Rivers of a Lost Coast

North Coast Legends

Jack Horner

The great Jack Horner of Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club fame spent his life chasing fish. From California’s Truckee River to Yellowstone’s Hebgen Lake, Jack Horner was a fishing machine. His Horner Shrimp Fly remains a tidewater classic. But for all his fishing success, Jack Horner is best remembered for his narrow escape on California’s Smith River. In late December 1964, Jack Horner was in his truck-bed-camper along a gravel bar near the mouth of Rowdy Creek. He awoke in the middle of the night to a foot of water in his camper. Within a few hours he was forced to the roof of his truck. At day break he was spotted and rescued moments before his rig was washed down river, never to be found. The rains continued and when it was all said and done, it had become the Christmas Flood of 1964, California’s most devastating flood on record.

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