Last October, on a blue-bird, 80 degree day, a handful of amazing, iconic anglers hooked up to fish a beautiful Montana spring creek and talk about the single largest threat to America’s trout fishing.
Steve Hemkens of Orvis drove over from Jackson Hole. Photographer extraordinaire Tim Romano flew up from Colorado. Craig Mathews of Blue Ribbon Flies made the short drive from his Madison Valley home. Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia flew in from … well, I honestly don’t have any idea where Yvon flew in from. All I can say for sure is that he was there.
We all hung out and fished, and we all shared our thoughts with film-maker Jeremy Roberts about the most important threat to our landscapes and trout streams: climate change.
COLD WATERS was born on October 8th, not far from Ennis, Montana.
Since then, a whole bunch of people have seen the film. It went around the country as part of the 2015 Fly Fishing Film Tour. The outdoor press gave it a big thumbs up. A U.S. Senator stood on the Senate floor and told people to watch the film. Why? Because if you love to fish, climate change is the single biggest issue out there.
Here’s a news flash. 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded. 2015 is going to break that record. Wildfires are chewing through the American West, while salmon are dying from high water temperatures on the way back to their natal streams and floods of biblical proportions are playing ping-pong with some of the most extreme droughts we’ve ever seen here in the U.S. Last month - July, 2015 - was the hottest month ever recorded.
Like it or not, you have skin in the game. We all do.
Which is why we’re making another movie. We’re going to film CHROME in BC next month. The plan is for six of us - a true All-Star cast - to fish for wild British Columbia steelhead in (where else?) the wilds of British Columbia. Film-maker Jeremy Roberts is set to work his magic again.
Will the steelhead fishing be incredible? We sure hope so. Will we tell folks why climate change and ocean acidification are existential threats to our steelhead and salmon? You can bet on it. Will CHROME be even more successful than COLD WATERS? We’re keeping our fingers crossed …
So the question is whether you’re willing to help make our new film a reality. As of today, we’re about $15,000 short of our minimum fund-raising goal. With that in mind, we just started a crowdfunding campaign for CHROME on CrowdRise.
If you believe in what we’re doing, please throw a few bucks in the kitty. Tell your friends and your fishing partners, too. And we’ll do our damnedest to make a great movie; a movie that grabs your attention and won’t let go, that moves the needle on climate change, that stands up for our kids, and for future generations - and that makes you proud to be a fly fisher.
Please help us. Support CHROME.
Comments
David stringer replied on Permalink
I've been fishing steelhead religiously for the past 34 years and guiding for them on a particularly incredible lil river in AK for about 9 of those 34. Caught them in most of the tribs of the Great Lakes, every US state with a Pacific Ocean beach from Santa Cruz to the Aleutians. Spent many seasons on the Mckenzie river in Oregon volunteering for the US fish and wildlife service tagging and raising steelhead and fighting old growth timber sales in the Willamette National Forest and Coastal range.I'm a conservative environmentalist who cherishes my US Constitution more than any other document. I have experienced fluctuations in returns of wild and hatchery steelhead. The vast majority of these occurrences are the result of over harvesting from sport fisherman, poor catch and release techniques, spawning beds which have been silted over or downright destroyed by clear cut logging and subsequent Lahore, the building of dams which limit upstream access to fertile areas and in some cases ballooning sea lion/seal populations at the river mouths. I've also been made aware of commercial fishing boats with extreme bycatches of steelhead. Traditional El Niño and La Niña pacific temp. cycles also play into the amount of available protein for growing steelhead.
One of the other aspects in returning populations is global warming. I've witnessed the bastardization of this philosophy from the like of Al Gore, Obama, the Clintons and just about every liberal I've ever spoken to. I've seen the manipulations of energy markets based on biased EA reports and the current administration's abuse of this data to further the socialist agenda and big gov. Ideology which tries to pick the winners and losers instead of letting the free market and the US consumer dictate who succeeds and who fails. That being said, my favorite river to fish these beautiful creatures in SE Alaska has had consistent returns of wild steelhead since the last ice age. I'm also well aware of the tremendous amount of clear cutting done in the NW right down to the riparian edge. Any specific run of steelhead suffering from low return rates in my opinion, cannot and should not be linked solely or even majorly to global warming. Humans have caused much more damage to spawning areas through horrific logging practices over the past 100 years then from global warming who's data has been suspect since its conception. I don't kill steelhead and utilize insanely small barbless hooks, rubber nets and never need to use bait. I solely fly fish for them and cherish their continued existence but sorry, I will not link a few rivers depleted returns to global warming. Enjoyed the video though.
Pages