Fishing Competition: Battle of LA Highlights Elderidge Hardley’s Mission to Engage Inner-City Youth
Elderidge Hardley successfully pulled off the Second Annual Battle of LA fishing competition at Legg Lake in Whittier Narrows Recreation Park a week ago. The event drew more than 50 seasoned anglers, eager newcomers and families alike. Cash prizes, a championship trophy and bragging rights were the top prizes of the event, but the stakes were community cohesion and building upcoming generations of passionate fishermen. Aside from the top prizes, kids also received free fishing poles.

The 2024 Battle of Los Angeles winners include:
Bass Champion: Iban I. Soto, a Bass Chasers Club member, showcased a formidable 2.2 lb bass.
Bluegill Champion: Anson Hall, representing the California Certified Slayers Club, proved his angling prowess.
Crappie Champion: Andrew Nguyen demonstrated finesse in landing the winning catch.
Hardley is the president and chief operating officer of ELD Fishing and the nonprofit organization, Reel Hope, and it was his vision, energy and drive along with the help of some community sponsors such as My Father’s Barbeque Restaurant, which provided food for the event and Martin’s Fishing Tackle, which provided prizes for the raffle and donated fishing starter sets for the youth.
For months, Hardley has been calling out fishermen from throughout the country to show up and show off their angling skills, all to spread the virtues of teaching young people to fish.
Last year, Hardley didn’t have a legally formed nonprofit organization or a Limited Liability Corporation to be able to discuss partnerships effectively with sitting electeds willing to help him. Hardley, who works two jobs and is a casual longshore worker, recalled engaging local elected officials about his ideas and became painfully aware of what he was missing in the process.
This time around, he had more of the things that gave his dreams the infrastructure, permits and imprimatur of an angler nonprofit organization. Just a week prior, Hardley, 54, was interviewed by the podcasters of Friedman Adventures and spoke with the energy of an impassioned 30-something-year-old despite the gray flecks in his beard. Indeed, it’s the same energy he brings every time he talks about Reel Hope and his mission of getting inner-city kids “off the Xbox and picking up a tackle box.”
Though the mission is focused on young people, Reel Hope is a multigenerational membership organization that welcomes all ages, and despite being male-dominated, welcomes all. At last year’s Battle of LA, a woman swept the top prizes of every category.
Hardley hopes to bring a youth fishing program to Alondra Recreation Park, inspired by the Dan Hernandez Youth Foundation Junior Fishing Club Hardley hopes to duplicate the program at Compton’s recreational park.
“Legg Lake gets stocked once a month because Dan Hernandez had an official program for the youth out here. I’ve met him many times. I’ve taken our children from the inner city, we take groups from Reel Hope youths to the fishing derbies because that’s the only time they stock our neighborhood lakes. So I now have a proposal with Fish and Game to do a youth fishing club.”
Hardley prefers Leggs Lake in Whittier and the El Dorado in Long Beach where the fish are restocked year round. But when it comes to the lakes closest to Black and brown communities, he wishes to see the same.
Hardley noted that there was a time when fishermen could catch hundreds of bluegill (a species of sunfish) at Magic Johnson Park.
“They don’t even stock Magic anymore. That’s the only one between Compton and LA,” Hardley said.
According to LA County Parks and Recreation, the next stocking at Kenneth Hahn Park won’t be until 2025. It was last stocked in April 2024.
It was a manager at Alondra Lake, who planted the seed for organizing a youth fishing club, and perhaps get more local lakes stocked with fish more regularly.
“[A manager] gave me the idea a few years ago. She was one of those women who I helped … I had fixed her little son’s fishing pole. She said, ‘You know what? I see you guys and you guys help people.’ She said, ‘You need to start a fishing club.’”
The Genesis of REEL HOPE
When Hardley started the tournament last year, it drew more than 40 contestants. His first tournament became a lesson for what he needed to be successful, including establishing a nonprofit, a Limited Liability Corporation, and most importantly permits to hold the tournament at Legg Lake. He worked with the state’s Fish and Game officials on what he needed to make a successful tournament the next go-round.
This year, Hardley boasted of having brothers in the angler community from Hemet, San Diego, the northern parts of the state, and Las Vegas.
“They want to be a part of this movement,” Hardley said.
Hardley recalled telling the members of Reel Hope at one of their meetings.
“Listen, you guys out here fishing at 12:30 in the morning, did you think there weren’t other people like you who have passion? The thing is, you don’t know how many other people share [that passion] too, but don’t have the platform,” Hardley said.
“I’m building the foundation so that we can get these things. We can have tournaments and picnics. We have a club now where we can come to a mother and say it’s all positive.”
At the start of 2023, he promised himself that he would be fishing with a purpose and it started with Reel Hope. Then he stumbled into Reel Recovery, in which he hooked up with a couple of sober living homes owned by a formerly incarcerated man.
Hardley and the members of Reel Hope began supporting the clients in sober living homes, taking them out fishing on the pier and jetties at Cabrillo Beach or Marina del Rey because a Fish and Game license isn’t required to fish there.
“We cook food and we talk and fellowship with them,” Hardley said. “It makes us feel good because we see the look in a person’s eyes when people are paying attention and speaking with them and looking at them as human. I applaud them for the leaps and bounds and steps they are taking. Some of the issues they’re dealing with … I’ve crossed those bridges in my life.”
Redemption and Legacy
Elderidge inherited his love of fishing from his dad, Marvin Sr., a 47-year member of Local 13 of the ILWU. The senior Hardley joined his father-in-law and brothers-in-law on the waterfront in the 1960s.
“I always loved fishing, but for a time, I left it for a little bit,” Hardley explained. “I continued while I went to college at San Diego State.”
In high school, Hardley said he didn’t get to go fishing a lot.
“My father would sometimes say, ‘We’re going out tonight,’ and I’d go. But now that I look back, it wasn’t as often because he worked so much. When my father went out with his friend, they’d come back with boatloads of fish.”
Hardley always looked up to his father. He recalled seizing any opportunity he could to ride with him. So a lot of the time that meant the longshore hiring hall.
This proud union family produced and supported entrepreneurs, business owners, teachers and a doctor.
“The blue-collar worker was instilled in me,” Hardley said. “My father always worked hard.”
Hardley noted many children growing up in Los Angeles didn’t have the opportunities or the kind of father he has.
“I have friends [while growing up] who, the only time they went fishing was if they went with me and my father,” Hardley said.
Born in 1970, Hardley still treasures the haziest of memories of his childhood when he went on road trips in the family motorhome as part of a caravan with his dad and maternal uncles to family reunions in Texas.
“We went all the way to Ohio and to New York,” Hardley reminisced. “I have vague memories, but I remember Niagara Falls. I remember the family reunions in Texas; the heat going across Arizona, and watching the Indians [baseball team] play in Arizona. It was amazing.”
As Hardley reminisced about his childhood, it’s hard to miss how good union jobs allowed the Hardleys to access the American Dream and think in terms of legacies.
“I wish I could be the father that my father was to me,” Hardley said. “Me and my sons … we’re working on our relationship.”
Hardley, mindful that he has more years behind than in front of him, looks to take full advantage of his relatively good health and energy. He poured a great deal of his finances, resources and the help of his sons to ensure the success of the Aug. 24 event.
When Hardley started, he started with his love of fishing with a few like-minded friends and the desire to pass on their pastime to a new generation of fishing enthusiasts. Then it graduated to him seeking out angler teams throughout Southern California to compete for bragging rights. This led to him serially networking with angler teams and fishing enthusiasts from diverse walks of life, backgrounds and politics.
“Right now I’m building. I’m grateful for the people who believe in my idea because I got a good group of men. Now, is it difficult to deal with men? Yes.” Hardley listens to Bible verses as part of his daily devotions when he’s driving to work. Proverbs 15 came to his mind. A soft answer turns away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.
“I’ve been through unique situations and unique circumstances in my life that were good and bad,” Hardley said. “[In time] you learn how to make things smooth.”
Hardley notes that men allow ego and bravado in a competitive environment to sow seeds of division. We’re stronger together than we are tearing each other down,” Hardley said. “There is so much Black money spent on fishing equipment. We spend thousands and thousands to go on these fishing trips. We work hard and it’s something that people do for their personal gratification.”
What Hardley desires is for those fishing enthusiasts in the community who spend their capital resources on fishing to also bring along their kids.
“Let them see why you spend that money and they share some of their seeds with them,” Hardley said. Ultimately, Hardley is looking to give landlocked communities of color options and access.
To donate to Reel Hope, contact Elderidge Hardley 323-572-9103 or email elderidgehardleysr@gmail.com