Rivers of a Lost Coast

A narrow escape

A little over 44 years ago legendary Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club member Jack Horner made his last minute escape from the fast rising Smith River during the first hours of the epic ‘64 flood.

Jack, an elevator operator from San Francisco was a fishing bum with lines tied to Montana trout streams, Nevada marshes, Washington rivers and Oregon stillwaters. But for all his travels, Jack’s favorite holes were in the slow moving tidewater of California’s Smith River.

In an era before cell-phones and reliable weather reports, Horner found himself in a precarious position on the eve of California’s most devastating flood. In an unused clip from Rivers of a Lost Coast angler and writer Al Perryman shares the story.