Jeffrey Blaine Zaccardi | Obituaries | mtexpress.com - Idaho Mountain Express and Guide
Jeffrey Blaine Zaccardi | Obituaries | mtexpress.com - Idaho Mountain Express and Guide |
| Jeffrey Blaine Zaccardi | Obituaries | mtexpress.com - Idaho Mountain Express and Guide Posted: 29 Apr 2020 03:00 AM PDT  Jeff slipped the surly bounds of Earth on Monday, April 20, 2020, after a year-long courageous and hard-fought battle with cancer. He died at home, where he wanted to be, surrounded by his wife, and many masked friends practicing social distancing. He attended eight years of Catholic school in Pocatello and his high school years at Highland High School. Thereafter, he attended two years at Idaho State University. While growing up, Jeff joined his father working at the family's meatpacking business. He started on the killing room floor at 10 years of age, and progressed to becoming a master meatcutter after many years in the business. In 1978, Jeff and his friend, Kenny Millward, moved to the Wood River Valley and made it their home. Shortly after arriving, Jeff met Stan Atkinson, who offered him a job as a meatcutter in Atkinsons' Market, where he remained employed in the Hailey store and the Ketchum store until 2005. Jeff was to many of his customers their "go-to" man for the appropriate cut of meat for their dining pleasure in addition to how to cook it! He then took on the role of "fishmonger," learning everything he could about seafood, well-liked and popular fish as well as exotic fish dishes and their preparations, to the delight of many of his customers. Jeff met the love of his life, Cathy Negreponte, on Valentine's Day in 1981. They were never separated from that day forward and married on Aug. 31, 1984. He gained a loving wife and a stepdaughter, Christye, all at once and became a family man, which was very different from his "Blues Brothers" lifestyle that he so thoroughly emulated and enjoyed! Jeff's passion was fishing. He was an avid fisherman who knew where all the best fishing holes were in the Big Wood River as well as the Salmon River. Jeff and family enjoyed many vacations parked along the Salmon River fishing for steelhead. Then he went on to bigger fish in Riggins, Idaho, where salmon were abundant and he knew just how to tease them to his line. All kinds of delicacies were served by Jeff's professional and artistic applications of fish: lox, smoked salmon and grilled salmon to its perfection, along with all kinds of shellfish. If it came from the ocean, Jeff loved it. Jeff and Cathy moved to the family farm on Baseline Road in August 1993, where they took on the challenge of farming and raising sheep. Jeff loved the land and treated it with reverence and respect. With the help of his friend Rocky Sherbine, Jeff learned all about water, water rights and how to keep it flowing to sustain the fields on the lower end of the Bellevue Triangle. Another one of Jeff's passions was his classic cars. He would drive one car for each day of the week during the summer—his '55 Chevy Nomad, his '55 Chevy Bel Aire, his '56 Chevy Nomad, his '53 Chevy Bel Aire and his 1928 Ford Model A. Jeff reveled at the fist pumps and high fives he would get cruising down the highway. He was in his element during spring, summer and fall soaking up the warm sun and giving those sharing the road with him a good time and a better story to share at the dinner table that night. Jeff is survived by his wife, Cathy; his stepdaughter, Christye (David Lenon); his brother, Greg (Tracy); and nieces, nephews and many cousins. He asked that the next time you land a fish, you think of him while exclaiming, "Fish On!" Memorial services will be announced when it is safe to gather. In the meantime, please share a photo, memory or condolence and light a candle at woodriverchapel.com. |
| Choose an exotic fishing adventure - Idaho State Journal Posted: 29 Apr 2020 11:30 AM PDT What kind of fishing adventure are you interested in? Given a choice, would you choose a high-cost lodge where you are catered to at $1,000 a day or a remote backwoods adventure where you cook on a wood stove for $75 a day? Take a look at the video and make a choice. $1,000 a day: Yan Kee Way Lodge in Southern Chile This place is amazing. Individual chalets, 4-star cooks, guides equipped with the best gear and the world-famous Rio Petrohue river to fish for rainbow and brown trout in an exotic location. Unfortunately, I was not fishing but on a writing assignment for Salmon Trout Steelheader magazine out of Seattle to chronicle the fishing adventures of expert steelhead guide and angler Jack Mitchell of eastern Washington. The Rio Petrohue is famous. Flanked by snow-capped volcanoes and deep woods, it produces rainbows to 10 pounds, sea run browns to 20 pounds and Chinook salmon to 70 pounds. When we arrived, the river was high due to heavy rains, a volcanic eruption trickled silt into the river and the Chinook salmon run was late. Even a $1,000 a day can't guarantee good fishing. Jack Mitchell is an expert fly fisherman, and he drew on years of experience fishing the Snake, Columbia, Klickitat rivers for trout and steelhead. After a day of pulling streamers in eddies and casting dry flies to small pockets of water, it was apparent catching fish was going to be a challenge. His wife, Jennifer, also an accomplished angler, suggested fishing yarn under a strike indicator. It worked and instead of catching five to 10 rainbows a day between them, they caught 27 rainbows the next morning. Where were the giant salmon and brown trout? Out in the bay, lodge salmon guide Clancy Holt and his client Gary Loomis trolled deep the river mouth and caught salmon to 70 pounds, but the salmon and browns had not yet entered the river where we could get a crack at them.  A group is seen fishing the Rio Potrohue in Chile. $75 a day: Backwoods fishing adventure in Chile Leaving luxury, I boarded an ancient plane for a two-hour flight 300 miles south to a backwoods lodge that promised excellent rainbow trout fishing. The manager of Yan Kee Way owned the low-cost fledgling Rio Paloma Lodge and was exuberant about the fishing. All I had to do was pay my airfare, cost of food and pitch in. All for $75 a day and the cost of a horse back ride to see a rare deer in the Andes Mountains. The catch? The only the cook was at the lodge, he didn't speak English and I would have to pitch in on the chores. The plane landed in a defunct military airport, miles from nowhere and the cook/guide was not there to pick me up. An hour late, he rumbled up in an old pickup truck, hopped out and let out a burst of rapid-fire Spanish and motioned like he was casting a fly. Yep, this was my man. The lodge was two hours over dirt roads and one temporary road block consisting of 100 sheep away. It is an old wood frame house with three tiny bedrooms, kitchen and a wood fired stove. He would guide and cook, and I would clean dishes, chop wood and fetch water. The next morning, we were casting on a river out of a picture book. Tall pines, rippling water and trout breaking the surface. But the fish were not biting our flies. Late in the day, I broke out my little spinning rod and a No. 2 gold Mepps spinner. Three casts later, I landed a nice 2-pound rainbow. The cook was delighted. No catch and release here. This was dinner. The spinner worked magic on fish after fish. Delighted at the great day of fishing, the cook arranged for a horseback ride into the mountains to see a rare and endangered deer. The year before, I spent nine days in the Andes Mountains in a pup-tent with a scientific team trying to locate and photograph one of these rare deer with no success.  An endangered Huemul deer is seen in Chile's Andes Mountains. As my horse swam the swift river to start the steep ascent into the mountains, I realized this was clearly not a tourist horseback ride. Four hours later, I swore I would never ride a horse again. The endangered Huemul deer stood in a small ravine 100 yards away. A nice buck with forked horns. I snapped shots with my 600 telephoto lens. Not great shots but rare ones. We continued up the mountains for several hours looking for more deer then returned to an old sheepherders hut. Sore, hungry and tired, I dreaded the four hours more of trail riding to reach the road. At the hut, to my amazement, the sheepherder pulled from his saddle bags a rack of lamb, started a fire and stuck the ribs on a T bar over the fire to roast. Once they were done, he rustled in his other saddle bag producing a loaf of bread and a six pack of beer. He handed me his knife to cut off a slab of roasting ribs, hunk of bread and a beer. Best mountain meal ever! Chopping wood and washing dishes was a small price to pay for excellent rainbow fishing day and a horseback ride to see the endangered Huemul deer. Choices So which adventures would you choose? Luxury lodge or wilderness house with cook for a guide and a trail ride? Harry Morse is currently a freelance writer living in Pocatello. His articles have appeared in national hunting and fishing magazines. The majority of his career he worked for Washington, Idaho and California Departments of Fish and Wildlife as an information officer. He has travel broadly an enjoys photography, fishing and hunting. |
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