Have you ever heard of Spearfish Creek in South Dakota?  I hadn’t until I started planning this adventure.  South Dakota was somewhat of a difficult State to plan as I really wanted to see the Black Hills for the first time as well as Mount Rushmore but I didn’t know anything about the fishing there.  When I learned that Dakota Angler & Outfitters out of Rapid City was the only fly fishing guide shop in the State I took a hard look at what the Black Hills had to offer for fishing.  I soon learned that although the water was not big and neither were most of the fish – the water was trout soup and that intrigued me. 

Today we found out why these waters are so special.  I caught more fish today than any other State in the thirty days we have fished so far.  It was a spectacular day of nymph fishing where I landed 20 browns and 5 rainbows in just a few hours.  The water was so cold as well that it took an hour for my feet to thaw when we finished the morning.  Taylor’s day wasn’t quite as impressive but still respectable.  We’re not sure why exactly as he was sampling the same soup.  He just didn’t have the right angle in his dangle I guess.  But still we totaled 33 for the morning – our 2^nd best four hour total for the entire journey.

The evening before was especially memorable as we pushed hard all day to make Mount Rushmore by nightfall.  We rolled into the park at 9:30PM and luckily there was still plenty of daylight to get some nice pictures.  We then moved onto our campsite in Spearfish when we decided we had better start taking this noise we’ve been hearing seriously.  I called our RV roadside assistance number and asked if there was anyone in Rapid City that could look at our Sprinter-based RV the next day.  There was, and although it was already 11PM we decided we would drive by their location to see when there hours of operation were the next day.  As you might imagine thinking about servicing an RV when you don’t have a minute to spare on a trip like this is not a good thing.  As we pulled into their parking lot we noticed there was a Freightliner mechanic next door – and the light was on their garage.  I had just learned three days earlier in Jackson Hole that Freightliner works on Winnebago Views.  We drove over – I jumped out and quickly described our dilemma.  To our shock they told us to drive it in one of their bays and the put one of their mechanics on it immediately.  An hour later after a test drive and thorough inspection they concluded that it was not something that would be catastrophic and that it is probably something in the transmission that needs looked at eventually.  Think about the odds of what just happened.  We wandered into a town we’ve never been in before, stumbled blindly into an alley that had a light on in a garage, and found a big-rig mechanic at 11PM at night that was willing to figure out what was wrong with our RV.  I’ll conclude this subject by stealing a line from Larry Rea (Outdoor Radio Host in Nashville) now – “I am a man of faith and don’t believe in luck”.  AMEN.

We left Spearfish, SD at 1PM today and chartered a course for Devil Lake, North Dakota – another 500+ mile drive.  Tomorrow we will go after North Dakota Walleye.

Finally, today marked our 30^th straight day of rain-free fishing.