Trout Maestro

Inside the custom batons of Steamboat Symphony conductor Ernest Richardson

As conductor of the Steamboat Springs Symphony Orchestra, Ernest Richardson is used to waving his batons around. Examine their tips, however, and another passion surfaces, one involving streams instead of symphonies. 

Inlaid into each baton tip are his two favorite flies for the Yampa: a Rusty spinner and chartreuse midge pupa. “I use the Rusty in town and the pupa on the Stagecoach tailwaters,” says Richardson, who also holds a black belt in tae kwon do. “I fish the Yampa every time I come out, no matter the season.”

As for similarities between waving his fly rod and batons, he says it depends on the music. “If the music is broad and sweeping, you don’t use much wrist,” he says. “But if it’s fast and percussive, or delicate, it’s all wrist.” Getting in the “zone” of each is also similar. “Both the music and water compel your gestures,” he says. “When I’m in the zone fly fishing, as opposed to hooking trees, I don’t think about the cast. I just look where the fly needs to be—then catching a fish is the actual music.”

Having custom batons, he adds, is like tying your own flies. “It gives you a personal connection to what you’re doing,” he says, adding he made them from four pine balusters left over from a home project. Like a rod, he adds, a baton has to feel right, its handle balanced with the stick. So, he filled their cores with split shot and epoxy and glued his two favorite flies to the ends. “When I showed them to a colleague, he looked at me like I was crazy,” he says. “But I think he wanted a pair.”

Still don’t think he’s a virtuoso at both disciplines? Consider his email, whose handle is “trout-maestro.”

Sidebar: Fishing vs. Conducting

Fishing vs. Conducting

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