<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It feels like spring in the Treasure Valley, which means its time to start hitting local ponds and lakes. River fishing will be good, too, until runoff flows arrive, and there are even a few spots left to squeeze in some late-season ice fishing north of the Treasure Valley. Here are a few ideas to get you started: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ponds (Mixed Bag) <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Spring is one of the best times to fish ponds. Bluegill,\ncrappie and even a few bass are starting to stir, while thousands of trout are\nbeing stocked by Idaho Fish & Game. One of my favorite places to fish for\ntrout is Hagerman, where there are dozens of small ponds and lakes as well as Riley\nCreek, Billingsley Creek and the Snake River. In addition to standard,\npan-sized rainbows, Hagerman is a good place to catch huge adult fish like the\none pictured. Spinners, spoons, flies, worms, Power Bait and shrimp are good options\nfor trout in ponds. Panfish jigs are best for crappie and bluegill, while bass\nmight take a slowly retrieved crankbait or jig. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rivers (Trout) <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Boise River has been fishing well for rainbow and brown\ntrout, which should continue until spring runoff arrives. That might happen\nsoon, so hit it now! Rapalas, spinners, streamer patterns and bait are good\nbets. I\u2019ve already seen folks catching some nice catfish on the Snake River,\ntoo, while spring steelhead fishing continues on the Salmon and Clearwater rivers.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n C.J. Strike (Panfish, Trout) <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Old reliable C.J. Strike continues to produce for crappie\nanglers. Schools are gathering in 40 to 50 feet of water, and they\u2019re usually suspended\n20 to 40 feet deep. Once you locate fish, drop crappie jigs down\u2014light gear\nhelps, as the bite can be subtle. Trolling or fishing with bait near the dam\ncan produce some nice rainbow trout, and anglers often bump into a few surprises\nat Strike. On one recent trip, we stumbled into a crazy bluegill bite while\ncatching crappie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ice Fishing <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hardwater season is winding down, but you can still find\nplenty of ice to our north at Lake Cascade, Payette Lake, Warm Lake and\nHorsethief Reservoir. Ice fishing on sunny March days can be awesome\u2014just be\nprepared to deal with some slush. My most recent ice fishing trip was March 1\nat Payette. We were targeting elusive Mackinaw trout, and we caught a few on\nwhite tube jigs and cut bait. Check social media groups or call Tackle Tom\u2019s in\nCascade for the latest reports. The ice should last a couple more weeks, but it\nreally depends on how quickly things warm up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tight lines! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It feels like spring in the Treasure Valley, which means its time to start hitting local ponds and lakes. River fishing will be good, too, until runoff flows arrive, and there are even a few spots left to squeeze in some late-season ice fishing north of the Treasure Valley. Here are a few ideas to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1149,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tightlines208.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}