With its famous neon trout humming above the entrance, Tim Wade left his main street fly shop in Cody for the last time as owner on the ides of March.

After nearly four decades running one of the top fly fishing shop and guide services in the Big Horn Basin, it was tough to let go, he said. But just a few months into his retirement, Wade is ready to start a new chapter: concentrating on his top priority of conserving wild rivers and native fish.

He was vocal prior to retirement, but there are levels. Some would say Wade’s level “goes to 11,” to borrow a quote from the movie, “This is Spinal Tap.” As a former Park County commissioner and member of several outdoor organizations, Wade has vehemently voiced his opinions regardless of what might become of his business. He now has a new, liberating freedom in retirement to advocate for native fish that comes with walking away from the working world.

“I don’t have to kiss fannies anymore,” Wade says with conviction.

Opening his doors

Wade, 73, started North Fork Anglers in his Wapiti garage, leaving the oil and gas industry to follow his passion. He moved to Sheridan Avenue in the heart of downtown Cody in 1987. The company is the longest operating fishing outfitter in the state.

Oddly, while Wade’s lifelong passion is for fishing, he refuses to harvest and eat fish. He’s been that way since he was a preteen — when he had his fill of trout.

“We ate trout for breakfast. We ate trout for lunch. And we ate them for dinner,” Wade said of his family’s summers in California. “I told my dad when I was 12 years old, I’m not killing another fish.”

He always ran his business as a catch and release operation.

Opening his tackle and outfitter company instead of staying in the energy business was a big risk that eventually paid off — not only financially, but in a wealth of beautiful memories catching fish around the world.

His shop became a popular gathering point for visiting anglers wanting an intimate experience on the area’s blue-ribbon fisheries. However, he rarely let business get between him and conservation efforts, said Larry Sportsman. A transplant to Park County from Missouri, Sportsman first came to the area to fish with Wade, who he’d been introduced to through Trout Unlimited TV.

Sportsman has known Wade to cut guided tours short if he caught clients disrespecting fish or the habitat — not what you would expect from many guides, Sportsman said.

“He actually dug his heels in to a point where he would stop a trip, if somebody was abusing the resources,” Sportsman said.

Sportsman said he has seen many fisheries ruined through neglect, and, after falling in love with Yellowstone cutthroat trout habitat, is proud to back Wade’s toothy efforts to keep area rivers safe.

“You need bulldogs,” Sportsman said, adding that Wade “fights the hard fights and always tries to influence people to do the right thing.”

Up for a fight

Despite being a locally owned guide service, Wade said he was always fighting for access to the area’s waterways.

“The federal government is just a major pain for people that are in business,” Wade said. “Oh gosh, it’s terrible, particularly the U.S. Forest Service.”

He’s also had his disagreements with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, arguing — unsuccessfully, so far — that anglers shouldn’t be allowed to harvest fish from the North Fork or Clarks Fork rivers. It isn’t a popular stance with those who’ve had a tradition of harvesting fish from the waters.

“If I had my way, this would have been restricted to catch and release back in the 80s,” Wade said, while trying out a new Hardy ultralight fly rod (a retirement gift) in the late-summer pools of the North Fork of the Shoshone River. “I pushed for it really, really hard. The same for the Clarks Fork.”

More than 30 years ago, Wade was among those who helped convince Congress to designate the Clarks Fork River as a National Wild and Scenic River; it’s a classification meant to “preserve certain rivers with outstanding natural, cultural and recreational values in a free-flowing condition for the enjoyment of present and future generations.”

Of the roughly 108,767 miles of river in Wyoming, only 408 miles — or less than 0.4% — are designated as wild and scenic, but the Clarks Fork became one of them in 1990.

He also helped lead Trout Unlimited’s fight to stop Crown Butte Mines’ plan to mine gold in the New World Mining District near Cooke City, Montana.

It was a multi-year fight that put many stakeholders in a historic battle between private enterprise and those concerned for the environment. Wade, along with several conservation organizations, helped organize opposition to the mine through newspaper editorials, town hall meetings and lawsuits. The efforts, including those of Trout Unlimited, grew into a national debate on mining within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Amid pressure from environmental groups and citizens like Wade, President Bill Clinton ultimately announced a $65 million federal buyout in 1996 that ended the mining effort. The mining company walked away with millions, but area habitat was spared and the environment got a huge win.

While the campaign to kill the gold mine enjoyed support from locals, the Clarks Fork’s designation as a wild and scenic river wasn’t as overwhelmingly popular — including with local governmental agencies, Wade said. Despite the designation, Wade said the river hasn’t received the attention it deserves from resource managers. He eventually decided to stop offering guided trips on the 150-mile-long river due to lack of quality fishing habitat. Its current state is one of his regrets.

“The battle that I haven’t won is preserving the wild trout and the native trout populations that are here in the Big Horn Basin,” he said. “We have so many miles and miles of water that is getting hammered by development, bad irrigation practices and the impacts of fire after fire after fire on the watershed.”

Willing to fight alone

Wade founded the East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited, hoping to organize an army of conservationists willing to fight for the region’s abundant but fragile natural resources. Yet at this point he may be a bit too assertive for the organization.

“I am considered 100% politically incorrect within Trout Unlimited at this point. And I started three chapters in this state,” Wade said. “It disappoints me to some degree that people are not as adamant about change, or protecting and enhancing the habitat as much as we should be.”

One of his recent fights was to keep the Beartooth Ranch in public hands. Along with fellow Trout Unlimited and Pheasants Forever member Len Fortunato and several others, Wade took the fight to the Park County Commission as the board discussed the possibility of taking over or selling off the 657-acre property, also known as the Drug Ranch.

While Commissioner Tim French wanted the ranch put back in production on the tax rolls, Wade wanted the property — which federal authorities seized from drug smuggler Stewart Allen Bost roughly 25 years ago — to remain as a public access area for outdoor enthusiasts and anglers.

The anglers and hunters won the fight and a series of improvements to the property followed, offering a more welcoming face to those wanting to fish and explore an area filled with wildlife and mystique.

New owners

Longtime North Fork Anglers employee Blair Van Antwerp and his spouse Justine took over operations earlier this year.

“North Fork Anglers guides and shop employees are kind of fly fishing nerds, if you will,” Van Antwerp said. “We just love it so much, that we’ve stuck with it.”

He knows that fly fishing has always seen ebbs and flows, but regardless of the sport’s constantly changing cachet, “we’ll still be here,” Van Antwerp said. “We’ll still be the nerds … the people that just love it for what it is, rather than who you are.”

He and Wade, along with Wade’s wife Claudia, started making the transition in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic slowed the process. Wade prepared to take a big hit to his bottom line when the country started to lock down. But then folks realized they could still enjoy the great outdoors instead of hunkering down in their homes — and the business soon found themselves overbooked.

“We had a lot of people coming to Cody and we saw just a huge surge in visitation and interest in outdoor sports, particularly fly fishing,” Wade said.

Whether those newcomers to the sport will see things the same way as Wade does remains to be seen.

Some may see his environmental stances and assume he has a more liberal political agenda. But Wade feels conservatives in his party should be more than happy to stand up for conservation.

“There was a time when the Republicans did that,” he said. “We had the Clean Water Act. We had the Clean Air Act.”

There are some who may have hoped Wade would retire to a life of fishing and leave behind his activism. However, now that he’s free of the responsibility of running a business, the flood gates are about to open.