2000fish's Blog – Steve Wozniak's hunt for fish species

DATELINE: SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 – DESTIN, FLORIDA

Statement from the Editor: Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who’s confused. You are never the only one who is confused, because I’m here. Yes, the blog jumps from May to September, for the three of you who pay attention. This is because I took two deep water trips to the Gulf of Mexico in 2022, one in May, right after the Freud blog, and another in September. I thought they would naturally fit together. This is my sad attempt to be organized. There are two summer 2022 blogs coming up that happened between the deep drop trips, and these will be up next.

I think we’re all better off now that we know this.

This post is about science and romance. (And, of course, fishing.) If you are not interested in science or romance – and Cousin Chuck has violated the laws of both – please skip to the end. 

And so, Marta set up a weekend in New Orleans. Yes, it is perfectly normal for a couple to go on vacation to New Orleans, but Marta had a higher purpose than jazz and etouffee. She was there for … science.

Yes, my cultural references are dated. Deal with it.

This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. One of the companies she works for, Seatrec, is a game-changer in the Ocean Science world. They manufacture sustainably-powered open-ocean floats that dive and measure a variety of data – temperature, salinity, depth, bathymetry, etc. – which can give us groundbreaking insights on everything from storm prediction to seafloor mapping to whale behavior. The power systems on these floats harvest energy from ocean temperature differences, so they run far longer than outmoded battery-based models. (Resulting in longer missions and significantly more data capture.) The equipment needs to be launched in depths often 100 miles offshore, and Marta hit on the genius idea of partnering with fast fishing charters to accomplish this. The cool part is, if there was time remaining after all the science had been done, I could fish. And this wasn’t just any fishing – the charter, Fish Heads of Cocodrie, Louisiana, specializes in Gulf deep drop stuff that makes me positively drool. Dom had gone with them previously and landed a bunch of amazing species – notably a big marbled grouper.

Oh, how I want this species.       

We pick the story back up on a Thursday, when I was driving from Florida to New Orleans. It was a pleasant journey, except for the massive traffic jam outside Mobile, which is anything but. It was a route filled with memories – the reverse of our course in the fabled 2014 “Bird Flu” episode, except that no one had Bird Flu this time.

I arrived in New Orleans around 7pm, and checked into the hotel that Marta had reserved. After somehow getting all the worms out of the rental car, I settled down to a late jambalaya dinner. Marta was already on the redeye to meet me the next morning.

I randomly walked by the actual scene of the “Bird Flu” incident. We are likely still unwelcome there.

Flying redeye may be hard on Marta, but it’s harder on me. She got to the hotel at 7:20am, which is generally when I am snoring the loudest, but there was no chance for further sleep. She wanted to go, go, go – beignets for breakfast, walking around French quarter just as it was going to bed from the night before, exploring the Faulkner House Bookstore, and then off for museums and other cultural stuff.

French Quarter, 9am. These people have style.

We had been together 18 years (19 now, for those of you in the betting pool,) and never made this pilgrimage. The music, the food, and the culture are all unique and memorable. It had been eight years since I visited, and 12 years since I had been there with my Mom. It’s a marvelous city to walk – or stumble – around.

Jackson Square.

A date with Destiny at Mr. B’s. Highly recommended.

Marta explained that the song is actually about a train.

My undoubted favorite is the National World War Two Museum.

Hanging with FDR.

A Higgins boat, used for landing troops. These were built in New Orleans, and my Uncle Ted, 98 years old and going strong, rode one onto Omaha beach to start his war.

Time passed quickly, a blur of jambalaya, art galleries, and jazz lounges. To Marta’s great annoyance, I paid off one of the piano players to do a Taylor Swift song.

On day two, we visited the New Orleans aquarium, where we found one of the most shameless but unintentionally funny ads I have ever seen.

None of you, especially BP, are fooling anyone. This is like an ammunition company sponsoring an emergency room.

Marta makes friends easily.

We had lunch with Marta’s friend Scott MacKenzie, who runs a highly-regarded podcast called “Industrial Talk” that has covered Seatrec. The dude is awesome and I want to take him fishing. That’s his wife Susie on the left. She is equally awesome.

We also randomly saw this. It must be the best radio station ever. Non-stop REM, U2, and ABBA.

Forty-eight hours went quickly, and then we had to face …

You either get this joke, or you’re under 50.

My relationship with science is complex. I spent the better part of my academic career avoiding it, because you actually have to memorize stuff. I preferred the humanities, where a good essay could always fix things. And yet, as I have aged, my fish obsession has led me more and more toward a basic knowledge of biology, meteorology, and oceanography. And abnormal psychology.

Marta, apart from just being a better person than I am, has always been fascinated with ocean science. Her degree – a BA in Classics – is arguably more useless than my double BA in English and History, but she never avoided the heavy lifting like I did. Many of her jobs (as a consultant in venture capital,) have been heavily technical, and she throws herself into the hard stuff with a reckless abandon that I sometimes resent when it interferes with us binge-watching “Justified.” (FYI: Harlan, Kentucky has replaced Cabot Cove, Maine as the violent crime capital of prime-time television.)

The downside, of course, is that my fishing would not be the main purpose for the day. I would only be able to sneak in an hour or two once all the technical stuff was done. But there were fish species out there I couldn’t get any other way. 

On Sunday evening, we drove to Cocodrie – not far as the crow flies, but a long time on small roads and causeways.

We arrive. Those trees were damaged by Hurricane Ida in 2021 – the area is still recovering.

We stopped and got boat provisions, a process which always points out how different Marta and I are on nutritional paradigms.

I view this as a perfectly valid lunch.

I attempted some shore fishing around the motel. There are a couple of micros there I’m still missing – but I was run off by an incredibly organized group of mosquitoes. I did see a manatee.

Manatees are awesome.

We caught up with the Seatrec group for dinner. I had met some of them in San Diego last year, but this was the first time I had been there for a launch, and the excitement was palpable. The founder of the company, Dr. Yi Chao, was there, although he would not be joining us on the boat. Pioneering Oceanographer though he might be, he gets profoundly seasick, so he calls himself “The Armchair Oceanographer.”

A San Diego fishing outing sponsored by Seatrec, June 2021. Dr. Chao is on the right in the black and red hat. Michael, who is mentioned below, is front row center in the blue shirt.

We were also joined by engineers Michael and Miles. Michael, Seatrec’s VP of Engineering, hails from Germany. Miles, a Texas native, is a Mechatronics engineer. They are both terrifyingly smart but low-key, and they are both passionate surfers. I learned from Michael that humans have been surfing for over 5000 years. 

This is not a Tommy Hilfiger ad. That’s actually Miles on the left and Michael on the right. They were very polite to me and even asked some fishing questions so I could understand some of the conversation.

They were all excited but worried about the launch. They had prepared for every possibly eventuality, but now they would get to see if it all worked in real life. They had done this before, but every expedition carries its own risks. I politely tried to figure out how much running time and launch time we would need, but every time I got close, Marta would cut it off and tell me that they would take however long they needed to take, and remind me that the trip was about science, not me. Sigh.     

Sunset over the bayou.

There were alligators everywhere.

Marta braved the mosquitoes to get this nighttime photo.

Morning came quickly. We met Captain Todd Black, a noted deep-drop expert, who would be running the boat, and mates Lenny Bishop and Branson Marks, great guys and knowledgeable fishermen. We talked a lot about what we could catch out in the deep water of the continental shelf, but first, there was science to be done.

That’s the boat, ready to at some ungodly hour of morning.

Yi and Captain Todd make a few last-minute adjustments.

There is no fun way to describe a very long boat ride. The Fish Heads craft is super fast and the water was calm, but we’re talking 120 miles out and this is a boat made for running, not lounging. We set some bean bags in the back and just stuck it out.

My buttocks will never forget that beanbag.

About four hours later, they pulled back on the throttle and Michael and Miles started their work day. Every time I asked about how long things would take, Marta cut me off and told me it would take however long it would take. Sigh. 

Lenny holds the float while the guys get ready.

Michael (left) and Miles (right) do scientific stuff.

There were a few complications, so we were probably there a couple of hours. I was, of course, apoplectic and dying to know how long things would take, but Marta would not permit this. However long it took, they did finally wrap up and we watched the float descend into the clear, blue water and start its mission. You could see pride and worry etched into each of their faces – this was their project, their baby, and after all the countless hours of engineering and planning, now they had to let it run and hope it all worked. What I didn’t know at the time, as we watched the float go out of sight, is that they would actually need to wait another eight hours for the thing to surface and send its first data back. So they didn’t know it worked for sure until late that evening, but they both looked perfectly calm to me. 

The picture of calmness, although they ate all the cookies in about four minutes. Interestingly, they chose the most nautical of all cookie brands.

It was a couple more hours to reach the water that Todd wanted to fish, but we finally, finally got there. We had about two hours, before we had to make a four-hour run back to the dock. (And keep in mind that Marta had insisted on booking an early flight the next day, AND that we would still have to drive back up to New Orleans AND have dinner with the group that same night.) 

To say I was overeager would be the greatest understatement since Dennis Eckersley said “My, that fly ball is carrying a bit.” I dropped a bait before the boat even finished sliding, and hit the bottom some 850 feet later. The fish didn’t wait long – I got a big bite and hooked something substantial. I had hopes for a grouper, but it didn’t feel like one. Twenty minutes later, a nice golden tilefish surfaced.

I got this species with the Arosteguis in 2014, but it was still a thrill to catch this one.

I managed a couple of other assorted deep reef creatures – nothing new yet, but a lot of action.

For example, a wenchman. I have no idea how they got named.

We moved to progressively shallower reefs, and on one of these, Marta hooked and landed the biggest queen triggerfish I have ever seen – in excess of 10 pounds.

Truly the fish of the trip.

I kept at it, and a couple of stops later, I got a definite grouper on the line – not huge, but a very distinctive, bottom-digging fight. As we got it close, I could see yellow tinges, and as soon as it hit the deck, it was clearly a yellowmouth grouper – a new and unusual species. What long boat ride? Science is amazing!

Species 2076.

The ride back flew by like 240 minutes, but we finally made the dock. The team had succeeded. We got organized, I ate the rest of the devilled eggs, and we headed north. Marta was ecstatic about the launch, I was ecstatic about the fish, and we were all good.

The group back at port. From left to right, that’s deckhands Lenny and Branson (both awesome,) then Michael and Miles from Seatrec, my waistline, me, and Captain Todd. 

Yi hosted a magnificent dinner at the Hilton back up in New Orleans, and somewhere in there, the first transmission came back in from the float. It had worked – and indeed, 15 months later, it is still working and has profiled over 500 times. I have to call that a big win, but I also caught myself imagining how good it would be if I got to fish the whole day. Marta overhead these thoughts, and quietly told me “You were a guest and a token fisherman. You’re lucky you got to fish at all.” Harrumph.

In early September, the process repeated itself, except this time in Destin, Florida. (Scene of the fabled “Editor-in-Chief” episode. Fish Heads moves their operation to Florida for part of the year.) This time, I flew in a day early and could explore a bit of the local shore fishing. In a small harbor just east of town, I managed to scrape up one new species – the longnose killifish.

We jump to species 2104. I told you I had a busy summer.

At dinner, Marta again cut off all conversation that had to do with how much fishing time I would get. Sigh. The group was great, and this time, they would be launching TWO floats. (I unsuccessfully tried to find out if this would take twice as long.) I knew there would be a bit less fishing time, but I wasn’t going to miss deep water in the gulf, even if it was only for a couple of hours. At least I had plenty of Red Bull and two dozen more devilled eggs.

Sunrise over Destin.

The boat heads out to sea.

At least I knew what to expect – about four hours of sitting in a beanbag chair while we raced 100 miles+ out into the gulf. In any normal boat, this would be an impossible day trip, so I’m willing to trade a bit of comfort for a shot at weird fish any day.

Miles is all smiles as the sun comes up.

The water was a touch bumpier than it had been in May, but we still made good progress and got to the launch site mid-morning.

Captain Todd keeps up on track.

The guys did their thing, and I did my best to not look desperately impatient. I was not allowed to ask any questions about how long anything would take.

I did get a few ocean triggerfish while the engineers did their thing. This species seems to materialize whenever a boat stops in the middle of nowhere.

As the launches were wrapping up and I was figuring out rigs for my first few deep drops, there was bad news. It was scientific in nature and I don’t pretend to understand what happened, but we needed to drive a couple of hours not toward the fish to do something related to another project. I started doing the math. Marta told me to stop any calculating and reminded me this was first and foremost a science trip. Captain Todd quietly told me he would find me at least a little window to fish, although the breeze did seem to be picking up.

Mind you, it never got really rough, but when a boat goes over 50mph, every little bump and splash is magnified. We got thoroughly sprayed, although that wasn’t too bad in the sun. I passed the time drinking Red Bull and quietly eating all of the devilled eggs, knowing this would give me terrible revenge on Marta by midnight.

We finally got wherever we needed to and did whatever we needed to. Captain Todd closely examined a map and the weather report. It didn’t look good, but he had one spot we could try for scamp grouper on the way back. That was about two hours away, then it would be three more to Destin. I counted the bumps, splashes, and minutes, and yes, it seemed like a heck of a long time. 

When they finally cut the throttle, I jumped up to fish. I had lost track of the conditions while we were running, and it had actually laid down quite a bit. Todd explained that there were plenty of scamp in this spot, but also plenty of bull sharks, and that I would have to reel up anything I hooked as hard and fast as I could. 

I wasn’t fast enough. I hooked a big fish on my first drop, and reeled as hard as I possibly could. I even got to see deep color – it was a big scamp, at least 15 pounds. But the bull shark that took it was at least 300 pounds, and I was left with a set of grouper lips. This did not please me.

(Perspectives from Marta – Do you remember the Heatmeiser from “The Year Without a Santa Claus?” Steve looked like that.)

She always thinks this is funny. But it isn’t.

I rigged and dropped again quickly, and hooked a much smaller fish. I blazed it to the surface – it was a red snapper, always welcome but not a new species.

I’m always glad to catch these, but I wanted something new. From the left, that’s Miles, Michael, me, and Captain Todd.

I dropped again, understanding that I only had a couple chances left. I hooked up, and again, I cranked for all I was worth. Moments later, I could see a small scamp under the boat, being chased by the same big bull shark. I ripped it out of the water a split second ahead of Bruce, and I had put one on the board. 

My scamp. Species 2105.

Needless to say, I don’t remember any of the delays, the bumps, or the spray. I only remember getting a new fish. The day was a triumph for me, and doubly so for the Seatrec guys. They had launched two floats. Data that could help change our world for the better would be delivered in a few short hours.

So we were all happy – me, the crew, the Seatrec guys, and even Marta, at least until the devilled eggs manifested.

Relaxing on the dock after a successful day.

Destin is known for seafood, and we celebrated that night with an excellent dinner, even though the restaurant seemed to have been decorated specifically to annoy me. It was like some sort of weird “Fish Steve Hasn’t Caught Hall of Fame.”

A gulf flounder?

And a spearfish? This is not a coincidence.

The locals were friendly at least. The guy on the right actually recognized me from a fishing magazine. I have never let Marta forget this.

A later photo with the Seatrec gang – L-R – Miles, Yi. me, Josh (another one of the really smart engineering types,) and Michael.

That same evening, data began coming back from the floats, leading to a sense of triumph and relief. Again, they had gotten everything right, and these scientists – people who had been willing to take classes with no essays – had made the world a better place. 

A month or so after this launch, one of the floats had a mechanical problem. (It was an older, non-Seatrec model. The power system was fine – something non-Seatrec had gone wrong. Seatrec has since developed their own line of equipment, the infiniTE™ float, which seem to be vastly better than previous technology.) The guys hired Fish Heads to rescue it for repair, and on this venture, which went quickly and allowed for plenty of fishing time, they got to do some of deep dropping. They got two bites.

This was the second one. Yes, I’ve caught a swordfish, but not anywhere close to this big. That’s Miles and Josh with the fish of a lifetime. Good on them. I wonder if I would be so thrilled if they had gotten a marbled grouper.

So science and fishing aren’t mutually exclusive, but of course, the patience I lack is important in both. I can’t thank Dr. Yi Chao and Seatrec enough for the opportunity to be there for their accomplishments and to share their boat, and I look forward to future adventures with them. Hopefully ones where we can launch close to shore and have loads of time left over to fish. Just saying. 

Steve