Idaho Falls, ID – After a break of 3 years, on the 27thth The annual Eastern Idaho Fishing and Fly Fishing Expo will return to Idaho Falls March 24-25, 2023 at the new Mountain America Center campus in Idaho Falls. The event is organized and hosted by the Snake River Cutthroats, Idaho Falls Chapter for Trout Unlimited and Fly Fishers International. The Expo is Cutthroats’ only fundraiser to support its mission of habitat conservation and education. The Expo will feature over one hundred fly tiers, including national award winners, demonstrating their tying techniques.
A Video Fly Tying Theater will highlight several remarkable levels with a close-up view of your skills. Casting, tying and fishing workshops will be offered, including specific workshops for women and youth. Target and technique presentations will also be presented. New this year at the Expo is a casting pond, where casting gurus will share their wisdom and where potential customers can try out new rods. Dozens of vendors will be on hand, representing many aspects of the tying and fly fishing community. Throughout the day there will also be various raffles and silent auctions to tempt visitors.
Evening activities inside the Idaho Blue Cross Conference Center will include an exclusive screening of the Fly Fishing Film Tour (F3T), the original international fly fishing film exhibition, on Friday. On Saturday, the Expo will feature a lively banquet with raffles, a silent auction and a live auction. Both events are ticketed and will charge admission.
Entry to the Expo is free for the public. The Expo will be open Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. To register for the workshops or purchase tickets for the evening events, you can visit Jimmy’s All Seasons Anglers at 275 A Street in Idaho Falls or call their store at (208) 524-7160. For more information about the Expo or the Snake River Cutthroats, visit https://snakerivercutthroats.org/.
About Snake River Cutthroats:
The Snake River Cutthroats is Idaho’s oldest Trout Unlimited chapter, founded by Dr. Jim McCue in 1972 as the Upper Snake River Chapter. Today the chapter has more than 370 members. The membership area extends from Blackfoot in the south to the Montana border in the north, and from Mackay in the west to the Wyoming border in the east, excluding the Teton Valley.
In addition to funds raised as part of the Expo, chapter members donate hundreds of hours each year working on local conservation projects, such as planting willows to stabilize banks and provide shade and cover for trout, building structures in the interior to create exploitations water or scour spawning gravel, and build a fence to exclude livestock from sensitive riparian areas. They have worked to protect critical trout habitat in the South Fork of the Snake River, as well as many of its tributaries, the Blackfoot River.
Projects in the North Fork of the Salmon and Lemhi River watersheds have focused on helping endangered anadromous fish as well as resident fish populations. Conservation projects are typically done in cooperation with one of the state’s resource management agencies, such as the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Idaho Game and Fish Department; other conservation organizations such as the Nature Conservancy; the Shoshone-Bannock tribes; as well as private owners.