How a missing fly rod on the Boise River became a unique thread between 3 local anglers

BOISE – Mike Rotz was feeling a little embarrassed when he posted about his missing fly rod in a Boise fly fishing group in early February.

“I thought, ‘Maybe I should put in there that my wife got mad at me and threw the rod in the river or something,’ ” Rotz joked in a video interview with the Idaho Statesman. “But I couldn’t do that.”

A few days before he made the post, Rotz was fishing the Boise River near the Main Street Bridge when his line snagged on the opposite side of the river. He set his rod down in what he thought was “a good spot high up above the water” while he went across the river, released the line from where it had snagged and returned to his initial spot.

But the rod, stashed where he thought it would be safe, was nowhere to be found.

“I just couldn’t imagine that the river had taken it, because it seemed like it would take such a strong current to pull it down into the river and then haul it off,” Rotz said.

The line had a strike indicator that Rotz said he thought he would be able to see if the rod washed downriver. But no float was visible. He searched the area, wading up and down the river and poking at debris and the river bottom. He started to wonder whether it had been stolen.

Rotz was reluctant to leave – he’d had the rod for 30 years and the reel for 18, and both were sentimental.

“It’s like an old friend,” Rotz said. “You’ve caught so many fish with it and been on so many adventures, and been with so many good people, and done things with it that it’s just comforting to have it.

“I knew I was going to miss it.”

After an hour of searching, he decided to leave.

Later that week, he returned to the same spot with a different fishing rod, hopeful that if he weighted the line down, he might be able to hook the lost fly rod if it had somehow become snagged under the water. Still, no luck.

Unbeknownst to Rotz, by that time, his rod was no longer in the river. The previous day, another Boise angler had come across it while fishing the same spot.

Also a longtime fly fisherman, Derrick Hicks was about to leave the river after a slow day near the bridge. He happened to see a bright length of fishing line wrapped around a boulder.

“I walked over so I could get out of the current, and I started pulling it in,” Hicks told the Statesman. “Sure enough, there was a rod and reel there, to my surprise.”

Hicks said his first thought was, “Wow, lucky me. I found a new rod!”

“But it just didn’t feel right,” he added. “I’ve seen crazy lost and found stories before.”

Hicks, who had filmed the discovery and retrieval of the fly rod on his GoPro camera, creates and posts fishing content on Instagram under the handle TightFlyLines. He posted some of the GoPro footage – but didn’t reveal the fly rod itself, so he could distinguish the true owner – with the caption, “Wait until you see what I found on the Boise River today,” shortly before going to church.

“When I came out of church, I looked at my phone, and my phone was blowing up with notifications,” Hicks said. “I had never seen that before. It was wild.”

The post had hundreds of comments and was shared widely in the local online fishing community. Within a few hours, Hicks had a direct message from Johnathon White, who was scrolling social media and saw Hicks’ video followed immediately by Rotz’s post describing his missing reel.

“Mike’s post had only been up for 11 minutes when I saw it,” White told the Statesman.

He took a screenshot of Rotz’s post and sent it to Hicks, who confirmed the description was the rod he found. Hicks and Rotz connected online, then met in person. But that wasn’t their final meeting.

They met again on the Boise River – this time with White, too – for a brief fishing session as KIVI reporters filmed. The men said the meetup was quick, so they have plans to get together for a longer fishing trip in the future on the Owyhee River.

“It’s just fascinating how this rod has kind of brought us together,” Hicks said.

He noted the fly fishing community is tight-knit and attracts people of all backgrounds and life stages – including Rotz, who is a grandfather; Hicks, who is a dad “approaching 40”; and White, who is newly married.

“The fly fishing community just kind of does that,” Hicks said. “It just kind of breaks down all those barriers and creates those interesting connections like that.”