LOS ANGELES CARP GOES 50lb!
Giant fish from the middle of LA’s notorious urban jungle
OF ALL the places to find a 50lb common, a concrete park lake in the centre of Los Angeles’ urban sprawl is perhaps the most incredible on Earth.
But that’s exactly where this brute of a carp, caught by design and released back into the water, resides.
Enrique Salmeron and his mates dodge drug dealers and prostitutes to indulge in catchand-release carping at MacArthur Park in downtown LA.
Speaking to Angling Times from across the pond, the 25-year-old from nearby Compton said: “This lake holds surprises in the water and out! You can see some people selling drugs outside their tents that shouldn’t be there, then syringes everywhere in the grass, then some engaging in adultery in other darker spots of the park. All of this in the day! So once the sun goes down we get out.”
The venue, which has witnessed dozens of gangland murders, was first scoped out by Sergio Talavera of the California Ghetto Carping Club.
“He landed a mid-thirty,” said Enrique, “then slowly but surely he noticed that it wasn’t just one or two big fish in there, but almost all of them were midthirties. Smaller fish for us are now mid-twenties.”
Enrique presented a Mainline Pineapple pop-up on an inline Method feeder to land the 50-pounder. “The bite was off the chain, it made my bite alarms scream ‘come get me!’. It just felt like trying to hold a bull from running away.”
Unsurprisingly, the capture drew a crowd of amazed onlookers. Enrique, who released the giant after taking photos, said: “The homeless guys were telling me to give it to them because they were hungry, so I gave them my leftover food, sodas, chips and some fruits to help them out a little bit.”