Castlegar to Host 2022 Fly Fishing Film Fest This Month
The International Fly Fishing Film Festival returns to Castlegar this year with both in-personal and virtual offerings. On March 26 the live show will be held at the Castle Theatre, 185 Columbia Ave., and will feature nine short and feature-length films from all corners of the globe showcasing the passion, lifestyle, and culture of international fly fishing.
Theatre doors will open at 6:30 pm that evening and then both live and virtual showings will start at 7 p.m. General admission for either the live or virtual event is $15. The virtual presentation can be viewed at watch.eventive.org/if4/play/621d366cd46168006e9196db. Once logged in, access to the virtual film showing will be granted for seven days. In addition to the films, there will be fly-fishing product giveaways and other promotions at the event. One attendee will be selected to win the 2022 grand prize drawing consisting of fly-fishing gear provided by International Fly Fishing Film Festival sponsors and valued at thousands of dollars.
The movie we’re particularly excited about is “Home Water” because it’s a topic we can relate to: fly fishing for trout in the rivers of your childhood home. Although the film’s protagonist, Riley Leboe is originally from Whistler, British Columbia and there’s a lot of footage from that region, it paints a picture similar to what we all do on the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers here in Castlegar.
The 2022 Fly Fishing Film Festival Offerings
Home Water
Home Water follows professional skier and lifelong outdoorsman Riley Leboe as he travels back to his childhood region of British Columbia. Connecting with his brother Jess, they share an unforgettable fishing adventure, realizing their Home Water holds opportunities to create new anglers and resource advocates in a sustainable way. In addition, they seek out the trophy rainbow trout the region is famous for.
Caddis Magic
Every fly fishing outing is filled with bits and pieces of a mystery. You never know what you’ll catch, if the bugs will hatch, if the fish will react to the hatch the way you hope, and so on. These “unknowns” keep us dreaming of something incredibly special that exists only when all of these factors mesh together. And when they do, true magic happens. That’s what this story is about, a day of Caddis Magic.
4 Weeks of Daylight
The Kola Reserve has recently gathered a cadre of professional fly-fishing pioneers on a mission to determine whether rumors of the existence of two phenomenal, lost and completely private Atlantic Salmon fisheries on the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula in Russia were true. Adding to the intrigue and speculation is the fact that both rivers flow north into the Barents Sea at a point only slightly southeast of the trophy-laden Yokanga and to the northwest of the prolific Ponoi. They are dead-center in the heart of a region famous for trophy-sized Atlantic salmon, numbers of grilse, and large fall run Atlantics. The rivers are completely private and have been designated catch-and-release, fly fishing only fisheries that will remain shielded from poaching, commercial harvest, and exploitation. Join the exploration team to the Kola Peninsula and get a glimpse of the secret of their craft and a first inside look of the Lumbovka and Kachkovka rivers.
Out West
In an authentic fish bum adventure bass film, Todd Moen captures a creative old-west journey to fly fish eastern Oregon’s high desert streams. Brian O’Keefe returns on camera to chase smallmouth bass, after nearly 13 years since the original “Alpine Bass” made its debut on Catch Magazine. Now, with drought and warmer water affecting much of the western landscape, and in an effort to lessen the impact of fly fishing for trout in the dry season, Moen aims for bass – a warm water gamefish. With both aerials and subsurface shots, this film captures a rustic and low budget adventure only an angler like O’Keefe can pull off. Enjoy the action and get inspired by this sure-to-be classic film.
Casting Maya
Casting Maya tells the story about the world-famous Ascension Bay that is located on the peninsula of Yucatan/Mexico. The Sian Ka’an biosphere reservation is known for its richness in gamefish like Tarpon, Permit, Bonefish, Snook and many more. Travel to Punta Allen, a small fishing village also known as the permit capital of the world, with the goal of catching a Palometa on the fly.
A Season in the South
A Season on the South follows a few friends on a season of fly fishing through the different regions of New Zealand’s South Island, exploring remote and pristine back country rivers accessed by travelling on foot, mountain bike and pack raft.
Flat Out
The Stimmies Awards 2021 Anglers Choice Winner, FLAT OUT weaves DIY footage from years of exploring Australia’s Pacific and Indian Ocean saltwater flats, with an exploratory adventure to Sudan’s untouched Red Sea thrown in the mix, to challenge and reimagine fishing film genre. The award-winning film reconceptualises fly fishing in eight minutes of high energy, boundary-pushing, thought-provoking, life-long memory-banking. It is a visual documentation of what drives us. Don’t blink as we take you on an eclectic and radical new saltwater fly-fishing experience.
Into Blue
The crew from FOSH is familiar with skinny-water, weed-beds and trout. But it’s a first as they take a trip up to the salt of Far North Queensland. Wading and wandering the flats while watching for a flash as the rain buckets in from every angle. Hold on tight as this group of friends take you on a new adventure for hard-fighting fish.
A Fly-fishing Refugee
Pressured out of Poland as a dissident in the early 1980s, Mariusz Wroblewski set out for freer territory, with his family, a yearning for wild rivers, and not much else. Four decades later, he’s become a conservationist and advocate for wild rivers – and discovered the true reason rivers figure so prominently in his life.