Today we’d like to introduce you to Rosanna Dufour.
Hi Rosanna, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Paul and I sold our pizzeria in late 2019 with the intention of turning PJ’s Fine Bamboo Rods from a passion project into our full-time business. Paul brought together his background as a carpenter, his education in fine arts, and a lifelong love of fly fishing to build heirloom-quality bamboo fly rods. I came into the business focused on the other side of the equation—how we could turn that craftsmanship into a sustainable business and, more importantly, an experience people would remember.
From the beginning, our vision was never simply to sell fly rods. We wanted people to be able to walk into the workshop, watch Paul build, take a class, learn about the history and craftsmanship behind bamboo rods, and become part of the process. We wanted PJ’s to be a place where people could connect with a craft that has largely disappeared from the mainstream fly-fishing industry.
Our timing, however, has been interesting.
Almost immediately after selling our previous business, COVID forced us to postpone the retail and experience-based model we had planned. We spent the next couple of years building rods, growing our online presence, improving our products, and developing a national customer base from behind closed doors.
In the summer of 2022, we finally opened our first downtown Pagosa Springs workshop, showroom, and retail space. We began hosting six-day bamboo fly rod building classes, welcomed people into the workshop, and started seeing the business we had originally envisioned come to life.
Then came another challenge we never could have planned for: more than two years of major highway construction directly through downtown Pagosa Springs.
For a small business that depended heavily on tourism, walk-in traffic, and an inviting downtown experience, the construction changed nearly everything. Parking disappeared or moved. Access to businesses shifted constantly. Sidewalks closed. There was noise, dust, heavy equipment, and at times a literal construction zone between us and our customers.
We learned very quickly that we could not sit back and wait for people to find us.
So we pivoted again.
We put far more energy into our bamboo fly rod building classes and began thinking of PJ’s less as a traditional retail store and more as a destination. We developed free workshop tours, expanded our fly-tying events, strengthened relationships with local lodging and tourism partners, improved our digital marketing, and became much more intentional about staying connected with customers long after they walked out our door.
Something unexpected happened along the way. The more difficult it became for people to casually stumble into PJ’s, the more purposeful we became about giving them a reason to come.
That shift strengthened the entire business.
Our six-day rod-building classes have become one of the most meaningful parts of what we do. Students travel to Pagosa Springs from across the country, spend a week working beside Paul, and leave carrying a bamboo fly rod they built with their own hands. Many arrive as customers and leave as friends. We see them return, bring family members, send us photographs of fish caught on their rods, and sometimes come back to build another one.
In 2026, we moved into a much larger location at 456 Pagosa Street in downtown Pagosa Springs. The new space gives us room for a larger workshop, classroom, showroom, and retail area and finally allows the experience side of PJ’s to operate at the scale we imagined years ago.
Looking back, there is almost a funny pattern to our story. Every time we think we know exactly what PJ’s Fine Bamboo Rods is going to look like, something comes along and forces us to rethink it.
COVID taught us how to reach customers beyond our front door. Highway construction taught us how to give them a reason to seek us out in the first place.
Neither experience was easy, but both made us better. Today, PJ’s is less dependent on traditional retail traffic, more connected to our customers, and much closer to the experience-based business Paul and I originally dreamed of creating back in 2019.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely has not been a smooth road.
When we first shared our story with Voyage Denver in 2022, the biggest challenge we had faced was COVID. At the time, we thought opening our downtown workshop, showroom, and retail space would finally allow us to settle into the business model we had originally envisioned.
Instead, not long after opening, downtown Pagosa Springs entered a major state highway construction project that would impact us for more than two years.
For a tourism-driven small business, the disruption was significant. Parking became limited or changed constantly, sidewalks closed, access to storefronts became difficult, and customers had to navigate noise, dust, detours, and heavy equipment just to reach us. There were days when the front of our business looked more like a construction site than a place someone would intentionally stop to shop.
The hardest part was realizing that we could not control the construction, but we still had to control how our business responded to it.
We could no longer depend on traditional foot traffic, so we had to become much more creative and intentional about bringing people through the door. We expanded our bamboo fly rod building classes, developed free workshop tours, added more events and experiences, strengthened partnerships with local lodging and tourism businesses, and invested more heavily in digital marketing and direct communication with our customers.
At the time, those changes felt like survival tactics. Looking back, they became some of the strongest parts of our business.
The construction forced us to stop thinking of PJ’s as simply a retail shop and start thinking of it as a destination. Today, people seek us out because they want to see how a bamboo fly rod is made, take a class, meet the rodmaker, or experience the craft for themselves.
The irony is that one of the most difficult periods our business has faced ultimately made us less dependent on walk-in traffic and much more connected to our customers.
I would never recommend a two-plus-year highway construction project as a business development strategy, but it certainly taught us how to adapt.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
PJ’s Fine Bamboo Rods is a working bamboo fly rod shop, classroom, showroom, and retail space in downtown Pagosa Springs. At the heart of the business, we handcraft heirloom-quality bamboo fly rods and landing nets, but what we really specialize in is preserving the craft and creating an experience around it.
Every bamboo fly rod begins with a raw culm of Tonkin bamboo and is built by hand in our workshop. Paul still personally hand-planes the bamboo strips, fits the components, finishes the rod, and works directly with each custom client. We also incorporate details such as carved and engraved wood grips and reel seats, personalized hardware, and other design elements that make each rod truly one of a kind.
What sets PJ’s apart, though, is that we do not keep the process hidden behind the workshop door.
Visitors are welcome to come in and watch rods being built, take a free workshop tour, attend one of our fly-tying events, or spend six days with us building their own bamboo fly rod from start to finish. Our bamboo fly rod building classes have become one of the things we are best known for. With only a handful of students in each class, participants work closely with Paul and leave Pagosa Springs with a rod they built with their own hands.
For many of our students, the rod becomes much more than a piece of fishing equipment. It represents the week they spent learning a traditional craft, the friendships they made along the way, and something tangible they can fish with now and eventually pass down to their children or grandchildren. That legacy aspect of bamboo rod building is incredibly important to us.
We are also very intentional about the retail side of PJ’s. Rather than trying to be another traditional fly shop, we curate products that complement what we do—premium fly-fishing goods, fishing art and books, handcrafted pieces, bamboo and natural-fiber products, and unique gifts that reflect the outdoor culture and craftsmanship behind our brand.
Brand-wise, I am probably most proud that PJ’s feels personal.
We know our customers. We know the stories behind many of the rods we build. We receive pictures of the fish they catch, hear where the rods travel, and often see customers return years later to take another class, build another rod, or simply stop in and visit.
There are plenty of easier and faster ways to manufacture a fly rod. Bamboo is slow, meticulous, and deeply traditional. That is exactly why we love it.
We are not trying to produce the most rods. We are trying to build the rods people remember, teach a craft worth preserving, and create experiences that become part of someone’s family story.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Absolutely. One of the biggest lessons we have learned is that small businesses rarely succeed alone.
The Pagosa Springs Main Street program deserves a tremendous amount of credit. During a very challenging period for downtown businesses, Main Street helped create opportunities for collaboration, promotion, events, and advocacy. More importantly, it reminded all of us that a healthy downtown depends on businesses supporting one another rather than operating in isolation.
Our lodging partners, especially The Springs Resort, have also played an important role in our growth. Their willingness to work with us, help promote our classes and experiences, and offer accommodations to our guests has made it easier for people traveling from around the country to come to Pagosa Springs and spend several days here. Partnerships like that strengthen not only our business, but the entire visitor experience.
And then there are our clients.
We have an incredibly loyal group of customers who have supported PJ’s through every version of this business—from buying rods when we were operating primarily online, to navigating construction to visit the shop, taking our classes, referring friends, sharing our work, and coming back again and again.
There were certainly moments during the construction project when supporting a downtown business required a little extra effort. Our customers made that effort. They found the parking, walked around the barricades, followed the detours, ordered online, signed up for classes, and continued to believe in what we were building.
That kind of support is something we do not take lightly.
Many of those relationships have grown far beyond a traditional customer-business relationship. People send us pictures of the fish they catch on their rods, return to Pagosa Springs to visit, bring family members to take classes, and become genuine advocates for what we do.
Paul and I may have had the original dream for PJ’s Fine Bamboo Rods, but there is a much larger community that has helped us keep moving toward it—especially during the moments when that dream was a little harder to see through the construction dust.
Pricing:
- Custom Bamboo Fly Rod Price Range: $1,695 – $3,595
- Bamboo Fly Rod Building Class: From $2,795
- Custom Wood Fishing Nets: Starting at $395
- Free Workshop Tours
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pjsfinebamboo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pjsfinebamboo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pjsfinebamboo
- Twitter: https://x.com/pjsfinebamboo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pjsfinebamboo
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/pjs-fine-bamboo-rods-pagosa-springs?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
