Rich Baldonado (left), aka “RBTEk1,” shows off one of his custom-painted Roman Made swimbaits. Photos by Cody Pickens. A water-bottle wrapper, the back page of a supermarket circular, and a plastic shopping bag float along the edge of Echo Park Lake. Traffic whizzes by on the 101 to the south and Sunset Boulevard (not the good part) to the north. Horns blare and music thumps. None of this seems to faze Lloyd Gomez, though, as he stalks the concrete shoreline of this small body of water tucked within the city limits of Los Angeles in search of largemouth bass.

“Yes, it …read more