In the Heart of the City of Boise...

...there is a River that bears the same name. It's a pretty special trait to have such a gem running through the capitol city of Idaho, and I decided to take advantage of it's proximity today. I did a little hiking up the Greenbelt Trail to get away from the more highly trafficked areas and found a little bend in the river that pulled away from the trail. Other than the sound of the Boise State University Marching band practicing only a half mile away in Bronco Stadium, I could have sworn I was miles from civilization.

The fishing on the Boise River, in my experience, can be a bit hit and miss but there is a good population of Rainbow and Brown trout and there are some fish in this river that grow quite large. Besides trout, the Idaho Fish and Game releases several truckloads of hatchery Steelhead that are trapped below Hells Canyon Dam, where they reach a large barrier to any further migration, into the river offering a little extra sport each fall. The first truckload this year arrived this last Thursday and so I decided to get out and put a few of the Steelhead flies I have been tying recently to use.

I tied on an Egg Sucking Leach (I love Steelhead Fly names) and some split shot to get it down deep and wore out my arm working a very good looking, deep hole. I only had a couple hours to fish before I needed to get over to the Stadium and reserve some seats in the General Admission section for the Boise State football game for our group.

It was a beautiful crisp fall morning and the marching bands dull thumps in the background only confirmed this is the greatest time of year. When else are you going to try and catch a steelhead all morning then walk a half mile to the stadium and take in a great college football game. Ahhhhhhhhh Fall! By far my favorite season.

As I flung my fly into the slowly churning water over and over again my eyes began to wander up and down the river as they will often do when there is not much action on the other end of my line and I noticed a group of geese just up stream that were cleaning themselves and really playing around in the water. I took out my camera and tried to see just how close I could get and they played along and humored me for a couple photos.

Yes, I did get skunked. No fish, but I have to say the day was a success. As you can see the river that runs through the middle of Boise, is a keeper.