(FORTUNE Magazine) – He fishes, surfs, kayaks, and climbs mountains. But does Yvon Chouinard, 54, know how to run a $117 million company? The founder and owner of Patagonia, maker of top-end outdoorsy wear, recently stunned the speciality retailing world by announcing plans to scale back. Writes Chouinard (pronounced Shi- NARD) in his Fall/Winter catalogue: ''We are limiting Patagonia's growth, with the eventual goal of halting it altogether. Last fall you had a choice of five ski pants, now you may choose between two. This is of course un-American, but two styles of ski pants are all anyone needs.'' A French Canadian born in Maine and raised in Southern California, Chouinard helped modernize U.S. mountaineering in the early 1960s by devising new climbing tools and insulated clothes, selling them from his car in Yosemite. He named his company after a favorite fishing region that spans the Chile- Argentina border. In those early days, Chouinard had to take odd jobs, like detective work for Howard Hughes, but by the late 1970s Patagonia was grossing over $1 million a year. Since then sales have avalanched, helped in part by NBC's Tom Brokaw and other fans who wear his duds.

% So why reel the company in? Says Chouinard: ''I just don't want to get any bigger.'' Now that's a different kind of fish story.