The creek the state counted, mile by mile
Few streams this size have a public report as detailed as the DNR's 2019 watershed survey of Black Earth Creek, updated with 2021 numbers. The creek starts west of Middleton and runs 27 miles through Cross Plains, Black Earth and Mazomanie to Blue Mounds Creek and the Wisconsin River, draining 105 square miles that are 37 percent forest and 37 percent farmland. The headwaters are channelized and warm and hold little for an angler. The springs at Cross Plains change that, and from Cross Plains to the Highway 14 bridge in Mazomanie the creek is Class I trout water, self-sustaining wild browns that the state does not routinely stock, with only occasional surplus rainbows and browns dropped into the lower reaches.
The survey's fifteen creek stations averaged 100 adult trout over 8 inches per mile and 91 over 12 inches per mile, with fish from 3 to 20 inches. The best water is at the top: the Jovina Street, County KP and Scherbel Road stations in and around Cross Plains had the highest catch rates, and the eastern reaches near Cross Plains held about 855 trout per mile in 2019 and 1,363 per mile in 2021. Garfoot and Vermont creeks, the two Class II tributaries, are stocked and fish well in their upper ends; Brewery Creek, which joins below the Highway 14 bridge at Cross Plains, is unclassified but holds browns.
What happened below South Valley Road
A runoff-driven fish kill in 2001 ran from Cross Plains to the village of Black Earth. The DNR picked up 150 dead trout and says the real number was much higher; the South Valley Road station, which held more than 700 trout per mile before the kill, averaged 150 per mile from 2014 to 2019 and 220 in 2021, while the water above Cross Plains was unaffected. The lower creek below South Valley Road has had low catch rates of every size class since, though the report notes above-average numbers of large fish there. That is the reason the special regulation exists, and it is also the reason to fish the Cross Plains water if you want numbers and the lower water if you want one big brown.
The report's warning is still current: a hard rain or a fast snowmelt can put manure and storm runoff into the creek in a single event. When the gauge spikes after a storm, give it a day or two; the water will be brown anyway.
Twelve road crossings and the parks in between
Access is by road right-of-way at a dozen crossings plus a string of public parcels, all listed in the DNR report. Working downstream: Stagecoach Road just east of Cross Plains, the DNR fishery area east of the village, Zander Park inside Cross Plains, DNR easements east of County KP, the fishery area north of KP west of Salmo Pond, the water downstream of South Valley Road, the DNR parcels near County F and just west of the village of Black Earth with easements between them, and at the bottom the Wolf Run trail and stream re-meander project at Mazomanie near Highway 14, which the DNR describes as the tailwater of the Class I trout water.
Black Earth Angling Co., about 30 minutes from Madison, guides these creeks and sums up the rhythm of the Driftless season: April and May for technical dry-fly fishing before the vegetation grows in, June through August for hoppers, ants and beetles tight to undercut banks, Tricos in late summer, and September and October for streamers when the browns turn territorial. The DNR survey's 63-degree average summer temperature is why it fishes through July.
Spring creek bugs: Hendricksons in April, Tricos into October
Bob Blumreich's Silver Doctor charts, written for Wisconsin spring creeks and naming Black Earth for several hatches, are the local reference. Hendricksons run early April to mid June and Black Earth is one of the creeks listed for them; Sulphurs mid May to mid July in sizes 14 to 18, shrinking as the season goes; March Browns mid May to mid July; Light Cahills early June to mid August with Black Earth named; a Hex from mid June to mid July that Black Earth is also listed for; olives all season in 14 to 24; Pseudocloeon from early July through October in 20 to 24; and Tricos from late July through October, again with Black Earth named. On the caddis side the chart puts the little black Chimarra in April, the Grannom through most of May and the Green Rock Worm, listed for Black Earth, from mid May to mid June.
Scuds are in the weed beds all year and midges carry the January-to-March catch-and-release season, when Black Earth Angling says the creeks never freeze and the fish keep eating. Root River Rod Co., on the Minnesota side of the same Driftless region, fishes the early season with Pink Squirrels, Zebra Midges and small jig nymphs in the deep pools and tailouts, and that box works here too.
One trout over 18 inches from Highway 14 up to South Valley Road
The 2026-2027 trout guide lists Black Earth Creek from US 14 on the east side of Mazomanie upstream to South Valley Road as a Red water: a daily bag and length limit of 1 trout over 18 inches. Everything else in the watershed, the creek above South Valley Road and Garfoot, Vermont and Brewery creeks, is under the Dane County base rule, Yellow, 3 trout in total over 8 inches. The DNR report dates the 18-inch rule to 2018.
Dane County is on the early catch-and-release list, so the creek opens January 3, 2026 at 5 a.m. to artificial lures only with every trout released, through April 3. The harvest season runs April 4 through October 15, 2026, a month earlier than in past years after the statewide change. A general license and inland trout stamp are required at 16 and older.
A gauge that barely moves
USGS 05406500 is at the village of Black Earth, below the special-regulation boundary and above Mazomanie. Its record since 1954 shows what a spring creek looks like on paper: monthly means of about 34 cfs in January, 39 in February, 52 in March, 48 in April, 45 in May, 46 in June, 45 in July, 40 in August and 39 in September and October. The DNR's survey crews measured an average of 73 cfs across their stations in 2019, with individual sites from 5 to 128 cfs, so the gauge runs lower than the wetter summer readings. No shop publishes a wading band for it; the 25 to 60 cfs range on this page is the creek's normal envelope from the USGS record. Anything much over 60 means rain, and on this creek rain means dirty water and the runoff risk the DNR keeps warning about.