The 'Eyes Have It

When we arrived at Orman Reservoir, it was almost hard to believe we'd traveled less than an hour from Deadwood, which sits deep in the Black Hills. Orman is flat, nearly pancake flat, with very few trees along the shore (although you do see the mountains in the distance if you look to the southwest). What seemingly doesn't change no matter which direction you travel from Deadwood is that the fishing is outstanding.

I spent a fun day at Orman with walleye pro Jim Sherman, with Lee Harstad, executive director of the Deadwood Chamber of Commerce, joining us for the afternoon. We spent most of the day casting jigs to weedy bars and caught big numbers of walleyes and smallmouths. We began the day fishing minnow-tipped curly-tailed grubs, but ended up catching most of our fish on hair jigs. My jigs of choice, of course, were Ugly Bugs. Specifically, I did best with brown and orange marabou jigs, each with a pair of brown rooster feathers flared out to suggest crawfish claws.

The walleye was a new species for my 2014 fish species list. Both walleyes and smallmouths were different from any of the nine species I'd caught the day before with Tyler French on Lake Pactola. Yet another reason why Deadwood has become one of my absolute favorite fishing destinations!