Trout Unlimited is a national conservation group, but here on the Western Slope, their work is deeply local. The Gunnison Gorge Anglers (GGA), a volunteer-run chapter of Trout Unlimited, is restoring rivers, removing invasive fish, and advocating for clean, cold water in some of Colorado’s most cherished streams — including the Gunnison, Uncompahgre, and San Miguel.
“Everybody knows the water resources are limited in Western Colorado,” said board member Marshall Pendegrass. “We try to do win-win situations, improving water quality and access for all users — from farmers to anglers.”
The group partners with agencies like Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the U.S. Forest Service to implement hands-on restoration projects. One current effort at Billy Creek, near Ridgway, aims to improve habitat in a popular but degraded section of river. Another, high in the Gunnison National Forest above Paonia, is working to restore habitat for native Colorado River cutthroat trout by removing non-native fish and reintroducing pure cutthroat stock.
But as GGA president John Hamill notes, conservation work doesn’t stop at the water’s edge. Policy advocacy is just as important — especially now, with federal conservation funding frozen and energy transport projects like the Uinta Basin Railway threatening river corridors. The group is pushing for stronger environmental protections at the state level, insulating Colorado's waterways from shifting federal policies.
GGA also has a strong focus on education and outreach. From children’s events in Montrose to the annual “Trout-a-Palooza” fundraiser in Telluride, the chapter brings people together to celebrate and protect the rivers they love.
Stay up to date with their work and upcoming events at gunnisongorgeangler.tu.org.
TRANSCRIPT:
Brody Wilson
Trout Unlimited is a national conservation group that focuses on protecting cold water fisheries here on the Western Slope. The local chapter, called the Gunnison Gorge Anglers, is leading efforts to protect rivers like the Gunnison, the Uncle Pagre, and the San Miguel Rivers. Here, a long time member and board member Marshall Pendergrass describes the organization's mission.
Marshall Pendegrass
We're part of Trout Unlimited and the overall mission is cold water conservation and so we get involved with any water and land access issues having to do with water on the North Fork of the Gunnison, the Gunnison, the Uncompahgre and also in the San Miguel or areas in the Gunnison Gorge. Angler thing. We like to work on the projects to for improvement for land access, for fishing access, for a stream improvement. Our overall goal is everybody knows of the waters, resources are limited in Western Colorado and so we we look at preservation and and improving water availability for all uses. I think we say if if you can catch fish out of the water, it's good quality, you can drink it, it's good for everybody. So we try to do win, win situations.
Brody Wilson
For Gunnison Gorge anglers, the local chapter of Trout Unlimited is restoring river habitat, removing invasive fish and working with agencies to protect clean water.
John Hamill
I mean, we're a small all volunteer organizations, so our capacity to do actual work on the river depends on us partnering with other organizations like the Forest Service in Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the Bureau of Land Management that have management authority for the resources that we care about the rivers and the fisheries they support.
Brody Wilson
That is John Hamill, president of the Gunnison Gorge Anglers.
John Hamill
And so advocacy, you know, there's a lot going on right now with the public lands, with the funding for organizations that that we for organizations like ours. You know, a lot of the funding that we've relied on the past has been frozen or cut back. And so we see one of our responsibilities is to advocate it at the political level. A lot of that's done through Colorado Trout Unlimited and Trout Unlimited, the broader organization there. There's about 300,000 Trout Unlimited members across the country, some 300 different chapters of Trout Unlimited. So we're a broad organization. They do a lot of work.
Brody Wilson
Bringing national perspective to local issues, Trout Unlimited and the Gunnison Gorge anglers tackle not only physical restoration projects, but also policy and political projects like this.
Marshall Pendegrass
One, the policy issues right now that are key to us are of course the Colorado River has been a key 1, the proposed expansion in Utah, the you need the oil facility where they're going to quadruple or quintruple the amount of a heavy waxy crude they want to ship from Utah to New Orleans. It goes right up the Colorado River the whole length. So we are involved both local legislation and national to try to put in additional restraints, possibly reroute that that those trains and surely upgrade the capability to protect them in case they have a spill.
Brody Wilson
You may have heard about this proposal to dramatically increase the amount of crude oil being shipped along the Colorado River. Conservation groups like Gunnison Gorge Anglers and the Colorado Trout Unlimited are concerned for the risk to the river, especially in the event of a derailment.
Marshall Pendegrass
But they're not proposing any upgrades or any protection for Colorado. So that's that's our concern. And one thing that the state has done, we've established a Bull Moose committee, which is a political land and water usage committee. And so we have lobbyists in the state legislature. And so we work on our biggest efforts there trying to take all the national water and air regulations and put them into state regulations. So as we change administrations in Washington that that they want to avoid and get rid of old laws that we have, we have them, a lot of them now implemented in the state legislation. So we're protected in Colorado.
Brody Wilson
What an interesting policy approach. Insulate your most precious resource, in this case the cold water stream of Colorado, from the volatile swings in federal environmental regulation by duplicating the currently stringent federal laws. At the state level. The Gunnison Gorge Anglers are also working on local restoration projects, but recent changes in Washington are creating some real headwinds.
John Hamill
I could talk about a couple of those projects. 1 is just upstream from here, about 20 miles. There's a state wildlife area called Billy Creek State Wildlife Area. It's just downstream from Ridgeway Reservoir. It's one of the only pieces of public land between Montrose and and Ridgeway that provides for public access. It's a great section of river. It's just extremely difficult to fish parts of that river. It's about a mile section of the river, but parts of it are also have a kind of mediocre habitat in it. So we've been working with CPW, Colorado Parks and Wildlife to come up with a plan to basically enhance that section of river. We're currently in kind of the engineering design phase of that and looking for funding for it. We applied for a grant from the Bureau of Reclamation last year and and we were unsuccessful in getting that grant, but we were encouraged by Reclamation to come back and reapply, make a few minor alterations to our proposal and they thought it would be very ripe for funding. In fact, the funding was in this year's budget, but it's been frozen. Another one is it's on the Clear Fork of East Muddy Creek, which is about 20 miles North East of Paonia in the Gunnison National Forest. And that's a that's a great project. There's a you know, one of the threatened species that we have here is Colorado River cutthroat trout, which were very plentiful historically, but their range has been extremely shortened by introductions of non-native trout like brook trout and rainbow trout. Brown trout, the native fish this don't compete well with them. And there's been a lot of habitat loss, dewatering of rivers, the what? Increasing water temperature. Any rate, there's this beautiful section of the Clear Fork that's prime cutthroat trout habitat, except for the fact that it's full of non natives, these brook trout and rainbows. And the way you mitigate for that as you build a barrier dam lower down on the river. And then you treat that area to above that dam and to remove the non natives and then you can reintroduce the Colorado River cutthroat. Trap the trout back into that habitat.
Brody Wilson
That's great. So where are you with the actual physical implementation that?
John Hamill
The the the diversion dam has been constructed. Last year we ran a test we monitored to make sure that no fish could pass through that barrier and it was successful. This year we're going to actually start the removal of the non-native fish above that barrier dam. And then probably the subsequent year we will be taking a native pure pure strain Colorado River cutthroat that's currently still exists very high up into that watershed and bringing them, relocating them down into the area that's been cleared out of where the non-native fish have been cleared out of. So it's imminent and we had probably 20 partners associated with that. We gave funding for it, but a lot of other people did too.
Brody Wilson
Wow, 20.
John Hamill
Partners. 20 different partners. Probably half of those were nonprofit organizations, Forest Service, CPW, we're all big contributors to that water conservation board. It's a very popular project and when a lot of people got behind.
Brody Wilson
Did it get some CWCB funding?
John Hamill
Yes, yes it did. Likewise, the project on On Billy Creek just received a $46,000 grant from the Water Conservation Board to do the design work of the, of the restoration effort. So they've been a good big contributor. A lot of that is federal funds. So, and it's very likely that a lot of those funds are going to disappear unless something's done. We're we're going to be trying to bring Congressman Hurd into the, into the discussion. I think he understands the importance of, of, of rivers and recreation to the local economy and, and the value of, of some of these resources that we're trying to protect. And hopefully he's been successful at getting some funding restored for other projects, and hopefully he can do the same here.
Brody Wilson
But the Guns and Gorge Anglers aren't just policy work and conservation projects. They also do education and outreach and local ublic events.
Claire Barker
Hi, I'm Claire Barker.
Brody Wilson
Claire is a board member of the Gunnison Gorge Anglers.
Claire Barker
Some other events that we have coming U this summer. We have several kids events that we either host or help with, so keep an eye out for those. The Lions Club event at Chapita will be there to help with. We also host Trout a Palooza in Telluride that's a big fundraiser for our projects on the San Miguel Valley floor project. We haven't really discussed that yet, but that's been a great reclamation project that GGA has been involved with. Some other exciting things. We have a new website coming, so stay tuned for that and follow us on social media so that you can get those updates and see our upcoming events. And that new website will also have a really robust event calendar on it for GGA events and other local events. Also, there's a lot of other TU groups on the West Slope. We have Grand Valley Anglers up in Junction and we have a little bit of crossover with some of those communities. People that live in Whitewater Delta might go to GVA stuff and GGA stuff. We also have Five Rivers Trout Unlimited down in the Durango and Pagosa area. And like I said earlier, Dolores River anglers in Cortez. So ton of awesome events this summer from the TU family coming your way.
Brody Wilson
For KVNF News, I'm Brody Wilson.
