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Caldwell Ponds have been closed since 2019 for an Idaho Fish and Game (IDF&G) project to combine the two ponds into a single, deeper large pond. The New and Improved Caldwell Pond has been designed with shoreline complexity, lots of contouring, and fish habitat structure including larger logs, root wads, boulders and rock piles. The pond will be managed for self-sustaining largemouth bass and bluegill populations, with seasonal stocking of hatchery trout. The new pond has a quality rule for largemouth bass, with a two fish limit that must be larger than 20 inches to keep. Yes! 20 inches! You read that right! The chance for trophy largemouth bass in our backyard!
The New and Improved Caldwell Pond has been slowly filling this summer, and IDF&G will start building the fish population this Fall. Although water levels are still low, anglers will be able to access the pond soon. I talked to Southwest Regional Fishery Manager Art Butts recently about the project. He is very excited about it and thinks it has the potential to produce trophy sized bass in the future. Access to the pond is currently limited, but they have plans to add a boat ramp and more fishing docks. BVFF is hoping to partner with IDF&G on some access improvements in the future.
IDF&G’s Fishing Planner will get updated soon with more information on the New and Improved Caldwell Pond, including when it is reopened for fishing. For this first year, it would be helpful to release what you catch, as the populations are just getting started. And please, whatever you do, do not add walleye or other species. Give IDF&G a chance to show how good a trophy-bass pond can be when it has the right design and structure.
The Lower Boise River through town is considered one of the finest urban trout rivers in the country and we are lucky to have it in our back yard. The Boise River has a good population of wild rainbow and brown trout and Idaho Fish and Game (IDF&G) stocks it regularly with hatchery trout.
To track and manage the trout population, IDF&G does regular electrofishing surveys on the river. They use a population estimate method called a Mark Recapture Survey. They electro-fish a half mile section of river and mark those fish with a fin-clip or tag, then return later to electro-fish the same section of river. Some portions of the fish they catch the second time have tags, and some do not. Using the ratio of tagged to untagged fish they can estimate the population size. For example, if 200 fish were tagged on the first outing, and two weeks later 20% of the second sample are tagged fish from the first survey, that suggests those 200 fish represent about 20% of the whole population — meaning there are roughly 1,000 trout in that stretch of river.
Here is more information from IDF&G about how they work to manage and improve trout populations on the Lower Boise River. For details on each section, see IDF&G's online Fishing Planner which is an excellent tool to help you explore fishing opportunities in Idaho.
One section of river IDF&G has never been able to effectively survey is the reach from the NY Canal Diversion Dam down to Barber Dam. It is very difficult to get the trailer and rafts down to the river and much of the river is so deep that electro-fishing is ineffective.
BVFF has been volunteering at the Diane Moore Nature Center and supporting the new Army Corps of Engineer’s Barber Pool Restoration project . The Barber Pool Conservation Area is a special place and unique in an urban environment and we have been surprised and impressed with the trout population there. Unlike the Boise River below Barber Dam through town, the section of river above Barber Dam up to the NY Canal Diversion Dam is not regularly stocked with hatchery trout. As a result, it has evolved into a wild trout fishery.
IDF&G Southwest Regional Fishery Manager Art Butts would like to get a better trout population estimate in this section, using anglers as the catch method. This “rod-and-reel capture method” is a well-established substitute for electrofishing in water like this, but it takes skilled anglers to catch a good sample size. Art has asked BVFF and the VICE Outdoors community to help them with two rod-and-reel capture surveys in November, on 11/X and 11/Y (time TBD). We will have teams of anglers catching, netting and transporting trout to biologist stations where they will weigh, measure and tag fish.
Flows on the Boise will be down to winter fishing levels and the river will be in prime shape for fishing. To get a good survey we need to put a lot of fish in the net! We are looking for anglers who are familiar with the water above and below the HWY-21 bridge. If you are interested in helping, please reach out to us at conservation@bvff.com. There's also a chance this survey will turn up something extra: IDF&G placed brown trout egg boxes below the Diversion Dam in fall 2024, part of an effort to establish a wild brown trout population in this reach. That first cohort would be about a year and a half old by November — old enough to be catchable size. It'll be a nice bonus if any turn up in our nets.
We're grateful IDF&G is investing the time and staff to get population data for this reach, and for reaching out to our club to help. It's not an easy piece of water to study, and this kind of hands-on population data is exactly what's needed to manage it well going forward.
Recently, our Public Lands have come under attack, including legislative efforts to transfer public lands, budget proposals seeking to liquidate them and rolling back regulations to allow commercialization. For example, last summer, a proposal was slipped into the federal budget reconciliation bill to force the sell-off of up to 3 million acres of BLM and Forest Service public lands across the West. Another pattern of attacking our Public Lands isn’t selling them off but rolling back regulations that protect them. For example, in 2026, an executive proclamation stripped protections from millions of acres of public lands in the Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante to facilitate commercial development and resource extraction. A similar pattern of rolling back regulations to allow commercial use is being discussed on our beloved South Fork of the Boise River.
The South Fork of the Boise River below Anderson Ranch Dam is known throughout Idaho’s angling community as the “Governor’s River”. This special designation was intended to prevent commercialization and preserve a high-quality experience for anglers and outdoorsmen. Prohibiting commercial guiding was an intentional, foundational policy choice designed to guarantee that everyday citizens retain unencumbered access to a premier tailwater without competing against commercial guiding. The Boise National Forest's management standard for the Lower South Fork Boise River makes that intent explicit, stating that the Forest Service will not issue special use permits for commercial whitewater rafting or fly-fishing outfitters and guides "in order to maintain the current river related recreation experiences" (Forest Plan, p. III-107). This is the codification of a management philosophy that has shaped the South Fork of the Boise River for decades. For many anglers, the self-guided character of this river is not incidental to its value; it is the value. Club member Larry Fry has done some research into how the SF Boise came to be called the Governors River. You can read his write up on BVFF's Conservation Blog .
Recently, it has come to our attention that commercial outfitter interests are actively lobbying the Forest Service to change the regulations to allow guiding on the SF Boise River. While proponents pitch this as a change limited to 2 outfitters doing weekday floats limited to the remote canyon section between Danskin Bridge to Neal Bridge, this foot-in-the door strategy has been used before and we feel is only the first of what is likely to be a series of steps to increase the number of guides and sections that can be guided.
The topic is on the agenda at the next SF Boise Watershed meeting, October 6th (see https://southforkboise.org/ ). The BVFF Board of Directors unanimously adopted an official Policy Resolution opposing any Forest Plan amendment or commercial outfitting permits on the South Fork. Leadership will deliver that message directly at the October 6th South Fork Boise Watershed Collaborative meeting. You can find a copy of BVFF’s signed policy resolution on our Conservation Blog website here .
To be clear: this issue is currently under discussion and is not yet a formal proposal. But sportsmen need to understand how the regulatory dominoes fall. As it turns out, two commercial licenses technically exist on paper for the Danskin-to-Neal canyon section, but they haven’t been able to be used because of the Forest Service Management Plan. If the Forest Service approves changes to their Management Plan, those commercial guides could launch the next day. The secondary battle—expanding those operations to weekends or pushing upstream into the water between Anderson Ranch Dam and Danskin—would require formal administrative rulemaking through the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Licensing Board and approval from the Idaho Legislature.
The time to stop commercialization is now, before the first domino falls. If the Forest Service tries to change their Management Plan, there will be a public input period where sportsmen will have a chance to have their voices heard. We must remain vigilant on this issue and against any attempts to privatize or commercialize our public lands. History proves that when sportsmen stand united, engage early, and communicate directly with decision-makers, we can protect our public lands and waters.
At the September 3rd Board of Directors approved the following resolution concerning the possibility of guiding on the SF Boise River. Stay tuned for additional information.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS OFFICIAL POSITION & POLICY RESOLUTION
Subject: Opposition to Commercial Outfitting on the South Fork Boise River
Boise Valley Fly Fishers (BVFF) is the oldest fly-fishing organization in Idaho, founded in 1971, and represents more than 300 active members. We have been engaged on the South Fork Boise River for many years and have a direct and long-standing stake in how this river is managed. The BVFF Board is writing to state our position clearly: we oppose allowing commercial whitewater rafting or fly-fishing guiding on any part of the South Fork Boise River, below Anderson Ranch Dam.
The South Fork of the Boise River below Anderson Ranch Dam is known throughout Idaho’s angling community as the “Governor’s River”. This special designation was intended to prevent commercialization and preserve a high-quality experience for anglers and outdoorsmen. Prohibiting commercial guiding was an intentional, foundational policy choice designed to guarantee that everyday citizens retain unencumbered access to a premier tailwater without competing against commercial guiding. The Boise National Forest's management standard for the Lower South Fork Boise River makes that intent explicit, stating that the Forest Service will not issue special use permits for commercial whitewater rafting or fly-fishing outfitters and guides "in order to maintain the current river related recreation experiences" (Forest Plan, p. III-107). This is the codification of a management philosophy that has shaped the South Fork of the Boise River for decades. The self-guided character of this river is not incidental to its value; for many anglers, it is the value.
We understand that the Forest Service is now reaching out to the South Fork Boise Watershed Collaborative to gauge interest in a Forest Plan amendment that would let two companies begin exercising commercial licenses, starting with a limited stretch of the lower river. We take that proposal seriously, and we want to be direct about why we oppose it even in this narrow form: once the door is open on any part of this river, there is every reason to expect pressure to widen it to the entire river. We say this because of a repeated pattern of management restrictions on public land expanding once a precedent has been set. We believe that an amendment scoped to "the lower river only" today does not bind future proposals from asking for more tomorrow.
There is also a practical concern that stands on its own, independent of precedent. The South Fork Boise already sees substantial and growing recreational pressure. Adding commercial guiding increases competition for the same access points. BVFF helped fund the construction of public boat access ramps at both Tailwaters and Danskin Bridge. These facilities were funded specifically to facilitate self-directed public access — not to serve as commercial staging areas for private commercial enterprise.
For these reasons, the Board of Directors of Boise Valley Fly Fishers has adopted the following position:
We oppose any Forest Plan amendment or other administrative action that would authorize commercial whitewater rafting or fly-fishing outfitter and guide services on any portion of the South Fork Boise River below Anderson Ranch Dam. We will participate actively in the Collaborative process to advocate for keeping the existing no-guiding standard in place across the entire river corridor, not just the reach currently under discussion. We will share this position with our membership and with allied conservation and angling organizations who share an interest in this special place.
Adopted by a unanimous vote of the Directors present, constituting a quorum of the Board of Directors of Boise Valley Fly Fishers, this 3rd day of September 2026.
_____________________________________________
Prescott O Lieberg, III, President Boise Valley Fly Fishers
Anglers and river floaters have noticed a strong bloom of Didymo, or "rock snot" this year in the Boise River. Didymo is native to the mountain west, and periodically has large blooms, with cause unknown. This year appears to be one of those. The Idaho Statesman has a report on this summer development.
Increased ‘gunk’ in Boise River led to DEQ testing. It’s ‘rock snot.’ Huh?
Read more at: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/community/boise/article316619141.html#storylink=cpy
BVFF has been working with the Boise Flood District on ways to improve woody cover for trout on the Boise River. As part of that, they allow us to manage the wood in the side channel where we have done our gravel augmentations. Last Fall, volunteers helped clear a tree that fell in the side channel and secure some bundles of smaller wood in the channel to give young fish protection over the winter. We have added small woody cover over the past few years and continue to try new approaches. This last year Brian Martin led a team that secured some small woody bundles with some hemp rope, and they stayed much better, and as a BONUS it racked up a pile of small wood which makes for excellent cover for trout. Way to go Brian and Team!
One problem we have had in the side channel is when flows get low in the Fall, the public will push rocks into the entry to make it easy to cross to fish below the diversion dam. This reduces inflows to the side channel to the point brown trout have stopped using it to spawn.
A couple of years ago a small tree washed into the entry and the public repositioned it to make a crossing, which prevented rocks from blocking the side channel inlet. I would like to see if we can do something similar with a log that washed into our side channel this spring. Our agreement with the Flood District allows us to repurpose wood that has naturally floated into the side channel, as long as it doesn’t pose a flood risk. This new log would make a good temporary crossing at the inlet to the side channel. If we add the crossing log, we would also need to remove it next spring, before flows come up (hopefully--stashing it above the high water mark for use the following year).
If you are interested in helping with this project, please reach out to me at conservation@bvff.com.
Last Fall, BVFF started a 5-year project to study gravel migration on the Boise and Owyhee rivers. Club member, Jeff Jones, lead an effort to drill 200 pieces of river gravel and epoxy PIT-tags inside them. Three-quarters of these rocks were placed in the Owyhee River last Fall and late this winter, a group of BVFF volunteers placed the rest of them into the Boise River, along with a cubic yard of spawning-size gravel. The resulting “study plot” was six feet wide by twelve feet long and four inches deep. Tagged rocks were placed in a grid at three different depths: On the surface, two inches below the surface and 4 inches below the surface. The study-plot grid below shows the layout of the study plot, quadrant, size of rock (small, medium, large) and depth of placement (eg: -4 inches).
Our plan is to work with Biomark and use a PIT-tag reader each Fall over the next five years to see where the tagged gravel ends up. The result will give us insights into how long our previous Boise River gravel additions stayed in the side channel and if the Owyhee river gravel is staying in place well enough to warrant doing a second augmentation.
Because of low snowpack, this Spring’s flows on the Boise river were lower than usual, but they were also of similar magnitude as 2021—which was the year we did our first Boise River gravel augmentation. Which means where we find the gravel this Fall is a reasonable estimate for where the gravel we added in 2021 ended up after the first year. (click on any graphic or photo to see a larger image).
Summer flows on the Boise river typically run 800cfs – 1,000cfs, but because of the low snowpack last winter, water managers have already dropped flows on the Boise in town to 650cfs (which is a GREAT flow to fish—get out there!). At the end of June, I visited the side channel to take a look at the location where we added the cubic yard of gravel in a 6’ x 12’ rectangle. There was no visible rectangle of smaller gravels, but there were some smaller gravels on the inside bend where we placed gravel, but the further away from the bank you look, the larger the rock/cobble got.
Although I didn’t have a PIT-tag reader, I knew that in addition to the PIT tags, our rocks had a number written on them in permanent marker, to help us keep track of them while working without a PIT-tag reader. I scuffed my wading shoes along the bottom to clear off a strip and picked up a few small rocks. Low and behold, I ran into one of our tagged rocks! B-44…. BINGO!
Comparing the number (B44) to the grid of tagged rocks we placed, it was a rock that was placed approximately at the location where I found it, but at the bottom of the 4 inches of gravel--which means the higher flows this Spring moved the gravel that was on top of it (see the Boise River Study-Plot layout at the top of this article). It was tempting to dig through more of the rocks to see if I could find others, but I wanted to leave the gravel area undisturbed and wait until the Fall when we have the PIT-Tag reader.
Flows on the Owyhee won’t drop until mid-October at the end of Irrigation season. But I suspect that the gravel on the Owyhee hasn’t moved very much as we saw low spring flows this year. High spring flows occur less frequently on the Owyhee, so it will be a few years until we see what higher flows do.
My thanks to all of our BVFF volunteers that helped tag and place the gravel. It is a very valuable study for our club, and other organizations in the Treasure Valley are equally interested in learning the results. I am looking forward to our gravel “Easter Egg” hunt this Fall. I want to thank Nick Porter at Biomark for his help with this project. We wouldn’t be able to track down these tagged rocks without his help.
Last year ODFW relocated approximately 400 brown trout from the top third of the river to the lower river, between Snively Gulch and the Concrete Bridge (by the Owyhee River Ranch), with the goal to improve the brown trout population on the lower half of the river.
Based on data collected last year from raft electrofishing and angler-reported tags, ODFW estimates that 58% of the relocated brown trout were found in the lower section of the river, 12% were found in the middle section, and 30% were found in the upper section. This is an exciting finding because it indicates a good number of those relocated brown trout decided to stay in the lower river last year!
In May, 2026, ODFW relocated a second set of tagged trout (both browns and rainbows) to the same locations. They are asking for angler's help by reporting any trout that has a yellow tag attached to their dorsal fin. ODFW will also electro-fish the river in August to do an adult trout survey and to look for tagged fish.
When you catch a trout on the Owyhee, please look for a yellow floy-tag attached to the dorsal fin (tags from last year will be covered in algae and harder to spot). Please note that the floy tags also have a phone number on them (833-273-7923). Please DO NOT report the phone number as the tag number. To be safe, take a photo of BOTH sides of the tag and report the tag number to ODFW at https://myodfw.com/tagteam. Here is a photo of a tagged brown trout shared by Matt Housel from VICE outdoors. Note the floy tag number “11531”.
BVFF is very excited about the initial results of ODFW’s brown trout relocation project, and we think it’s a great way to get some adult brown trout downstream where they can take advantage of the new gravel BVFF added last Fall!
Projects like these take time and effort and BVFF would like to thank Dave Banks and Kirk Handley for their continued efforts and support of BVFF projects. Here are two posters that ODFW Fish Biologist Kirk Handley helped BVFF make for our January Fly Fishing Expo.
Last year, the City of Boise invited stakeholders to a meeting to help develop a set of stories about the Boise River. There was a large group of people who have been working on the Boise River including Idaho Fish and Game, Greg Kaltenecker from the Diane Moore Nature Center, the Boise River Flood District 10, Trout Unlimited and Boise Fly Fishers.
Boise recently released their StoryMap which talks about the past, present and future of the Boise River and I’m proud to say that BVFF’s fingerprints are on it. I encourage members to take some time and peruse the Boise River StoryBoard—there is so much information there.
City of Boise: Lower Boise River Story Maps
StoryMap sub-sections that mention BVFF are linked below.
A few years ago we had John Casinneli from Idaho Fish and Game speak at a club meeting about the Fish of the Lower Boise river. He also gave the presentation to the Boise River Enhancement Network (BREN), who recorded it and made it available on YouTube. You can watch that presentation HERE:
Over the last 5 years, BVFF has done 2 gravel augmentations in a side channel of the Boise River. We can see that the gravel is no longer where we put it, but the question remains, where did it go!? Is it still in the side channel somewhere? We can see what looks like new gravel accumulations in the lower side channel, but is it our gravel? This was a question that led us to do a gravel tracking project.
Jeff Jones reached out to local company Biomark, who specializes in tracking things with PIT tags. They weren't sure if their PIT tags could be detected inside of a rock, underneath 6 inches of gravel. They loaned BVFF some tags and equipment to try an experiment and were were excited to report that we could! After several rock drilling parties we had 200 tagged pieces of gravel!
After our Owyhee Gravel Augmentation in October, BVFF placed 150 pieces of PIT-tagged gravel in 4 "study plots". Today, after receiving our Stream Alteration Permit from IDWR and USACE and permissions from Idaho DSL and Ada County, BVFF placed 50 pieces of PIT-tagged gravel in our Boise River side channel, along with 0.9 cubic yards of 3/4" round washed gravel. The plan is to use a PIT Tag Detector and sweep the side channel each Fall for 5 years, to see where the tagged gravel ends up. Observations will help guide future gravel augmentations.
While we only added around a cubic yard of gravel today, it's location should be good for rainbow trout spawning this April/May. Given the lower snowpack, we don't anticipate high spring flows, which means the gravel is likely to mostly stay put this year.
For more information about our past gravel augmentations, see these articles:
LESSONS LEARNED
BVFF continues to work on trout habitat improvements in the side channel, including working with the flood district to improve woody cover for trout. We have had the opportunity to accompany Idaho Fish and Game on a couple of their fall trout fry surveys, and it has been gratifying to see good numbers of rainbow and brown trout fry in the side channel.
Going into the first gravel augmentation we thought that gravel was the lone missing ingredient for trout spawning. But what we have observed is that side channel connectivity is just as important as gravel--as without adequate water in the side channel, brown trout do not spawn. The IDF&G trout fry surveys have also highlighted the value of woody cover to trout fry.
IDAHO WATER QUALITY WORKSHOP
Last week, BVFF shared details on our gravel tracking project at the the Idaho Water Quality Workshop. BVFF and Trout Unlimited also shared details about Boise River gravel augmentations done over the last 20 years, including observations of gravel movement. We put together a poster for the March 2026 Idaho Water Quality Workshop that highlights some of our observations of gravel movement in our side channel (shown below).
It is impressive that a volunteer organization has been able to put together this gravel tracking project. Special thanks goes to BVFF club member Jeff Jones for his efforts to lead the project --it would not have happened without his expertise and leadership. We would also like to thank Nick Porter and Biomark for their partnership on designing and participating in the study. And Zack Kirk from Ada County for permission to put some gravel into the side channel for this study.
