March 13, 2026
By Fly Fisherman Staff
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Joshua Caldwell is the director of the Netflix hit Mending the Line starring big names like Brian Cox, Sinqua Walls, Perry Mattfeld, Patricia Heaton, and Wes Studi. He’s also passionate fly fisher who directed the documentary Legacy: The Story of Cathy and Barry Beck. Both films deal with loss and grief—and also on the soothing joy that can come from fly fishing. His conversation with Ross Purnell focuses on his experiences catching huge brook trout in Labrador, working with veteran groups like Warriors and Quiet Waters, the difficulties of making films with live animals (trout), and his next projects on the horizon.
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Truncated transcript:
00:00:00.270 --> 00:00:22.440: I said, has anybody ever done a doc on Barry? And you're like, I don't think so. And I said, I think like you’re definitely like right for it. Like he, you know, just for me personally as a storyteller, I was like, I'm just, you know, a lot of people obviously know about Barry and Cathy, like, you know, my, my ignorance is not an indication of their, you know, sort of popularity within the industry.
00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:53.520: But I just said, if I don't know anything, then definitely there are people that aren't out there, that are out there that also don't know anything and don't know their contributions and the way, the part they played in this, this, the history of this industry. I said, we should definitely put something together. And, and Barry thankfully said yes, you know, which I'm sure was not easy for him considering. Cause when we met him, I, you know, I, I unfortunately never had the opportunity to meet Cathy, you know, every, the first time I met Barry and fished with Barry was a couple months after she had passed.
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00:00:53.520 --> 00:02:06.960: And so I never had that chance to, to talk to her or even like, you know, know her in any way. But, you know, to Barry's credit, like he was willing to sort of allow us to come in and, and tell this story, which I'm sure was a very, very difficult thing for him. And, you know, I think that that's, it's a big thing, you know, to be able to sort of share with the community and, you know, larger world, the story of, of, of their time together, their contributions to this industry. And also the question that we kind of ask in the dock, which is when your whole world is shared by your partner, right? This was not an a situation where a very famous fly fisherman lost his wife, right? Which is in itself a tragedy. But it was, you know, his wife, his best friend, his fishing buddy, his business partner, you know, his soulmate. Like it was, it was, their lives were so intertwined. How do you, the question we wanted to examine was how do you continue to go on?
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00:02:53.520 --> 00:03:24.910: Hi, I'm Ross Purnell, editor and publisher of Fly Fisherman magazine. Welcome to Loop to Loop, where we make deeper connections with the people behind the magazine. Our guest today is Joshua Caldwell, director of films like Layover, Infamous, and most recently Mending the Line with Brian Cox. He is a husband, a father of two, ardent fly fisher, baseball dad... welcome to our studios. It's great to have you today.
00:03:24.910 --> 00:03:53.560: Yeah, thanks for having me. Glad we finally did it. We have a lot of films to talk about, a lot of fishing to talk about, but I thought we'd start with big stuff first. One of your big recent successes was mending the Line, really touching story about how fly fishing impacts veterans, different kinds of veterans. It was starring Brian Cox….
