St. Peter’s Fly Shops

In the late 1880s, a stone mason in Fort Collins, Colorado began building a home out of materials he had salvaged from the decommissioned county jail. After its completion in 1889, this structure would go on to house several mayors, serve as a hospital, and enter the national register of historic places before becoming a fly shop. The shop’s founder had a brother who was a Trappist monk so he named the shop after St. Peter, the great fisherman and disciple of Jesus. Since 1992, St. Peter’s Fly Shop has been servicing, outfitting, and educating Colorado’s Front Range.

In 2007, a student at Colorado State University named Grant Houx was guiding at St. Peter’s when the owner asked if Houx would be interested in taking over. “Man, I was 22, 23 years old,” remembers Houx. “I didn’t know what I was really doing. I was just excited about the fact that I could have a fly shop.”

The rod and reel vault at St. Peter’s flagship location

Houx personally lacked the funds to make such an investment, but his father was an opportunist with some money. While on a trip to Mexico the pair caught roosterfish and decided to buy the business, but only if it came with the building as well. “Now looking back at it,” Houx acknowledges, “My father knew that he was making a real estate investment for himself. If the business crashed, there would still be something to fall back on.”

Throughout our conversation, Houx openly recognized his family’s role in the business and never claimed to be a self-made man. Without the traditional financial pressures that cripple many new businesses, Houx has been able to invest in the people at the shop, providing 401Ks and health insurance for full time staff members. “My family allowed us to run this business in a way that has created lifestyles for people,” Houx explained. ”It’s not just a fly shop job, you know?” Jin Choi, who was Houx’s first hire in 2007, still works there today. 

When the nearby Angler’s Roost fly shop came up for sale in 2012, Houx and his family jumped on the opportunity and bought their competitor. However, the location wasn’t ideal. Sandwiched in a Fort Collins strip mall between a Subway, a pet store and a sports bar, Houx remembers the location as smelling like crickets and bread with an omnipresent group of hardened drinkers smoking cigarettes out front. “A lot of our cultivation of our community and the growth of the business has been through education and we couldn’t really run our business model in that location.” Continuing the St. Peter’s tradition of repurposing existing establishments, the family bought a salon and converted it into their second shop on the south side of town.

You can no longer get your nails done at St. Peter’s Fly Shop South

Both St. Peter’s locations offer the standard array of flyfishing products that you’d find at any properly stocked shop, with an abundance of trout spey equipment that’s unique for the Front Range. Their in-the-classroom and on-the-water instruction offerings are also well beyond the norm. While on the phone with Houx I scrolled through the classes on the shop’s website (“We’ve got to find a way to organize these things…” Houx sighed) and found twenty two different offerings that range from rowing how-tos to dry fly specifics to warm- and stillwater tactics. 

St. Peter’s also runs a bustling guide business, taking anglers on walk-and-wade tours of the Cache la Poudre and Big Thompson Rivers as well as numerous streams within Rocky Mountain National Park. Outside of runoff and trips to local reservoirs, most boat-based trips take place across the state border in Wyoming on the North Platte and Encampment Rivers. And as with most shops these days, St. Peter’s also hosts trips to angling destinations around the world.

Houx with a client he’s been guiding since before he took over St. Peter’s Fly Shop

Houx credits the shop’s success to the staff’s genuine passion for and interest in fishing. “We strive at customer service and treating people well because we care… Curiosity drives [us] and then you get to share that enthusiasm and genuine interest with others.” But Houx also recognized the importance of the commonly thrice-stated “location.” Since Houx took over the shop in 2007, the population of Larimer County has grown over 30%. And while new arrivals have helped the shop expand, it has also put stress on the area’s fisheries, which Houx makes sure to emphasize when speaking with clients and customers alike. “Not that we’re the know all,” Houx admits. “But we try to educate people about the resource as much as anything.”

When I asked Houx what he was excited about going forward, he immediately responded, “It’s always about getting back to the water.” Houx was just coming off of a stint of guiding a short window on a favorite wilderness freestone, where he rowed clients that he had known since before he owned the shop. “There’s so many things to keep track of within this business, but if you lose that water part, you lose a lot.” 

You can visit St. Peter’s Fly Shop at either of their Ft. Collins locations or at stpetes.com