[Photos for GL courtesy of F. Jasmin Adams]
We’ve long heard stories of people fishing in the Gowanus Canal and we know there are fish in the damned thing. We had one story last November. Just last week someone emailed us to say they’d seen someone fishing off the Carroll Street Bridge but that they didn’t have a camera with them at the time. Well, our beloved Carroll Gardens Correspondent F. Jasmin Adams happened on a fishing scene and did have a camera and here is the evidence that someone caught a striped bass in the Freaking Gowanus Canal. We presume that he asked to have face not appear in the photo. We also understand the fish was returned to the waters from whence it came and was not taken home for dinner. On the other hand, it could be a marvelous way of getting back at someone. “Look, what I’ve brought dinner! Fresh caught striped bass!”
10 responses so far ↓
1 Eric // Oct 14, 2008 at 9:06 am
New York State law does not allow anyone to keep a striped bass less than 28″ in length. Glad that little schoolie was returned to the water, so he can grow up and be a keeper one day.
Just goes to show that if we give nature just a little help, instead of totally screwing up our planet, that it has miraculous powers of recovery.
2 ed // Oct 14, 2008 at 9:57 am
that water looks so black…. like death
3 b balena // Oct 14, 2008 at 11:30 am
mark my words – the gowanus will one day be as desirable a place to live as the shores of the cuyahoga!!! go browns!!!
4 JK // Oct 14, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Back in August, when I was hanging out at the “Yard” next door to that bridge, two people jumped into the canal and started swiming around for about five minutes. Holy S**t! Maybe they lost a bet, who knows.
5 mgrass // Oct 14, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I was walking across the bridges at Carroll and Union streets the past few weeks around sundown and there have been fish stirring the water — fairly violently I might add. But perhaps they’re just gasping for oxygen since there is likely little a few feet below the surface.
6 mothra // Oct 14, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Look before you dis the Cuyahoga… it’s come a long way since catching fire in ’69:
http://www.iaglr.org/jglr/release/33/33_SI2_103-116.php
my sister is involved in the Cuyahoga reclamation project, and they have come a very long way towards total rehabilitation. Maybe one day we’ll be able to say the same about the good old, historically significant, formerly beautiful Gowanus.
7 dave // Oct 14, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Just a lil baby. Those things grow nearly 3 feet long!
8 marky // Oct 14, 2008 at 11:36 pm
“the gowanus will one day be as desirable a place to live as the shores of the cuyahoga”
True dat. It will be long after the extinction of man, but it is true nonetheless.
9 nycboks // Oct 16, 2008 at 6:05 am
“Those things “have been caught with rod and reel to 80 lbs and with a net to 125lbs. The meat is lobster quality, especially when cooked fresh.The gowanus canal should be backfilled with soil and covered over. By the way, why did all of you transplanted folks leave home for Brooklyn ,was it “Welcome Back Kotter” that hooked y’all?
10 Anonymous // Oct 16, 2008 at 10:08 am
Ha! Ha! Funny. That fisherman actually hooked about 1/2 a dozen baby bass that afternoon. I saw him, too.