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Ridgway, Colorado
CONSUMMATE
NBC ANCHORMAN and “Greatest Generation” author, Tom Brokaw, has be
noted
for quipping “If fishing is like religion, then fly-fishing is high
church.”
He is, of course, absolutely correct, and thankfully, there’s a new
house
of worship in Ridgway called the Ridgway Independent Guide Service, or
RIGS (565 Sherman, 970-626-4460, www.fishrigs.com).
Bill Sheppard and Tim Patterson have upped the ante on guided fishing
in
the region, offering an expanded menu of trips and tours and a new
corner
shop. Between the two of them, there’s more than three decades of
professional
angling wisdom—and if you want to bump that number up, it gets even
more
impressive if you add in the
experienced staff and guides.
“We have a fly-tying station here,” says Tim. “All the employees that work on the floor tie their own flies. Our hand-tied selection has doubled since last year, probably more than anyone outside Durango.”
RIGS’s
headquarters is a bright, open space featuring
every piece of fishing gear you could ever need—from a fantastic and
varied
selection of flies, to maps, books, fishing packs, three different
providers
of leaders and tippets, clothing, even a full-service rental
department—and
you feel that everyone working there has a passion for the art.
When Bill and Tim started RIGS, it was because
they saw an opportunity to do the thing they love a little bit better
than
the next guy. Their three-day guided fishing trips on the Gunnison are
a great manifestation of this desire, bringing clients through a Gold
Medal
Fishery teeming with brown and rainbow trout in real style.
“We bring things like roll-up cots, larger elevated tables to cook on, a camp oven, gas grills,” says Tim. “We do a deluxe meal—salmon on the first night, steak on the second night. We bake apple pies right there on the river.”
He smiles broadly, getting to the heart of the matter, “An 18 inch fish in the Gunnison bites like a 24 inch fish in the San Juan.”
Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and he’ll probably move to Colorado. There’s always someone heading out from RIGS, or coming back with fish stories. In addition to the 3-day fishing trip down the Gunnison (and a single-day whitewater raft trip, for those looking for something a little less serene), RIGS is permitted on the Uncompahgre River, the San Miguel, the Cimarron (“Amazing, high alpine, classic dry fly-fishing,” says Tim), and a host of private waters to which they have exclusive access.
RIGS has taken the time to develop relationships with landowners at places like Spring Valley Ranch, Walther Ranch, Centennial Ranch, and Red Bridge Ranch that give them something truly unique to offer clients—everything from technical water to access over manicured grounds where you’ve got clear air over your head for first-time casting.
“Some of the
private waters are still-waters which
make them very family friendly. We focus on families and beginners
quite
a bit.”
Tim estimates at least half their business is
beginners, thanks to the exploding popularity of fly-fishing in
Colorado.
So they’re doing their part to help that along. In addition to a free
clinic
at Ridgway State Park twice a month during the summer, they’ve put
together
a workshop for the community that offers locals a chance to get
addicted.
“We do a locals clinic the last Saturday of each month May through September,” says Tim. “It’s a five hour clinic for $38. We spend half the time here in the shop covering all the equipment, talking about entomology, fly selection, knots, everything. We provide a manual with that. Then the second half we go out on the water and practice casting technique.”
Their “walk and wade” guided day trips out of Ridgway are a nice way to get a feel for the waters in the area, although if folks just want to head out on their own, RIGS can rent them whatever they need for a day or longer. RIGS has a philosophy of flexibility, seen both in the way they like their guides to use their own style to craft and conduct a trip, and in the way they take care not to over-utilize the waters they cherish.
“We try to spread out our use, never booking two trips at the same time on any of the resources—spreading out our use so we don’t over impact one resource over another.
“The business is really conservation-oriented. We’ve got a strong focus on participating in local and regional resource management issues related to rivers and access. We’re very pro-recreation. We’re contributing quite a bit, whether it’s Uncompahgre Plateau Project, Trout Unlimited, local watershed routes, or restoration projects. We spend a lot of our time participating in those programs on the nonprofit side.”
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