Members from the Boise Valley Fly Fishers Board of Directors attended Flood District 10's Retirement Celebration for Mike Dimmick. Bill Clayton, Chairman of the Flood Department's Board recognized Mike for his efforts to join transform the Flood District and connect with the community, including calling out his work with Boise Valley Fly Fishers. Mike has been instrumental in our two Boise River gravel augmentations, both in planning the activity and helping us wade through the permitting process as well as coordinating the effort with the Flood District's winter maintenance cycle so we could utilize their heavy machinery to move the gravel into the river.
After the first gravel augmentation we asked Mike if the excavator driver knew how to identify and avoid brown trout spawning redds/nests. Mike said no, but they would like to be able to do that, if we could show them how. From that we developed our Boise River Brown Trout Redd Protection Program which provides the flood district's excavator driver maps of the locations of the redds which they have been able to use to avoid the spawning zones.
As a token of our gratitude for all of Mike's help, the BVFF Board of Directors presented Mike with a handmade fishing net with his name engraved along with a Lifetime Membership to the club. For more information about Mike's work at the flood district, see this article in the Capital Press .
BVFF is already working with the new District Manager, Mark Zirschky, who is very supportive of our efforts and wants to continue working with Boise Valley Fly Fishers on Trout Habitat Improvement and Protection on the Boise River.
(Steve Stuebner Photo)