By Greg Madrigal

Guest Contributor

I wanted to let everyone know what I saw yesterday, what I have seen going on in the Long Beach area where the FoLAR event happened Saturday.  I got one nice carp and my two buddies were skunked. I also caught a female turtle, chased by two males in an attempt to mate. We have a real red slider colony there.

I  also spotted mallards and Canadian geese nesting with eggs on the water, I caught a quick glimpse of an African-clawed frog zipping to the surface for air and back down into the algae. And I also saw what I believe could have been a mirror carp, and I definitely spotted a koi in reddish orange and black mottled.

We were surrounded by a cacophony of birds, including black-necked stilts, Canadian geese, mallards, seagulls, gray blue herons, red-winged blackbirds, and coots.

On a sad note, we have noticed on more than one occasion, snaggers throwing out treble hooks and trying to snag carp.  Yesterday, I noticed one poor carp who looked like he was nailed twice on the back by one of these large treble hooks.  He had two very large and deep gashes across its back.  Heads up to anybody heading there to anonymously call DFG’s CAL-Tip hotline (888-334-2258), if you see these guys.

Editor’s Note: Nick Blixt emailed: “I hit the river today (as did a lot of people), and wow are those fish in spawning mode. I still saw quite a few hook-ups, but people had to target the few non-mating stragglers that weren’t running up and down the currents. Al Q. and I observed one guy chucking rocks at a group of them—luckily karma took hold, and he fell in waist deep a few minutes later.”

The spawn seems to be in full swing with carp completely oblivious to our presence and boiling in packs of five- to-15 fish.

Good news for next year!