Winter fishing in Boise Idaho.

There are a lot more fish than potatoes in Idaho. I have been fly fishing in Idaho since 2003. Mostly I fish the Silver Creek Preserve, Big Wood River and upper handler area in summer on my way to Yellowstone and back from Montana. I had never fished the Boise River and especially in winter.

I am in Idaho because I am giving a presentation on "Fly Fishing with Tenkara Rods" at the Boise Fly Fishing Expo 2018 in mid January. To prepare for my presentation, Conrad Estrem and Craig Newman, whom I have known from the Oni School, gave me fishing treat a day before the expo event. Oni, which means demon in Japanese, is a nick name for Masami Sakakibaba, who is the best Japanese tenkara master today. Since 2015, Oni has been offering a yearly class on tenkara fishing in the US hosted by Tenkara Guides in Utah.

We went to South Fork of Boise River which is about 1.5 hours from East Boise. Snow came down all day until 4pm. The scenery was amazing; we saw no car at all until much later.

I was eager to show off special casting technique which I had been practicing for months. Unfortunately, no fish were rising because of snow. So I had to resort to nymphs instead. We all caught three fish each. The temperature was too cold to operate my iPhone camera. On the way back to the car, I hooked a monster male rainbow that was over 19 inches (it is very common on SFB). At first the fish fought very hard, then I took a few steps toward the fish(more about landing big fish with tenkara rod by Robert Worthing.(Rob is a profession tenkara guide for many years) He immediately relaxed and stopped fighting hard. Instead of bringing him in like I normally do, I walked with him down stream like walking a dog and brought him closer to the bank - gently bring him in with Tanuki Snow XL-1. The rod gave me smooth feeling like just holding the line and gently pulling the fish.

It was a great day fishing thanks to Craig and Conrad. I did learn some things about landing a big fish without a big fight.