On the road to Cow Creek Recreation Area, a sign welcomes fishermen to stop at Milt’s Pond, an unassuming little slice of heaven that welcomes fishers young and old to enjoy the best South Dakota has to offer. “Milt built this pond out of his own dollar for family use,” Kyle Potter, Aquatic Habitat Access Biologist, said. “As years went on .
.. he actually wanted more people to fish it.
He came up to me to see how to manage the fishery, to stock fish and this and that. Then I told Milt ‘we’ll do something better, if you allow public access ..
. Game, Fish and Parks will help stock fish and manage the fishery and get people to come fish here.’” It’s been a task five years in the making, with 80-year-old Milton Morris, landowner and former contractor, investing sweat and capital to carve out a pristine pond from an old draw on his land.
“My whole intent was to have a place for kids to fish,” Morris said. “For two or three years, that was the road I went to. I went to Game, Fish and Parks and came to the conclusion it should be a family pond.
That was the direction we went and I think it was the right direction.” About three acres large, the pond is remarkably well-put together, offering a host of amenities, from docks to a diverse collection of fish. Bluegill, large-mouth bass, brown trout, Atlantic salmon and yellow perch round out the present fish population, and with some welcome sunshine this weekend, they are quite literally jumping in excitement fo.
