Fly Guys

Philly anglers keep it reel.

by Natalie Hope McDonald

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Published: Jun 12, 2007

CARPE PISCES: Fish Guys Louis A. Cook and Matthew Coll (below) cradle their monster catches. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Many of us have fond memories of baiting our first hooks along a bighearted river. But for Louis A. Cook, co-founder of Philly's FishGuys.org, an even more momentous occasion was hooking a fat 26-pound carp right out of the Schuylkill River. The catch helped put the Media native in first place in a national honor-based contest called the American Carp League, sponsored by the American Carp Society. "I didn't do so well over the winter," admits Cook, an industrial designer in South Philly. "But I am currently in the lead for this season." (Cook has since fallen into third place due to a non-carp expedition in Florida.)

When longtime friends Cook and co-founder Matthew Coll, also a Media native-turned-Philly resident, launched Fish Guys five years ago as a way to post brag-worthy photos of freshwater catches online, neither of the men expected it would attract so many other avid anglers in the Delaware Valley. So many, in fact, the guys recently launched an online forum after being overwhelmed with a sea of e-mail from more than 700 members.

"The first version was actually called Fishes Are My Bitches," says Cook, who's since changed the name to Philadelphia Anglers Club. It's essentially a group that's gone from being "four dudes who BS while fishing," he says, to a more serious crew. The team of Cook and Coll placed third in the World Carp Championship two years ago.

During that fateful trip deep in the wilderness along the St. Lawrence River, Cook and Coll's Team U.S.A. went rod-to-rod with 103 teams from almost 30 countries before catching and releasing a whopping 830 pounds of carp in upstate New York. Their secret? In Philly, carp is as common as Eagles green. The guys had plenty of experience baiting the bottom-feeders with homemade chum balls, a corn-based concoction of chicken feed and birdseed.

"A guy I fish with who's still in high school caught a carp over 30 pounds," says Cook. "It was the biggest carp reported to the Pennsylvania Fish Commission last year." "The thing about carp is very few people like them for fishing, eating or otherwise," he continues. In the sporting world, carp is the Urkel of fish.

"While trout and largemouth bass are certainly the football players or homecoming kings," he says, "carp are nerds from the freshman class." Since few anglers in the U.S. are interested in these unromantic species, Cook looked across the pond for inspiration: Carp are the most popular sport fish in the U.K. thanks to their stubborn fighting nature.

Year-round, these ur-ban anglers cast flies in the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, as well as Darby, Ridley and Chester creeks. As long as the water isn't frozen, you can catch fish. The tidal sections of the Schuylkill and Delaware have runs of sea fish, just like salmon in Alaska. "Shad and striped bass run in great numbers there," says Cook. "Matt and I have caught thousands of carp from Flat Rock to Fairmount [dams]."

Cook got his first taste of carp fishing during a hike near Fort Washington State Park along the Wissahickon years ago. A 2-foot-long carp crossed his path in a flooded bank. "I chased it around for a half-hour," he says, "and eventually caught it using my T-shirt as a net." So proud was Cook that the carp ended up in his bathtub that night, probably the first � and last � time he'd walk away with the catch of the day.

Most of the Fish Guys safely catch and then release fish back into native waters, says Coll, an anthropologist and research associate in Center City. For these rod men, It's not just about the thrill of the catch; it's also about ensuring there'll be fish to catch tomorrow. They take care of their fish, and they take care of their habitat. "We had a bank cleanup this year," Coll says, where dozens of members picked up trash along the Water Works and West River Drive, two popular fishing spots.

Honing one's angling skills may seem a bit surreal in the shadow of skyscrapers and the drone of major highways, as is evident anywhere near Walnut Street Bridge. But at any given time of day, Fish Guys can monitor tides and stream flow in Center City online or watch the live Fairmount Dam-fish- ladder cam.

"We live in a city with over 1 million people in it," says Coll, "but yet so few know how good the fishing is." So he started researching Philly's long-lost relationship to angling. "I've discovered that one of the first social organizations in this region and the entire country was a fishing club on the Schuylkill that was founded in 1732," says Coll. The State in the Schuylkill, as it was known, consisted of a small group of politicians and blue bloods who met for one reason: to fish together.

"There is loads of accessible shoreline in Fairmount Park along Kelly Drive and MLK Boulevard," says Coll. To prove it, a few years ago, the Fish Guys sponsored the Philadelphia Carp Smackdown, in which big, unwieldy carp were caught, photographed and released back into the water. "This year, we are running the King of the Water contest," says Coll. The angler who catches the widest range of fish wins bragging rights and a yet-undetermined money prize.

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

It can be close to mid-night some nights when Coll casts a line into the dark waters of the Schuylkill near East Falls. "Some people think fishing is all about luck," he says, "but those are the people who are unprepared." In fact, skilled anglers may even drop food into the water a day before to attract schools toward the cloudy river's edge.

As the guys set up fort on the riverbank with their camping chairs and rods, almost as many rods as a skilled musician has guitars, they nurture a timeless camaraderie that bespeaks the ultimate challenge: man against nature.

"Sometimes I go alone, and sometimes with friends," says Cook. "Sometimes we barbecue while we are fishing. And sometimes I only have a rod and a backpack, and I hike for miles looking for fish. Fishing is never as simple as people think."

(n_mcdonald@citypaper.net)

 

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