After debuting on the Sportsman Channel in late February, the short Conservation Hawks film In the Heart of the Rockies premiers on the web today.

Set in Montana and Idaho—states which boast some of the best fishing and hunting in the Lower 48—In the Heart of the Rockies features Blue Ribbon Flies legend Craig Matthews, fly fishing rock star Hilary Hutcheson, Dave Perkins of Orvis, conservationists Nancy Mackinnon and Phoebe Bean, outdoor writer Hal Herring, and School of Trout founder (and Hatch Magazine regular) Todd Tanner.

In The Heart Of The Rockies follows on the heels of other short Conservation Hawks films Cold Waters, Chrome and, most recently, Convergence all of which explored the impacts of climate change on watersheds, fish and anglers.

This latest film—lest you thought climate change was only the concern of EV-driving fly fishermen with aversions to gluten, and hicksters with an affinity for foraged mushrooms and organic, solar-powered, pasture-raised beef—expands its focus beyond the world of fly fishing and investigates how climate change is threatening sportsmen and women of many different ilks throughout the Rocky Mountain west.

Author and angler Hal Herring and family head out for a day of ice fishing (photo: Jeremy Roberts).

The film journeys out into the wilderness near West Yellowstone with elk hunter Craig Matthews, down the famed waters of the Henry's Fork with anglers Hilary Hutcheson and Todd Tanner and their families, through the upland bird hunting range of the Rocky Mountain front with the Perkins family, and ice fishing on the frozen surface of Echo Lake near Glacier National Park with journalist Hal Herring and his two children.

Throughout the film, the passionate hunters and anglers the filmmakers visit with explore and relay the way that human-caused climate change—and the associated record high temperatures, diminishing snowpacks, longer droughts, dying forests and extreme wildfires—is impacting their pastimes and traditions.

Hatch Magazine is a proud sponsor of In The Heart Of The Rockies, and we are excited to share it with you today. You can watch the film below, or by heading to Vimeo. Enjoy.