

On Monday morning, a guy named Eddie caught a 50-pound carp in MacArthur Park Lake, shattering California Ghetto Carping fishing club's previous MacArthur Park record (37 pounds), along with the illusion that there is nothing new under the sun (widely held, now unequivocally disproved).

"My hands are still shaking," Eddie S., who is one of the three founding members of California Ghetto Carping, told LAist about an hour after his big catch. The club's previous record, as LAist readers already know, was held by fellow founding member Big Serg. The club practices catch and release, and returns all fish to the lake after they catch them.

Eddie, 25, lives in Compton and has Sundays and Mondays off work, hence the trek out to MacArthur Park this morning.

Eddie and Big Serg were just sitting around on the northern edge of the lake, talking about regular everyday stuff, when Eddie heard his bait alarm take off.

"Once I heard that, I came running over here, stumbling, and I grabbed it. I started walking it in and I had to get on top of here [on the other side of his setup] because over there's a shopping cart in the lake, and I wanted to keep it away from any kind of snags."

According to Eddie, the entire process of reeling in the fish took about 10 extremely nerve-wracking minutes, give or take. "Finally, when it was on top, that's when my friend Sergio shouted out, 'It's really big! It's HUGE,'" he recalled.

"My hands started shaking and I had to get on top of that little curve over there just to bring it out. We tried to net it and I started getting nervous. I started sweating. I got wet, my watch got wet. I was almost in the water," Eddie explained.

"I'm still nervous. You really feel it on your forearm and biceps, and then your back starts giving out," he said.

"I just landed the biggest fish of my life, today. Oh my god," Eddie said. "All my family's excited. I'm super excited that I caught that fish. Because most of all, I'm a fish hobbyist and I've been doing this since I was 9. I've seen all kinds of species and all kinds of fish, but I've never seen fish get that big."

Related: Meet The Guy Who Catches 35-Pound Fish In MacArthur Park Lake

