goldfish in the river?

[directlink]

hey everybody I just wanted to share about an interesting trip I had yesterday.  Theres a run off of the colorado river here in yuma, az that turns into a sort of lake, known as the L lake here cause its in the shape of an L.  well i had been there before but not recently, yesterday was the first time in about a year.  we launched and i immediately noticed the water was crystal clear, the clearest water ive ever fished in. but there were gold fish everywhere! not little ones but big 3-5lbers swimming all over!   the whole time i was there no matter what direction i looked in one could be seen.  these wernt just ordinary carp cause there were a lot of those too.  it was soo wierd but cool at the same time.  i plan to fish there tomorrow morning so i'll take some pics and post them.  does anyone know how these fish could of got there?  could a cat fisherman have maybe relesed some goldfish he was using for bait? do you know how i might be able to catch one? oh i almost forgot i ended up catching 4 good size bass and my friend caught 5. any comment would be appreciated.

[daviscw]

I live on a river and I've caught them on night crawlers catfishing. People get tired of their pets and throw them in the river.

[Fish Chris]

People get tired of their pets and throw them in the river.

....and / or use them (sometimes illegally) as bait. Some escape, while others are dumped at the end of a trip. But either way, Goldfish will thrive in most any North American waters, and are "exceedingly common" across most of the US.

The wild color form, mostly just a bronze gold, is very often mistaken as a Common Carp, which they only have a superficial resemblence to. Small heads, and tails, wider, more compressed bodies, etc.

We have them all over the place around me. I've caught lots on crawlers, in the 3 to 7 lb range, and hooked one in the mouth, with a Rattletrap, that went 10 1/4 lbs !

Peace,

Fish

[Sam]

Any nuclear plants around???  ;D   ;D   ;D

[LCpointerKILLA]

could have been koi

[Fish Chris]

Koi are in fact, domesticated Carp. Then you have Goldfish, both wild, and domesticated. Carp and Goldfish are two totally different species though.

Both will revert back to their wild colorations, and finnages, after only a few generations in the wild.

If the OP could show me a photo of one, I could give a positive ID with a quick glance.

Fish