Rivers of a Lost Coast

The West coast is the often overlooked, younger brother of the East whose contributions to fly fishing by its out of the box anglers, certainly merits the attention of scholars and students of the fly fishing tradition. Perhaps it was the pioneer spirit inherent in Californians that led anglers, free from restraint, to develop the techniques that capitulated Steelhead and Salmon fishing during the formative 50's and 60's. These facts are not lost on the filmmakers, Justin Coupe and Palmer Taylor.

Rivers of a Lost Coast chronicles the Northern California Costal angling tradition, the brilliant, and colorful men who pioneered fly fishing for Steelhead and Salmon and the fisheries subsequent decline. If fly fishing is a religion, it can asserted that the film mirrors a creation myth in that it presents California coastal fisheries as an unspoiled fly fishing Eden which due to unrestricted logging, dams, competition for water resources and untimely droughts, caused it to suffer a fall from grace. "Rivers" offers a glimpse at the saintly biologists and anadromous activists who are laboring now to bring about a resurrection of the Occidental coastal fisheries.

While saddening, "Rivers" presents the quintessential and tired narrative of ecological disaster as a fresh and moving call to activism. Anglers and fly fishing historians alike will delight in the actual footage of the famous fisherman who found freedom in the unfettered pursuit of Steelhead and Salmon. Narrated by the venerable Tom Skerritt of A River Runs Through It fame, Rivers of a Lost Coast evokes awe, sorrow and envy for the anglers that experienced the West coast coastal fisheries at their peak.