type projects where we’re giving money, but also participating in terms of the planning and direction of the projects. For Rapid Creek, we’ve done a number of projects most recently below Pactola Reservoir. I believe our club committed somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 to that project. And we’ve been involved in similar efforts on Rapid Creek here in town, Spring Creek, Spearfish Creek.”

Black Hills Fly Fishers aren’t done contributing to the preservation of the water habitats in the Black Hills.

“We’ve got projects coming up below Pactola. Another phase of that project is coming up. Hopefully we’ll break ground this fall. We’ve got a project on Castle Creek below Deerfield that we’re working on to fence out cattle so that the stream banks can recover a little bit in that situation. And then we also have a big project on the books for Spearfish Canyon, just seven, eight miles upstream of Spearfish. Hopefully, we’ll also be breaking ground in the next year or two.”

Black Hills Fly Fishers is composed solely of volunteers.  Without the commitment and sacrifice of the volunteers, Black Hills Fly Fishers wouldn’t be able to do what they are doing.

“I don’t know of any other organization in the Black Hills that’s putting forth the type of money and time to maintain the quality of what we have here. And if we don’t maintain it, then we’re not going to see that quality of fishery continue into the future. It’s really important to get involved because without that involvement, it could go away and we want to see it last. I have got kids and I want to see the fishery to be just as good when they’re my age as it is for me now. “

So if you are a fly fisherman here in the Black Hills, think about joining the Black Hills Fly Fishers.