A guide’s guide to river conservation
For a fly fishing guide, the river is their livelihood. The guides are the spirits of the rivers, tasked with maintaining the balance between conservation and public use. After all, these are the people that depend on the wellbeing of our water systems as much as the fish do. This is why it’s so important to keep it clean, and educate the public about the necessity for conservation.
Grant Houx, a Fort Collins local, and owner of St. Pete's Fly Shop sat down with me to discuss fly fishing in the context of conservation. Houx is the proprietor of both of St. Pete’s locations, as well as the director of guide services. He doesn't guide much anymore, but is still very in tune with the waters and their current state.
During our interview, I was interested to learn about the current and past states of our local water systems, as well as some first hand experiences from someone who has been fishing these waters since before I was born.
Q: What originally got you into fishing?
A: “I originally got into guiding while I was in College here at CSU, there's lots of opportunity here for it. My father sent me to guide school sophomore year and it took off from there.”
Q: What do you consider to be one of the most important details to properly conserving our waters?
A: “The way you're taught is really important, and whoever taught you is going to be a huge factor on how you treat the river. Oftentimes fly fishermen go through a lot more training and practice, so that tends to lead to more education about conservation.”
Q: When you're out on the river, do you tend to see lots of pollution in the waters?
A: “The floods as of late have brought a lot of pollution through the river, but prior to the floods I didn't see a lot of pollution aside from the lower five miles where the river is used more recreationally.”
Q: As a guide to the river, how do you pass on knowledge to the public about the importance of conservation and preservation of our rivers?
A: “At some point in my day, I absolutely have a resource-talk with my customers, that's also a huge factor for my other guides and traits I look for in them. We try our best to give advice and teach the proper principles to anyone who does business with us.”
Q: Do you think a career in this industry has given you a greater appreciation of the rivers?
A: “Absolutely, you know there's kind of two aspects of it there my personal life and my business life and now those two both intertwine but as an individual this is a resource in my back yard, Poudre is my main canyon and I love to use it so the more I can educate and we can educate the better off well be as a community. The water is so important for Fort Collins on many scales aside from fishing.
Q: what does the shop do in order to increase awareness and education about conservation.
A: “Our main motto here is, “We are guests on this river” and we take that very seriously. That logo is all over the shop and advertised on our shirts and stickers. we made it as a team and everyone added a word for what fly fishing means to them, which adds a nice sense of family. Its our shops way of providing a constant reminder to ourselves and the public that this is a limited recourse we have to work together to maintain.”
Speaking with Houx provided a lot of very beneficial information related to the conservation of our watersheds. My main take-home was the concept of education in the public about proper utilization of the rivers. At the moment, I believe there isn't enough education about river conservation, but it is encouraging to see shops such as St. Pete's putting in their part to ensure there viable water for generations to come.
