Urban Anglers Catch a Taste of the Wild

Thousands of jostling fishermen waited with their hooks in the water as a fleet of trucks dumped a million trophy-sized High Sierra trout into dozens of inner-city park lakes Wednesday in a first-ever attempt to give city dwellers a mountain fishing experience.

Wait a second. You’re right: Fish stories always tend to be exaggerated. So let’s have the truth this time.

About 50 fishermen stood back and watched quietly Wednesday as a lone tank truck from a Fillmore fish hatchery delivered 1,700 small trout to three neighborhood park lakes in an expansion of a popular urban Los Angeles fishing program.

Rainbow trout will be planted at five more parks today and next week, state Department of Fish and Game officials said. After that, the trout supply will be replenished at all eight lakes every other week through the early spring.

“We want to increase the fishing experience in the urban community,” Fish and Game spokesman Patrick Moore explained. “Fishable waters are no longer around and available like they used to be. A lot of people are not able to drive a few hours to get to lakes and streams out of town.”

A few Los Angeles-area lakes have been stocked for decades with catfish and bass. Trout planting was tried on an experimental basis last year at Echo Park Lake near downtown Los Angeles, Balboa Lake in Van Nuys and Alondra Park Lake in Lawndale.

Because of its popularity, lakes at Kenneth Hahn Park, Lincoln Park, Cerritos Park, La Mirada Park and Willowbrook Park were added to the trout list this year.

Unlike mountain stream trout plantings done in secret to prevent overfishing, the urban deliveries are publicized. That meant that small crowds of fishermen at Hahn, Alondra and Willowbrook parks were waiting as Fish and Game workers Kevin Ceccato and Ken Robledo scooped nets full of flopping, half-pound rainbows into the lakes. The pair are scheduled to stock lakes at Echo Park, Lincoln Park, Cerritos Park and La Mirada Park today and Balboa Lake next week.

“I always keep my rod and reel in my car,” said George Purnell, a 58-year-old safe maintenance technician from South-Central Los Angeles as he waited for fish to arrive at Alondra Park.

Said Lawndale school maintenance worker Oscar Morales, 40: “This is good for us little people who can’t go to the mountains every week.”

Fishery biologist Diego Busatto said water quality at the eight city lakes will be checked three times a week. Scientists want to make certain that levels of such substances as chlorine and copper are low--and that oxygen levels are high. Trout will not be planted in water warmer than 75 degrees.

At the 61-degree Willowbrook Park lake, Robert Davis, a 54-year-old disabled diesel mechanic from Carson, was waiting for a nibble from the 520 trout planted there. “You gotta have patience with trout,” he sighed.

But across the lake, Nate Gibson, 59, a freight handler from South-Central Los Angeles, was almost too busy to talk. The trout truck wasn’t out of the park yet. But he had already reeled in four rainbows.

And that’s no fish tale.