The Urban Carp - LA's Finest Fishing?

Guide Steve Blair with a LA River Mud Marlin 2011

The Urban Carp is LA's newest fly fishing guide service hunting down LA's Mud Marlin.

Mud Marlin in the parlance of the fly fishing community are in fact carp, big fat, 10lb carp.

Make no bones about it the LA river is a cesspool, it's one of the most degraded habitats in all of the western United States and yet one enterprising visionary and guide, Steve Blair, is now LA's finest hunter of the catch and release Mud Marlin.

And his new website is open for business.

A lot of folks outside of the fly fishing community will not understand why anyone would want to fish these toxic leviathans of the deep, but to understand that you also have to understand the geography of LA.

For an avid fly fisherman in LA the closest trout waters are 10 hours away, in traffic, and it's usually a three to four day schlep to get into the Eastern Sierra where the waters are pure and the trout big fat and happy.

If you can sneak out of work early in downtown LA and bag a 10-15lb  Mud Marlin it takes the edge off that "Jones for the outdoors" that all fly fishermen suffer from.

All laughing aside the Urban Carp is a serious endeavor lead by a top class guide into a river system that is in many ways as wild as anything you'll find in the Eastern Sierra.

Leave your spray cans at home and go have some Mud Marlin fun!

Los Angeles Where the "Mud Marlins" Are

The L.A River is a conservation nightmare, a running cesspool of concrete, plastic bags, the odd corpse, and for one enterprising fly fishing fanatic - The Valhalla of Giant Fish.

Known to the fly fishing community as "Mud Marlin," giant carp (Cyprinus carpio) are said to inhabit the toxic depths of the L.A River and Steve Blair is their nemesis.

With fly fishing skills honed on the Eastern Sierra in the hunt for trophy trout, Steve has discovered where the Mud Marlin are found and over the past year what imitations these leviathans of the toxic stew which runs through downtown L.A will hit on.

It's a remarkable adaptation as this urban fly hunter turns his sights on the least understood and shattered eco system in America, to haul out 20-30 pound fish.

Of course these fish are quickly put back.

Here's to the real trailblazers within the fly fishing world, those who's desire to catch big fish can be found in the most unlikely places, like the L.A River.

When not on the hunt for Mud Marlin in L.A you can find Steve on National Geographic playing with giant squids and at the Long Beach Aquarium.

Red Truck on the "Big D" Video

Occasionally, I'll post images of the titanically big fish that have graced my rigs on the "Big D".

When the fishing is this good you'll travel miles to get it and a Big D delivers time and again. 8-12lb 30 inch plus Steelhead are the draw with line clearing runs that leave you gasping for breath.

Some of these animals are two and three salts, really smart fish.

My favorite online fly fishing gear company Red Truck posted another in a series of amazing fly fishing videos. If you want to know what Steelheading is all about, look no further, and welcome to one of my favorite rivers, the Big D:

Red Truck Fly Fishing - Why We Fish

As the CEO of a shark diving company I have what many consider an "odd hobby" that has nothing to do with sharks, conservation, or even the dive world.

It is a hobby that has found me over the years at 12,000 feet chasing Golden Trout
on the side of a mountain, and on backwoods "roads" in the western states where only a Toyota 4Runner could navigate. It has found me on more rivers and lakes then I care to remember all over the planet, on snow lined banks in the dead of winter where the deep freeze crystallizes the earth, and sleeping trout slurp buggy nymph patterns. It has found me camping overnight on stream sides where the morning dew coats everything in a rain forest like embrace of perfect wetness.

My hobby is more than a hobby.

Over the years it has turned me into an entomologist, a naturalist, a geologist, and a river keeper. Up until now I have not been able to share my hobby with those outside the fly fishing world because it is a world that is hard to describe and even harder to capture visually...until now.

The good folks over at Red Truck Fly Fishing have managed the impossible and have captured my other world in fantastic and riveting detail.

Welcome to my other world:

Fly Fishing's Mount Everest - Hydrocynus goliath

Angler biologist Jeremy Wade has a hit show on Discovery Networks travelling around the world to catch and release some of the planets more extreme underwater critters.

It's a great job if you can get it.

The critter he is holding is fly fishing's Mount Everest, it is Hydrocynus goliath and to date few have actually caught one and lived to tell the tale.

For obvious reasons this critter is hard to catch (namely teeth) and the fact you'll find it in the Congo River Basin an area not known for friendly gastronomic flora, insects, rival militaristic rebel groups or even ease of travel.

Still, as far as freshwater predators go, this one is at the top of the list. Nice catch, great show.

Still interested?