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My wife and I are from Woodinville Wa area. We are in our earlylate 30's and moved to Comifornia about 6-7 years ago, we now have 2 daughters ages 6.5 and 2. Hunting, Fishing and the OUTDOORS are our lives. For good Deer hunting I usually fly to Montana or Minisota for whitetail and Louisiana for duck and geese. I would love to move back up north and be closer to family and stay out of the 300+ days of rain at the same time, but still be in the mecca of harvesting our own food on a monthly/weekly/daily basisKuna, Meridian,Eagle,SE Boise Ect..????.. So to all you Idaho Hunters and Fishermen out their, if you wanted to keep you wife happy(by living close to her one friend in SE Boise within a 40mile radius) and kids in a Great school and be close to hunting and fishing while not giving up being around great people and neighborhood, and you know you have to reside in the Boise area, where would you choose to live if money was not a factor(Ill figure that part out later) We definitely want to be able to have bonfires in the backyard from time to time and sip on a couple coldies with the Nabes. I myself am in construction but don't mind driving a bit to work if we end up in the right place the first time, Im guessing we will rent for a few months or live in the RV and keep stuff in storage until we find the right place. Or park it on the side of your house for a couple months
I used to work at Holiday Expeditions in Grangeville and river guided on the Snake and Salmon River, Damn good times, also lived in Hailey for a bit to and Sun Valley Good people good times. I look forward to getting my family on the river in the next couple year, I miss fresh cold river water and lakes, we have jacksheet here for that and Im not to much of a beach guy unless theres some Rainbows,Browns, Bass, Bluegill, Crappy ect.. in the water. I am leaving a great job that I built with job security for a better way of life IMO, I think theres gonna be a couple few bumps along the way but if I close my eyes and fast forward 10 years into my life I dont see this concrete jungle, I see tromping through the woods and rolling hills with our Pudelpointer bustin Grouse and Chukar with my girls having a good ol time. They say the sky's the limit so we misewell shoot for it!
Look forward to all your replies and Ideas!
Last edited by HankWashingtonian; 02-28-2014 at 01:52 PM..
SE Boise has a very good school system and has great access to the Boise river for your casual weekday fishing. The area has a lot of really nice homes and a good community feel to it. Home prices are a little higher, but I would think you could find a decent rental for a fair price.
Meridian has decent schools and would be cheaper to live in than Boise. A bit more of a suburbia feel to it, but has all the amenities of a small-mid sized city.
Eagle has great schools, but can be quite expensive to live in.
Kuna and Star are both nice places and you can potentially get a decent amount of land out there. There is also a lot of building going on in both towns, so that might help you with the job situation. In all honesty, building is starting to make a big comeback in the Treasure Valley.
The South Fork of the Boise that is north of Mountain Home has some great trout fishing. The Owyhee on the Oregon/Idaho border has some incredible brown trout fishing. Both of those are about an hour/hour and a half drive from Boise. There is honestly great fishing all over the state. I can't speak on the hunting aspect, but I'm sure someone else on the board will have plenty of info on that.
My suggestion is come visit and take the tour! I'm sure you won't be disappointed.
Woodinville, eh? I grew up in Federal Way and moved to Boise about five years ago.
I think you will want to base your decision on proximity to work. Boise does not have a well-developed public transportation system like the urban areas of Washington and California. Most of the communities are on the west side, so traffic on 84 can be nasty during rush hour.
You won't be able to light a bonfire whenever you want, though. There are frequently burning bans in effect in the Treasure Valley due to air pollution.
I don't hunt, but I do fish quite a lot. If you're into river fishing, there's always the Boise River in town. There are also a few ponds in the urban areas, but these are mostly put-and-take waters stocked with planter rainbows. Some have nice bass, but good luck getting anyone to tell you which ones.
If you want to fish any of the reservoirs, it's a bit of a drive. Lucky Peak and Arrowrock reservoirs are in the foothills above the city and have planted trout, kokanee, perch and smallmouth bass. Due to the winding nature of the roads, it's about a 30-45 mile drive depending on where you put in.
C.J. Strike is a reservoir on the Snake River about 50 miles southeast of Boise. It takes about 45 minutes to drive there and is the closest spot that offers good warmwater fishing. Has nice crappie, bass (smallmouth and largemouth), bluegills, trout, perch and channel cats. The panfish are especially large. It's my favorite place to fish and I rarely get skunked there.
If you're into bass fishing and don't care about eating the fish, Lake Lowell is in Nampa about 25 miles from Boise. Unlike the other bodies of water on this list, it is only open to boat traffic April through October. It's surrounded by farmland, so there's a lot of agricultural runoff that leads to nasty algae blooms during the summer. There's a consumption advisory for the fish.
Lake Cascade is north of the Boise area. It's only 10 miles further than CJ, but the road is very windy so the drive takes about twice as long. Big perch and trout are the major attractions. A new state record perch was caught there just a few weeks ago. It's up in mountains and freezes thick enough to ice fish in the winter.
Lucky Peak, Lake Lowell (and Arrowrock to a lesser extent) all receive a LOT of pleasure boat traffic in the summer. Expect to deal with inconsiderate speedboats and jetskis during warm weather.
Ha we used to go to Wild Waves every summer, and pheasant hunt on Fox Island. Thanks for all info, I cant wait to get up there and experience 4 seasons again.
I have nailed it down to Meridian or SE Boise, any thoughts on family and community differences or schools ect... We are putting our home on the market here in Newport Beach Ca, and should be able to sell fast. We will probably have about 80k-120k to put down on a house, that being said is it true that you get that much more of a house in Meridian vs SEB and if so is it worth it to have a smaller home but be in a better area more trees and river closer by in SE Boise? Thanks for the input!
You might want to include Star on your list also. We saw a lot of new subdivisions being developed when we were there in July.
Best regards,
JR
P.S. We also saw pheasants and quail running around in some of those gated communities. All of the ponds had honkers in them also! A bit different than down here in Socal!
We will start doing some research on Star, if theres birds there Im there!
Thanks
I'm going to assume that by honkers you are referring to geese. Around here, they are cool when flying overhead or hunting in open fields in Canyon County. They are noisy, mean and very messy birds (poop everywhere) and controlling them is becomming an issue in many parks and open field areas near homes and businesses. You really don't want them nearby. Quail and duck are great to have around, geese not so much!
Does anybody know about Hidden Springs in Boise Id?
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and moved to Comifornia about 6-7 years ago, we now have 2 daughters ages 6.5 and 2. Hunting, Fishing and the OUTDOORS are our lives. For good Deer hunting I usually fly to Montana or Minisota for whitetail and Louisiana for duck and geese. I would love to move back up north and be closer to family and stay out of the 300+ days of rain at the same time, but still be in the mecca of harvesting our own food on a monthly/weekly/daily basis
) We definitely want to be able to have bonfires in the backyard from time to time and sip on a couple coldies with the Nabes. I myself am in construction but don't mind driving a bit to work if we end up in the right place the first time, Im guessing we will rent for a few months or live in the RV and keep stuff in storage until we find the right place. Or park it on the side of your house for a couple months
