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Yesterday, photographer and bridge blogger David Kimbrough headed to the Fletcher Street Bridge to take some photos of the river. But what he found was quite unexpected. In his own words, he tells us what happened:
I had stopped by the LA River just to get a few photos of the river in a rage. So I see this guy down there wading on the bike trail in his underwear and bare feet. At first I thought that maybe he was homeless and his encampment had been washed away, but it had been raining for almost 24 hours at this point and, given the strength and speed of the current, there could not have been anything left. He was jumping about waving his arms so I began to suspect that he was, well, crazy.
Then I saw what he was doing: he was grabbing fish. I saw a little carp just wash up on the bike bath and the flop itself back into the water. That black plastic bag was where he had placed his catch. Then, just when I had my camera on him, he reached in and grabbed this enormous carp! It was actually able to fight its way free from his grip but it headed for shallower waters in stead of deeper and he caught it again.
He then put his pants, socks, and shoes back on and walked off home with his dinner in the bag.
David said his name is Jose, or "solamente Jose." Jose called the fish a cahuacha, but it definitely looks like a carp, which can be found in the river, as noted in Jessica Hall's and Joe Linton's guide to fish in the river. Thanks for the story and photos, David!
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I like wackines as much as the next person, but this is also a great way to endanger rescue personnel's lives when a sudden downpour washes him downriver and people have to risk their lives to save him. Stay the hell out of the LA river when it rains!
Hello Elise,
To be fair to Jose, he was not actually in the river itself but on the bike trail next to the river at the low point beneath the bridge. If you peak over his shoulder you can see the bike trail raising up to street level. It is pretty flat there with new concrete which has a pretty good texturing on the surface to give good footing. While the current just a meter away is strong and fast, it was actually rather calm and quite where he was. This is why he was able to catch the fish, they were escaping the violent current and found this little backwater of relatively calm, shallow water to be a refuge. There were mallards doing the same thing on the other side of the river, hiding in the calm waters next to the storm drains. He was a poor man looking for a free meal with skills he learned at home, far away where this sort of thing is not that uncommon. While I would never do anything like that, if I were in his shoes (metaphorically of course since he had taken his shoes off), I might.
Ahh, I misunderstood.
C'mon, you aren't his mommy. There is no Noah's flood coming down that river in all realistic likelihood, and I'm guessing that the dude that knows how to bare hand catch 24in river carp probably knows more about rivers, their flow, and surviving in them than us.
Cyg every rainy season LAFD has to fish some dumb ass out of the L.A. River, so tell that to the LAFD. According to them six inches of water current is enough to knock a grown man off his feet.
Epic capture, both by fisherman and photographer. But I'm with Elise and trying to temper my enthusiasm because of just how outright idiotic this guy is to make a meal worth more than his life. Sure, it all ended well for him, but one misstep and it's he who'd need to be fished out of the water.
Will,
Jose did not speak a word of English, was not particularly wealthy, had only recently arrived here in LA, and definitely gave me the impression that fishing with one's bare hands in the shallows of a river was not all that uncommon in the land from whence he came. While he was very proud of his skills and a bit a showman, his first concern appeared to be getting a meal. I would agree that I would not encourage anyone to do this, Jose had his own ideas and agenda.
Certainly your subject has skills and perhaps, as you postulate, they were honed in the shallows of the rivers from his country of origin. But a big difference exists between those natural waterways and ours, which during times such as these is swept full of all the things we dump, toss, spill, pitch, and excrete, and is specifically and all-to-successfully engineered to do nothing more than race that chunky soup into the sea.
If the fish aren't jumping today maybe you'll find Jose snaring birds on the freeway, or on the tracks gopher hunting among the Metrolink trains?
I've all ways wondered what possesses an individual to go down to the L.A. River during a rain storm.
You gonna eat a fish that's been eating shit, oil, garbage, pet droppings?
MMMmm yummy!
Yep, I bet they'll be fishing his dumb ass out of the river some day. If not this year maybe next.
WTFish!!?
Is it just me or is he taking a bow in the first picture?
I'm willing to bet he is nuttier then squirrel shit.
LAdaddy,
You right, he was taking a bow. Even before I got there he was showing off his earlier catches to folks up on the bridge and sidewalks. I could not see the fish in his hand (they were smaller) which is why I was thinking that this guy is crazy. However, he did indeed put on quite a show, he definitely liked the attention. That being said, he was there to get a meal.
I give you props for venturing down in the river to get the best angles of him in action.
respect . . .
Hello LADaddy,
Actually I was not as close as it might appear. They invented zoom lens for a reason.
Hey kids, grab your pencils, it's time for today's quiz!
The man depicted in the photos above is:
A. Nuttier than squirrel shit
B. Resolute, determined, and a sign of mankind's willingness to overcome great odds
C. More toxic than Dow Chemical
D. Not from this planet
You missed one:
E. Hungry
I choose A, B and E with an extra helping of A.
Elise is right. The man was seriously endangering his life. The photos are great, but what would Mr. Kimbrough do if he saw a person jumping off a bridge? Or saw a kid running in and out of traffic? Take a photo, or call for help?
Those floodwaters can rise several feet without warning. Both the fisherman and the photographer are lucky to be alive.
Hello rdm24,
I gotta tell ya, I understand civic-mindedness and concern for public safety but when you see a guy catching fish with his bare hands and you have a camera, you are going to take some pictures, I don't care who you are. You have never seen anything like that before in your life and neither have. The fact that it was in the LA River only made it more interesting.
I have often wondered whether I would take a few quick pics of a burning building before calling for help or attenpting rescue. Even AP photographer Nick Ut took a snapshot of before getting the napalmed Phan Thị Kim Phúc to the hospital.
Interesting to see that the bollards on the river path there seem to have a joint at their base which lets them knock over flat with the ground to, presumably, avoid being ripped out by river debris...well done whatever agency put those in.
Hello Ramonchu,
You are right, they are hinged. I have another photo where it is much clearer. Of course the hinge in on the downstream side.
The fish in the river are actually safer and cleaner than most fish caught out in the ocean. Check out FoLAR's fish study for more info and while you're at it, check at KCET's Departures on the LA River, it's an amazing river (not a storm drain)! Btw, awesome photos David!
I dunno GITC.
They tell you not to swim in the ocean after a big rain because of the polluted runoff from the street. Do you really think a fish living, and eating in that crap is going to be all that healthy for you? Sure people catch them, but I don't see anything in that link that says those fish are safe to eat.
All different kinds of risks in life, every day. "Safe" is kind of a construct, a house-of-cards state of mind, really. Thinking it alone doesn't make it so, nor does always doing what "they" say is the "safe" thing to do.
Often "they" act out of self-interest in the guise of some "greater good" which they really don't subscribe to deep down. Lip service of the law vs. actually giving a crap.
To an extent, we're really all kinda wingin' it anyway, no? On this planet these days, just how "safe" could ANY fish really be to eat?
Rock on folks, some great banter here about this awesome "double catch" as mentioned...
Well eat up boys and girls!
Frankly though after seeing tilapia on that link I think I'll be looking at the fresh fish at the grocery store more dubiously. And you have to wonder how Amazon catfish came to be native to the L.A. River. I wonder if they were a popular ornamental fish in the past, and ended up getting released into the river.
These images remind me of an interaction I had along the river several years ago.
While I was installing a water wheel in the LA river (WaterWord Poems) that filtered LA river water, an elderly Chinese man approached me at the river's edge near the riverside bridge. We had a moment of recognition because both were wearing wide-brimmed straw hats to protect from the sun. However, he was in a lab coat.
He worked in a nearby water analysis facility run by LA City. He was a water engineer.
He told of how he walked the river every day during his lunch and breaks. He described how during big storms the surges in water levels stranded carp on the concrete banks. He had many times "saved" those carp and brought them home to the pond he had made. I guess the carp were similar enough to Koi to serve the purpose. Over the years he had taken so many fish and they had grown to such large sizes that his wife insisted he get rid of some from his now-teeming ponds.
At her insistence he had bucketed many of the huge home-nursed carp to return them to their LA River home...
Steve Appleton
All the people complaining about this guy going into the river to get a fish must have had a perfect, supermarket world where food is microwaved and eaten on your huge sofa in front of your big screen TV. sheesh, the guys is getting some food the way billions of people get their food around the world. he was in the shallow waters so he obviously knew the risk he was taking.