EPA declares L.A. River navigable waters

Consider, for example, the following thread of events from this past week:

I spoke to my sister on the phone last Monday and during the course of the conversation, we reminisced briefly about the tiny flat she and her husband used to rent in London.

It was literally on the banks of the mighty Thames, and seriously within a stone’s throw of the London Bridge and Tower.

I could actually sit out on the balcony sipping my morning coffee and casually converse with guys who were flyfishing from the muddy banks below – all in the virtual center of one of the greatest cities on earth. I loved that little place.

So then last Tuesday, while heading to our next appointment, my wife and I were cruising down one of the major thoroughfares that knit the various communities of Orange county together when we crossed over one of a thousand small drainage channels that spider all over SoCal.

From my elevated vantage at the helm of our rolling veterinary hospital I caught a quick glimpse of the mild flow of water coursing between the rip-rap lined and concrete reinforced banks.

In the milli-seconds that I had to capture the entire scene – something which I am convinced is a by-product of growing up in the car culture of SoCal – I made the assessment that that little waterway would be a great place to practice fly casting and line mending techniques. The only thing lacking would be fish.

That, of course, started me thinking about the previous day’s conversation with my sister, those barely remembered conversations with retired stockbrokers on the banks of the Thames and…

…that led me on a whole other tangent of thought with regard to loss of native fish species, the wonders of civil engineering, the re-establishment of salmon in the Thames River, urban renewal and so on and so on

Thus, with those thoughts swimming around in my head, once we finally settled in for the evening, I feverishly tuned my attention to the info super highway and typed away into the wee hours of the morning tracking down useful information which just might possibly lead to a new, untapped or long forgotten spot to fish. I am singular in purpose, if nothing else.

I did not turn up any secret “honey hole” that I’m willing to share but I did stumble upon some fascinating info nonetheless. It turns out there are something like a hundred miles of those open channels all across the greater L.A. Basin. They in turn connect to some 1500 miles of underground pipes and tunnels and eventually it all feeds into sixty or so outflows that pour into the ocean. Seems that that little phrase from the movie, Finding Nemo, does have a basis in truth (at least in SoCal)  — “all (storm) drains lead to the Ocean”.

Folks who get paid to calculate such things, tell us that roughly 100 million gallons of water flows through this network on any given dry day. Toss in some rain and the flow jumps to an astounding 10 billion (yeah, with a “B”) gallons per day! That’s a lot of water.

One only has to look at a map of these channels and such and it isn’t too hard to surmise that SoCal was once a magical place of meandering creeks and small streams and living, breathing rivers.

As coincidence would have it, the very same day I was pondering these things, our fellow bloggers over at L.A. Creek Freak posted a great story (excerpted from a Press-Enterprise story of a year ago) about the re-appearance of the Santa Ana Speckled Dace in the City Creek portion of that waterway.

Dace are smallish and minnow-like and probably wouldn’t put up much of a fight except maybe on a 00 weight rig. The bigger battle would be trying to convince the judge that you were actually fishing for a legal to catch species.

Nevertheless, the story by Creek Freak directed me toward additional sites and eventually I came across some pretty interesting articles documenting the fact that at least until the 1930’s, honest-to-goodness Steelhead used to swim very close to the present day location of Los Angeles City Hall.

So…in a little more than twenty-four hours I had come full circle. From a brief snippet of conversation which stirred a memory about flyfishing on the heavily urbanized Thames to a study on the drainage system of SoCal to copies of historical documents indicating that Steelhead swam the L.A River to my fishin’ buddy, Sean and I crawling through a hole in a fence to fish a section of urban channel we had never fished before… Like I said, what an amazing and amusing series of interactions…

I love this addiction called urban flyfishin’.

First stop was to the LA River at Glendale Narrows. The water was clear and promising, the trees were green and lush, but the Carp were no where to be found. We walked about a mile stretch of the river with a Mallards, Geese, and Cormorants. A Chow Chow dog stopped us in the middle of our trek back to the car, as the about 14 year kid holding him back looked more scared than we did. So, off the the next Brownline on the map we went.

Next up was the San Gabriel River at Whittier Narrows which I was hoping to see stuffed with Tilapia and again not a single fish spotted. I stopped a few older Hispanic men fishing the river and after a short great of  “Contraron Pescados” and after three simultaneous No’s,  to the other side of the river we went. We stepped around the bushes and into the “Homeless City” we found ourselves. I quickly apologized and we said our goodbyes to our newly found friends. At this point I was starting to get a little worried, as in my mind I was thinking that this time last year there were fish all over these two stretches of River.

Our third and final destination was the Santa Ana River Bed at the intersection of the 91 & 57 freeways and by this time I wasn’t in the best of mood. We had about 30 minutes left before we had to shoot home to meet my wife and get to the Aquarium Of The Pacific to meet our friends. We walked a short stretch and one guy told us he’d seen a pod of Carp earlier that morning, but no fish again (not one). On the way back to the car I viewed an Osprey carrying a Trout from Santa Ana River Lakes in it’s claws racing to get the fish to it’s hatchlings.

In short the lack of fish concerns me, especially since I have been hearing stories of guys down at all three river beds with bait nets pulling out 100′s of fish. If you decide to fish down here, please practice “Catch and Release”. The fish aren’t good eating and it’s not like the California Department of Fish & Game stocks these waters. I will be really hard for people to petition the state to get these made into recognized fisheries, if there aren’t any fish left!

The long and short of it was that if I wanted to go fishing, I was going solo.

So after a very pleasant lunch with my lovely bride and some of our dearest friends, I opted to check the conditions at the Glendale Narrows portion of the L.A. River, where I haven’t been in a couple of months due to all of the winter rain.

When I crested the small hill at Red Car Park I glanced downstream and immediately noticed that the rains had scoured away most of the emergent weeds and rushes leaving the River looking a bit plain and lifeless. I also noticed that the remaining trees growing up from islands in the middle of the River were all pushed over in a downstream direction.

The good thing about this was that I could get a rather detailed mental picture of the general layout of the many small islets and sandbars and channels that would eventually be hidden by vegetation – vital information for later in the season.

The bad thing about all this was that every bit of trash and debris lay exposed like so many open wounds on the landscape.

In a strange twist of nature and geography, the same storms that brought the white, blanketing snow to the mountains — covering, hiding and beautifying everything up there, stripped away the lush, verdant growth in the River — exposing the mud, debris and refuse of civilization down here.

Seriously, trash was everywhere. Bits of plastic bags, tarps, towels, clothing, and paper hung from the trees like Tibetan prayer flags. Mounds of debris, both organic and otherwise, were draped around the upstream side of every bridge abutment, pole and tree trunk.

It was kind of an eerie feeling. I kept wondering which items represented someone’s thoughtlessness and disregard for the environment and which items bore silent witness to the fury of nature and the lost dreams of some family who’s home hadn’t fared well in the previous month’s storms.

Then, as I got down to the water, I saw thick ropes of string algae curtaining many of the pools that had held decent size carp last summer. In fact, I would spend an inordinate amount of time pulling string algae off my flies for the rest of the afternoon.

I tried all of my favorite spots. Upstream then downstream for about a half mile in each direction, I cast to all of the productive spots of last season and got not so much as a nudge on any of my offerings.

I took advantage of the missing plant cover and rock-hopped out to where I could cast to the main channel – still nuthin’.

For several hours I worked the River ‘til my arm ached and my eyes burned.

The sun was sinking quickly so in one final attempt to squeeze some kind of proof that fish, any fish, even still remained in the River, I ventured back to an area where the water slows significantly and a large, deep pool forms.

In the summer this same pool is a favorite with bait fisherman. Judging from the piles of dried string algae strewn about on the shoreline it probably wasn’t high on anybody’s list at the moment.

Still, I had to know. So I stripped off a little more line than usual and false cast a couple of more times than usual and stretched to reach a little further across the pool than usual and… was rewarded with a rising Carp.

Not a strike, mind you, but a rise.

Sure, I would like to say that a fish took my fly and I landed it after an epic battle but…I only got a rise.

Yet, it was enough.

Knowing that the River was on the mend from the assaults of winter and that fish were still there was enough for the day.

Now, lots of guys would count the day as a wash. OK. If your only measure of success is the raw number of fish you land then the day was a wash.

But, if you count the opportunities I had to observe aspects of the River that are normally hidden and if you count the mental maps I had the opportunity to make and if you count the extra effort and opportunity I had to refine and improve my casting skills and technique then, by my count, it was a great day.

Toss in the warm sun, the diversity of bird species present and the solitude of the River on the last official day of winter and I’d say again, it was a great day.

I love this addiction called urban flyfishin’.

Forty years ago though, if you said you were going to fish or especially fly fish on the L.A. River, my school chums and I would have probably called you the “Spanglish” equivalent of a hick or an idiot and might even have thrown a few rocks at you if we saw you doing so.

Not that fish weren’t found there — to the contrary, my friends and I spent huge chunks of our summers and many of our weekend hours yanking hand-sized goldfish and catfish out of the various pools and pocket waters using home-made nets and traps we carted down there on our Stingray bicycles.

Likewise, while it is not uncommon today to see a guy wearing a pair of waders while plying the middle reaches of the Narrows, back then it was black canvas and white rubber Chuck Taylors and jeans for everything – hiking, biking, fishing, fighting, football, baseball, basketball, rock-hopping, school, weddings, funerals – everything. You would have definitely caught a portion of grief if you had shown up in rubber pants in those days. Forget about roughing up the Simms Freestones in polluted urban waters, we worried about the “tenderizing” our backsides would get if we couldn’t get our shoes to dry out by the time we got home.

Yeah, things down in the River were a lot different back then.

That’s why it has been such a blast to reconnect with the River through our urban fly ventures. Being able to pass on long forgotten secrets of the river to my fishin’ buddy, Sean (aka the young guy) and re-discover old stomping grounds and stretches of water I used to know the way some guys know the route from couch to kitchen, has been good for the soul.

I’m thrilled at the way the River has matured (recovered is probably a better term). The height and health of the trees, the clarity of the water, the number of bird species and the quantity of catchable fish are all signs of a thriving ecosystem … yet, there is one thought that keeps jumping around in the back of my mind after each visit to the Narrows…

Back in the day, tens of thousands of toads inhabited the River. They were everywhere. They even made annual mass migrations into the surrounding neighborhoods that became the stuff of legend. I can remember one hot summer night when the street literally undulated in the fading light of dusk as an army of toads made their way up from the River – I couldn’t sleep for a week.

Toads where so common that the section of the River tucked between the Golden State Freeway and the old Taylor Rail Yard was, and still is, known locally as “Frogtown”. There is even an art festival known as the Frogtown Art Walk that draws its name from that little piece of SoCal natural history.

It used to be virtually impossible to go down to the River and not see toads. Nowadays, I rarely see them.

Not that I mind all that much.

Truth be told, toads kinda give me the Willys. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a trained biologist. I understand the vital role they play in the balance of things and how they eat insects and such and how they in turn are an important food source for fish and birds. I know that they serve as indicator species – canaries in the global coal mine. I know all that stuff.

It’s just that I have much stronger, visceral memories of unexpectedly stepping on them in the wet grass at twilight and of them jumping out of the dog’s water bowl as I walked by in the dark and of riding my bike into a massive swarm of toadlettes in my haste to get home before my curfew and wiping out as though I had hit a patch of black ice. (If you think parents make a stink over soggy Converses, try ‘splainin’ away “toad kill” all over your good school clothes.)

Some folks speculate that improved water flow and quality have made it less favorable for tadpoles. Others issue dire warnings about climate change and eco-altering toxins. Could be. The water flow is definitely faster than I remember and some of the old familiar rock hops across the River are now partially submerged. There are definitely fewer stagnant pools where tens of thousands of tadpoles used to congregate. Not sure about the toxins theory either. The water sure seems cleaner now. Way more fish live in the River than in times past and I don’t encounter the dreaded Black Ooze nearly as often as I used to. Sure seems to be a lot more birds living down there now too, even some of the supposedly fragile species. I just don’t really know where all the toads went.

I do know that me and the River have this forty year plus history goin’ on and toads or no toads, it’s been a wild ride.

I love this addiction, called urban fly fishin’.

A week ago I stood on the lawn of the Griffith Park Observatory along with my buddy, Sean, and we watched through telescopes as the fire exploded entire trees in its ravenous march down the hillsides of not so distant canyons.

But that was last week.

Yesterday, Sean and I stood on the banks of the L.A. River, just a couple of miles from the observatory, beneath a startling clear blue sky with a fresh cooling breeze in our faces.

And while all of California is in a severe drought, down in the River the water flowed fast and strong and clear.

We had made the drive back up from the O.C. to “La Reever” because in my quest to learn more about the fires I thought I might have stumbled upon a new fishing spot via Google aerial maps.

Sure enough, tucked away in a highly industrialized neighborhood of sheet metal fabricators, welding shops and dubious import companies and nestled between freeway bridges, railroad trestles and high tension power line towers there is a little slice of paradise – at least by L.A. urban standards. And the best part of it was that no one was there. Not a soul.

There we were, in the middle of roughly 11 million people and we actually had a sizeable stretch of moving water all to ourselves.

We backed Sean’s tan Toyota about a quarter-mile down a service road (every successful guy from the “barrio” learns to drive with equal facility backwards and forwards – it’s a useful skill for avoiding stray bullets) where it blended in nicely with the decomposed granite roadway and the tall bushes trying to hold on ‘til the winter rains.

We geared up and walked another couple of hundred yards to a breach in the chainlink and barbed wire and began our decent down the steep concrete banks. I did a quick scan of the local graffiti to see if I could detect any active “dissing” going on which would raise the keep-looking-over-your-shoulder factor, but found none. In fact, we did not even find any piles of empty beer bottles or food wrappers or any signs that anybody had been down there in the recent past.

As we moved down the embankment, I started to get excited because I could see dozens of fat, torpedo shapes resting in a large pool at the bottom end of some riffles. Sean had forgotten his polarized glasses and could not see the fish so he just looked at me and nodded politely – the way one nods at the finger-pointing, rambling conspiracy theorist stationed on the steps outside the main Post Office.

I began muttering about needing light colored sinking flies and desperately tried to remember if I had any white Wooly Buggers left in my fly box. Sean was already rigging up a Wooly Bugger with a salmon egg imitation as a dropper rig and, again, just nodded politely in my direction.

We positioned ourselves at opposite ends of the pool and began working toward the middle. I cast carefully in front of the shadowy shapes beneath the surface. There was very little conversation, no drama, no people and it just felt great being out on the water, casting with my favorite rod and enjoying the peace and quiet murmuring of the River. Anyone, I repeat, anyone who tells you that Carp are not worth the water they swim in has not fished for them in earnest.

The next several hours were spent casting and crawling and kneeling amongst the bushes and pleading and grumbling along the banks of this section of water in an effort to entice these fish to strike. Time and time again I watched two-foot long Carp follow my flies only to turn away abruptly and inexplicably.

When I finally did get a strike, the fish immediately dove into the rocks and broke me off before I could turn its head around. Based on the unhappy groans coming from over Sean’s way, I surmised that he was having similar woes.

After thoroughly working about a quarter-mile of the River we decided to head over to Atwater Village and fish below the Hyperion Bridge – a well-known and commonly fished location. We were disappointed that we hadn’t landed any fish but we were thrilled with the number and wariness of the fish we had stumbled upon in this new location.

As we crested the hill on the path leading to the Hyperion Bridge section of the River, our first image was that of a lone fisherman sitting in the middle of the flats in a folding lawn chair. He was using two rods and even from a couple of hundred yards away, we could tell that he probably had them both rigged with 40-pound test or more. By the time we got to the bottom of the embankment, he was busy landing a foot-long fish.

There was a backpack on the shore and after Lawn-chair-guy had let his catch go he waded over to the backpack, sizing us up as we drew near to it. He took a cigarette from out of the front pocket and lit up as Sean asked him how he was doing. He smiled and said it had been a very good day. Sean asked him what he was using for bait and the guy replied, “tortilla”.

We looked at each other, wished him well and then somewhat frantically started digging around in our respective fly boxes as we walked toward a favored pool. Despite a plethora of flies for practically every location we fish, neither of us had any approximation of a tortilla. After some hard thinking, I considered snipping off a corner of my boxer shorts and using some tippet to tie it onto a #10 hook but then, aside from the obvious logistical problem of dropping ‘trow in the middle of the River, I remembered that it was Sunday and I had on the plaid ones anyway.

So, we fished until near dark but did not have the success of our lawn chair friend. The ride home was a mixture of contentment over our new-found location and amazement that we had been out-fished by tortillas. I could tell, though, from the animated way Sean was speaking that a fire had been started in him and we would probably be using a very interesting pattern the next time we hit the flats at Glendale Narrows.

If any of you guys out there have a fishing story that needs to be told and maybe a photo or two to go with it. Let us know, and we would be more than happy to post it on the site!

This picture is of a Carp that I caught in the LA River right under the Hyperion Bridge at Glendale Narrows. There was a small pool that I caught 6 fish in within 30 minutes out of. Go down to the LA River at Glendale Narrows one time with a 5 weight rod, some strong leader, a couple of glow bugs and eggs flies, and you will have the time of your life.

Okay I’m officially a fan of the LA River. I was up in the LA area and had about two hours this morning to revisit the LA River. I used the same 5/6 weight rod and reel, and about a 5-6 foot 6 pound test leader. I started in the pool right below Hyperion Bridge and with the fist 30 minutes I had 4 carp from 2-5 pounds. Once I got tired of the hole I started moving south down the river and passed a couple of bait fisherman using tortillas, and according to them they had each caught about 5 fish a piece. I caught 2 more scattered fish, and saw a couple of fish swimming around that must have been pushing 10 pounds. All 6 carp that I caught were caught on either a glow bug or glow bug egg imitation. Again I urge you if you have not tried fly fishing the LA River try it out. Carp are the Bone fish of fresh water they are strong, hard fighting to the end, and If you get a 10 pound plus fish it could end up spooling you. I’ve never hooked a trout in Southern California that could boast that.

I have heard stories from a couple of fly fishermen about catching Carp in the LA River. Well, I had a chance this Sunday to check it out for myself. My friend Dan and I got out of church on Sunday and hopped on the 5 freeway up to Hyperion Bridge and parked on a small side street to start our LA River experience. Dan had grown up in this area and used to play in the LA River as a kid and was super excited to try and fly fish it for the first time. We greeted two fly Fishermen on the way in and they had both caught about 5 or 6 Carp a piece. I got out my 5-6 weight rod and reel w/ 5 weight floating line and 6 pound leader, and tied on a chartreuse glow bug imitation. I fished one of the holes for about 5 minutes with no luck, then bam the hit of the century and my fly was gone. So I tied another fly (same glow bug) on and went for it again same fish another hit and another lost fly. I didn’t know whether to be excited or upset, but I shook it off and tied on a similar glow bug imitation and no less than a minute later I had my first Carp on the line. I ended up landing the fish it was about 2-3 pounds not a monster but fun, and I caught another that was about 3-4 pounds. So the moral of the story, GO FISH THE LA RIVER. I had a blast and it just proves that you can fish anywhere the fish are. Please remember to be respectful of the resource when out fishing pick up your trash and line, and make Southern California a nicer place to fish.