I love Idaho!

[Quacker Wacker]

I moved from my lifetime home-state of California to Idaho in 2004 so my kids could have a little better quality of life. Well, other than a bit slower economy I must say how much I love it. In 36 years of being an avid hunter, my schedule and commitments never let me get out of California to hunt big game, so my first experience was last year when I moved here. We'll I killed neither deer or elk, though my son killed his first deer, an excellent muley in the rut. I did not want to come off as a greedy Cali transplant asking everyone for their hotspots so I just started driving and reading and well you know learning about Mule Deer and Elk.

Well I have managed to convince my wife to spend the last 3 weekends scouting, it help that we found this amazing large meadow to camp in, with amazing scenery. We now have horses and I have a quad so I spend about 5 hours a day scouting and the rest with the family and working with the horses(as I am new to horses and they are new to the mountains). Well I have seen about 200+ elk, 100+ deer(Muley and Whitetails), 4 black bears, and 1 bull moose. I just spotted my first decent bull elk in 3 weekends this past Sunday. The amount of quality game you can see here versus California on public land, not in the city limits or on golf courses, is just amazing. I know just like last year when the season starts, game gets scarce, but I am figuring it out slowly and if not this year I will start to outsmart them with some regularity before I am too old to walk these steep mountains.

 

[RVRKNG]

Sounds like a dream. My wife & I have been looking at Colorado & a little at Idaho also. We just want out of Kalifornia! Enjoy!!

 

[jej]

Nice post. "Where to move" when we retire is topic #1. Star, Idaho sounds great. Do you have a favorite web site to go to for real estate listings?

 

[Quacker Wacker]

jej, for real estate listings I would send you to my realtors site. She is a great realtor, and currently has most of the listings in my neighborhood. The reason I would send you to her site is primarily that you can get into the local MLS listing which has some great search features, like pulling up property by subdivision, etc. Go to www.integritygroupinc.com my realtor is the owner Debbie Cleaver.

I must tell you that I love my home and neighborhood and the town of Star, but we are 20 miles from downtown Boise and it's growing fast here. I already plan to make a move from here at retirement 15-20 years down the road. If you are looking to retire I might look a little farther from town.

What I didn't mention in my earlier post is that, my scouting has been doen about 130 miles from my home, but there is great deer and elk hunting 20-30 miles from my home in late Oct and early Nov. That is wintering grounds so scouting there bears little correlation to actual hunting, but it's a nice to have. I havn't had time to do much bird hunting yet, but plan on it.

 

[jej]

Thx. I will have a look at that site.

As for location - yes, I'd rather be a bit farther from the big city. t is for retirement.

Twice now, I have had housing grow up all around me, kind of like you are seeing. Once in NorCal, once in SoCal at my present home.

Boise seems a big enough place to have all the goods and services you might want, and a couple hours from it would be fine. All that close by hunting and fishing would be outstanding.

I will do some homework. The climate would take some getting used to, I guess. Since it is about 103 degrees today and there is a power grid system alert, the cold sounds more attactive today than otherwise.

jej

 

[LeeChul]

Star is a great little town, but yes growing like wildfire on cheat grass.... Most of the smaller towns within an hour drive of Boise have been growing steadily for a while now. My parents live in Caldwell. The last time I was home was for Christmas '04, and before that it had been over 2 years. Just in that short time the amount of new construction was amazing. Unfortunately, even with the great increase in population, industry and jobs haven't been able to keep up. But at any rate the Treasure Valley is an awesome place to live. I am honestly afraid to try and go back to my old mullie spots.... I don't even want to think about how many trucks I might find parked out there.