Hey Everyone,
I just started fishing a few weeks ago and I'm totally hooked (prolly an old joke). I like to go to Swan Falls since it's only 15 min from my house in Kuna. The problem is the river seems really full and we haven't caught anything in a while. I'm looking for alternate locations in the Boise and surrounding areas with good shore fishing, what to fish for at what time of day, what to use, etc. Or ways that I can improve my fishing at Swan Falls, or both.
Any and all advice is appreciated!
Thanks,
Tavinator
Welcome to the board! Hope to hear from you often.
If you are making it down to SF in 5 minutes, you are either bookin' it or you live way far south of town. (Edit- Ooops, I thought you said 5, now I see you said 15, that's probably doable, my bad.)
Fishing is very fickle. It can go from a bite or two every cast to nothing and back again in no time at all. Just don't give up. Sometimes fishing is just tough. Other times it's great.
In order to give advice on what to improve, we'd need to know what you are doing. Hard to tell what you might be doing right and/or wrong when we don't know what you are doing. It can also very greatly depending on what kind of fish you are wanting to catch. Sturgeon fishing is very different from trout or bass fishing, panfish is different still, yet sometimes you might catch many different species using the same technique. Tell us what you are doing and what you want to catch and there will likely be someone here who can give some advice.
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I am a SE guy so I can't help you much, but welcome to the forum.
Windriver
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have you fished above the dam ?[
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hey welcome, i myself am newer to the forum, and wanted to learn about spots around boise, i've fished up at swan falls a couple of times with mixed resaults. One spot we did pretty well was by the boat put in right below the damn, i walked out to a little bank and was casting right out with a spinner right along were the slack bay area met the river water, for while we caught a smallie about every cast, i was using a spinner btw. Other times i've had no luck at all, like said before its all hit and miss. I have a pretty good trout place in town by americanna bridge, no monsters but pretty fun sport if you use a ulta light rod.
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Hey iwantabuggy,
Thanks for replying. Swan Falls is 21 miles away, the speed limit is 55, it takes 15 minutes to get there, so... yeah i'm bookin it a lil bit haha.
For now I'm really just looking to catch some bass or trout although I would love to fight with some of the carp that I see jumping at Swan Falls all the time. I have only caught a few very small largemouths and one smallmouth bass. After several atempts to catch a carp without chumming (which is illegal I hear), I gave up. I don't have a boat so I'm just looking for good places to shore fish, or how I can do it better at Swan Falls, for bass, trout, crappie, or anything of similar size. I have been trying to fill my tackle box, I have some synthetic yamamoto 4" straight worms, a few smaller spinners, some crank baits, ratltraps, and of course the live worms. I'm not confident on how to fish much of this since I am so new to fishing.
If you have any seasoned techniques I would love to try it out!
Thanks again
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[quote hulapopper]have you fished above the dam ?[
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I have fished right off the dam on the top side and down by the park around the buoys. I caught a 12" small mouth, which was my first fish ever right by the buoys, but haven't been able to catch anything up there since. I do see some good sized carp in the morning that I could just spear more successfully that catch on a hook.
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[quote HCampbell]hey welcome, i myself am newer to the forum, and wanted to learn about spots around boise, i've fished up at swan falls a couple of times with mixed resaults. One spot we did pretty well was by the boat put in right below the damn, i walked out to a little bank and was casting right out with a spinner right along were the slack bay area met the river water, for while we caught a smallie about every cast, i was using a spinner btw. Other times i've had no luck at all, like said before its all hit and miss. I have a pretty good trout place in town by americanna bridge, no monsters but pretty fun sport if you use a ulta light rod.[/quote]
I've seen some people park their boats on the rocks below the dam and I'm jealous. I've skipped across the rocks on the other side, where I'm not sure I was supposed to be where my bother-in-law caught a 20" trout that we were pretty excited about but haven't seen another trout there since. I'll have to check out that bridge. What time of day is good? I've heard around the bridges usually gets good around 6pm.
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I have never caught a trout down there, but it is not the kind of place I'd go to target trout either. SF is a better catfish and bass fishery than a trout fishery (although there are obviously some there).
Carp are difficult to catch. I don't know of anyone who catches them consistently. Most of the time carp are caught by accident. My experience is that worms work better than anything else for them.
If you are just wanting to catch some larger fish, I'd focus on the catfish. There is a pretty good population of cats down there. Use worm or cut baits. Fish them on or near the bottom. If you don't get anything in about 10-20 minutes, try another hole. There are lots of them down there. I'd try to get my bait on the seam between the current and the eddies.
There are likely others that could give better advice than I can. Good luck.
P.S. I also live in Kuna (kind of).
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I had good luck catching small mouth bass just above Celebration Park, also not too far from your house. Drive upstream from the park to the primitive camping area and fish from the shore in the evening. Caught them with both lures and worms when I was there in July. Saw some guys catching cats in that area too, but I didn't try that.
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Thanks for all the tips, I will definitely change efforts toward a catfish next time and stay focused on bass at Swan Falls for the most part.
Where is trout fishing good in the Treasure Valley? I've heard parts of the Boise river can be active and mornings at lucky peak? Are there bass also at lucky peak that we could ease into as the day grows warmer?
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[quote Tavinator]Thanks for all the tips, I will definitely change efforts toward a catfish next time and stay focused on bass at Swan Falls for the most part.
Where is trout fishing good in the Treasure Valley? I've heard parts of the Boise river can be active and mornings at lucky peak? Are there bass also at lucky peak that we could ease into as the day grows warmer?[/quote]
Yup. All of the above. You can catch trout other places, but there are not what I'd call "good". If you want good, you need to head out of the valley a ways, IMO.
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If you want to go for cats, your best bet is below the dam. I pulled out a pair of 13 pounders there earlier this year off of cut bait. Darn near jerked the pole in the water when they hit.
There are bass in Lucky Peak, though being a canyon reservoir, it's not your typical bass water.
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[quote StacyR]If you want to go for cats, your best bet is below the dam. I pulled out a pair of 13 pounders there earlier this year off of cut bait. Darn near jerked the pole in the water when they hit.
There are bass in Lucky Peak, though being a canyon reservoir, it's not your typical bass water.[/quote]
Hey Stacy, thanks for the advice! A couple of 13 pounders would make my entire fishing life thus far! Usually I'll walk across the dam and fish some just down along the first rock edges there. Hopefully soon I'll have something that doesn't fit in the palm of my hand to take a picture of and update my profile [
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I'm visiting family in Nampa this weekend and we are heading to Swan Falls tomorrow (Sun morning). If I get really antsy to go out I might try for catfish tonight and then sleep in the car or on the ground so the sun can wake me up.
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[quote Bardic]I'm visiting family in Nampa this weekend and we are heading to Swan Falls tomorrow (Sun morning). If I get really antsy to go out I might try for catfish tonight and then sleep in the car or on the ground so the sun can wake me up.[/quote]
Wow, that's some serious dedication. Let me know if you land any cats. I think I'll be heading out there Sun evening or Monday morning. If I see you there I'll say hi.[fishon]
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I'm not so good at the whole "waking up early to go fishing" thing. Usually the only time I fish at sunrise is if I have stayed up all night. I chuckle when someone posts that the fishing was great, three hours, 50 fish, off the water by 9am.
Anyone know how the crawdad's are below the dam?
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Crawdads are great. Been catching a ton in my ghetto homemade trap. Also if i get bored cat fishing ill dangle a worm on a treble hook in front of them and pull them out one at a time.
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One website a read said to use thick cut bacon tied to like kite string. Have about 5 of them out, pull one in slowly and put the net under them before pulling them out of the water. Shake them off the bacon and throw it back in and go on to the next string.
Since I didn't bring my trap I'm temped to try it.
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When I was on Tincup Creek this summer I noticed all of the crawdads so I tied a small piece of jerky to a string and caught a bunch of them. The smell of one little piece of jerky called them out of the rocks from all over the place!
A piece of bacon should do the same.
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