Finding Fish and Fun on the LA River

Local film maker documents a growing community at the LA River

The LA River, with its concrete banks covered by graffiti, strewn with litter and urban runoff and the constant hum of freeways, train tracks and power lines is not anyone's idea of a natural idyll. Yet a fly fishing community has sprung up along the river, and so has a thriving population of fish. Nature is alive and well in this concretized channel, according to local documentarian Meghan McCarty.

McCarty recently released a short documentary about the fly fishermen who fish the LA River and what they are finding on their expeditions.

"When you tell people you fish the LA River their first response is, 'Are there three eyes on the fish? Do the glow?' " jokes a local LA River angler.

There isn't three-eyed fish in the LA River but, according to a biologist who is studying the fish of the river, there are fish from Africa, South America, eastern North America and Asia.

But the question remains whether it is safe to fish the river or eat the fish from the river. Check out the short documentary about fishing the LA River and you decide.

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