PAGE — One of the nation’s most prestigious outdoor magazines, Outdoor Life, has named Page as one of the top 10 towns in America for hunters and anglers to live, the magazine announced last week.

Page came in ninth on the magazine’s list, just behind Dillon, Mont., and ahead of Bismarck, N.D. Flagstaff was the only other city in Arizona to crack the top 50 on the 200-city list, coming in at number 24.

Diverse and outstanding opportunities for sport fishing on Lake Powell and on the river below Glen Canyon Dam topped the magazine’s list of reasons for listing Page, followed by varied hunting opportunities on the Kaibab Plateau and the deserts of southern Utah.

“Once a gritty company town whose fortunes were tied to dam construction and power production, Page has diversified into a tourist Mecca. Good food, interesting stores and stunning viewsheds,” the article states.

It also notes, “Homes are expensive here, but this is one of the most diverse fishing towns in America, and if you can ever draw a tag, it’s a great base to experience epic big-game hunting.”

Topping Outdoor Life’s list was Mountain Home, Ark., population 12,215, an Ozark Mountains community that offers world-class warm water and cold water fishing in the White River and Bull Shoals and diverse hunting opportunities on the nearby Ozark National Forest.

Outdoor Life, founded in Denver in 1898, boasts a readership of more than 5 million.

“There are so many great places for sportsmen across the United States, for any town to make the top 10, they have to be pretty outstanding,” according to Outdoor Life Executive Editor John Snow.

“We used a real broad base of experts to help us fine tune the ranking scores, so we feel extremely confident about the methodology we adopted,” Snow said.

This marks the first year Outdoor Life has compiled such a list, he added, and the project was two years in the making. The magazine’s hunting editor, Andrew McKean of Montana, conducted most of the research for the article, Snow said.

“It was a big labor but it was something we’re excited about, and we’re excited to shine a spotlight on all these towns,” he said.

While the cost of housing in Page may have helped push it further down the list, the diversity of fishing opportunities here are unsurpassed, Snow said.

“People get super excited about the diversity of fishing that you guys have available, thanks to Lake Powell and the river too,” he said. The area offers outstanding fishing for striped bass, smallmouth and largemouth bass, walleye, crappie, catfish and trout, he noted.

The article references that diversity: “Page is the sort of town where a complete angler has both a bass boat and a drift boat, and casts frozen anchovies to husky striped bass by morning and dainty midge imitations to rising trout by sunset. In this northern Arizona outpost you can do both without burning a full tank of gas.”

While Page and surrounding area may have been a bit below some people’s radar in the past, “it’s going to be gaining now,” Snow said. “I think it’s fair to say that Page is on the way up.”

Quality of life issues have become more important to many people the past few decades, Snow added.

“Absolutely. A lot of people get to a point where they want to reassess their priorities and take a deep breath, and find places where they can recharge their spirits” he said.

Other factors considered in making the rankings included local economic health, unemployment rate, crime rate and availability of various amenities, as well as accessibility to public lands – the latter a variable in which Page scored extremely high, Snow said.

He added that people are encouraged to visit the magazine’s Web site, www.outdoorlife.com, and share their opinions on the list.

Page Tourism Director Dwayne Cassidy said he was “ecstatic” to hear the news.

“It’s huge. It’s really big,” he said. “It’s a very good publication, a very good demographic. I could never afford to put out the same kind of publicity and advertising they have done.”

Outside of the Southwest, it’s likely that relatively few people know much about Page, and maybe have never even heard of it, Cassidy said. He added, however, that the situation is changing — and the Outdoor Life article proves it.

“I think we’re getting on the radar,” he said. “I think we’re beginning to be in people’s level of awareness.”

The town’s location at the center of the “Grand Circle” of Colorado Plateau national parks, monuments and recreation areas continues to be a source of pride and a prime focus of tourism promotion, Cassidy said. Yet many travelers think of Zion and Bryce national parks and other locales when they consider the region rather than Page, he added.

“We’re working to change that,” he said.

Tourism promoters are also focusing on boosting the town’s winter off-season visitation, since that annual slump in activity has proven to be a hindrance to the town’s economy and growth, Cassidy said.

“The tourism board is really working toward finding a solution to that seasonality issue,” he said. “Anything we can do to stabilize that seasonal bell curve is going to improve the economic situation. Once we can get over that hump, we’re going to see some significant changes on so many levels in the community.”

The publicity from an esteemed national outdoors publication will certainly aid the effort, he added.

“There are some great communities on that list,” Cassidy said. “We are in some exalted company.”

Glen Canyon National Recreation Area management assistant Kevin Schneider agreed that the listing should prove to be a boon for Page. He noted that the amount of outdoor recreation opportunities in the area is “phenomenal,” with vast public lands that include Glen Canyon NRA, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Kaibab National Forest and Grand Canyon National Park within close proximity.

Glen Canyon NRA constitutes the sixth-largest National Park Service component in the United States, he noted.

“We’re fortunate to have these acres and acres of public lands right at our doorstep, for hunting and fishing and recreation,” Schneider said.

Share on Facebook