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

DATELINE: OCTOBER 10, 2022 – RURAL WESTERN KENTUCKY

Running up a big species list takes sacrifices, and losing sleep is high on the list – but all-nighters are not to be taken lightly at age 59. Sure, I gave them no thought in college, whether it was finally doing the required reading the night before an exam, or a party that got out of hand and ended up with us mooing at passing cars as the sun rose. The trip described below was not designed to take place in 26 hours – it was meant for a much longer time period – but circumstances being what they were, I was glad we toughed it out.

It all began with two gracious Hoosier invitations. Steve Ramsey, who has steadfastly supported Indiana football since the leather helmet days, keeps inviting me to IU/Michigan games even though I show up in maize and blue and the Wolverines typically blast the Hoosiers like a directional school creampuff. And Ron Anderson, half of the fabled Ron and Jarrett species-hunting duo, kindly offered to take me south for a couple of days of fishing. As I continued looking at sports schedules, it turned out that the next weekend featured another Indiana game and then a Colts game, and Steve, against the advice of friends, neighbors, and the authorities, invited me for the whole week-plus. The result – two days of fishing, three football games, and nine days of Skyline Chili. If that isn’t a winner of an itinerary, I don’t know what is.

I arrived in Indianapolis on October 6, a Thursday. Steve and I promptly ate at Skyline Chili.

Skyline Chili. It’s a food group, and, about six hours later, a medical condition.

We then went over to Ron and Carol’s to watch the Colts play the Broncos. It was, I dare say, the worst NFL game I have ever seen that didn’t involve the Lions. There were botched plays, turnovers, and the constant whining of Russell Wilson. The Colts prevailed in overtime, but we were just glad to turn off the TV and be done with it.

The end of a truly awful contest. Russell Wilson is offscreen to the right, having Malcolm Butler flashbacks.

And then THIS was facing me back in Steve’s guest room.                                 

The following day, we ate dinner with my old friend Pam, at a well-known Indianapolis institution – the Rathskeller. Although both Steve and this restaurant have been in town for at least two world wars, he had somehow never eaten there previously. (To Carol’s rather loudly-expressed surprise.)

An Indianapolis classic. Carol has also made it famous in Iowa.

But all this friendship was swept aside the next day, as we headed to Bloomington for what Steve was certain would be an epic IU upset. Sometimes, I just want to smile and pat him on the head. 

A-10 flyover before the game. These things can destroy tanks almost as quickly as Michigan can destroy IU’s defense.

In a game that was close until shortly after the coin toss, Michigan prevailed, 31-10.

I kind of stood out in the IU Athletic Alum section.

But there were other UM fans there. There are two Hoosiers in the photo – see if you can guess which one had been drinking.

I was supposed to fish the next couple of days, which Ron figured could take us through some prime spots in Kentucky and Tennessee. But somewhere in the text string, a schedule misunderstanding became obvious. I had thought we were coming home Tuesday night. Ron – who has lots of adult responsibilities that I don’t, like two kids and three cats – actually needed to be home Monday night. So we made the best of it, but I recognized that this would mean very little sleep, a tall order at my age. But there were so many possibilities that I wasn’t going to let exhaustion get in my way – Red Bull can work wonders, and failing that, laxatives can keep anyone on their toes.

Our first stop was right in Bloomington. The recent longear sunfish splits had left me in a conundrum – I had caught most of them, but not photographed them because they were all just longears at the time. My photos were all of the Rio Grande version, so I needed to get the others, starting with the original, which was abundant in a local creek.

The O.G. longear sunfish.

The creeks here are gorgeous.

We then headed south. As we were trying to compress as many spots as possible into one overnighter, Ron had trimmed things down to a “run and gun” approach – hitting spots that he knew held at least one “slam dunk” species, trying to get that fish, and hitting the road again quickly. It was a long haul through Indiana to western Kentucky, and the evening would take us to a mashup of spots hopscotching between Kentucky and Tennessee. 

Conversations on these road trips range far and wide. Ron is a bit more quiet than I am – most people are – but I did get him going about a road trip he did to Arkansas with Jarrett and Cody from Ohio. These are young guys, and so road trips tend to be more compressed and budget-conscious, but this went a bit extreme. Not only did they sack out in the truck for several unwashed days, but there were some disastrous packing mishaps. Ron, who I believe sleeps in his waders, somehow forgot them. He also did not bring extensive (or possibly any) extra clothing, so not only did he get bitten up by insects and blown up with poison ivy, he also never quite got dry. This combination left Ron’s entire lower body festering with some sort of trench foot/swamp groin thing that took weeks to clear up. Cody, out of support for Ron, did all his wading in rubber deck boots, so after a few days, he had a bleeding ring chafed around each calf that I swear went down to the bone. Jarrett seems to have survived unscathed, and they did all catch a bunch of fish, which is worth facing chafing and fungus.

Our first stop netted something truly strange that I have admired in books for years – a cavefish. These creatures live in crevasses and caves, some of them never seeing daylight in their lifetime. This particular one was a spring cavefish, which lives deep in springs but ventures out at night. It took a few tries and a heartbreaking mid-air dropped hook, but I finally got one. Say what you will about spending hours on small fish, but seeing something like this fills me with wonder at the amazing diversity of the fish world. A chance to catch something like this is why I love the sport so much – only a handful of people have ever seen one of these in person.

One of the weirder fish I have gotten on my Midwestern adventures.

We then hit the road for another hour and made another the “run and gun” stop. It was a small creek rumored to have a population of Guardian darters, another one of the very localized species found throughout the midwest. They were there, they bit, and we were back on the road. It was already 11 at night.

The Guardian darter, species three of the trip and 2111 lifetime.

We then drove two more long hours, going from interstates to state highways to rural roads to dirt tracks that went miles back into the woods.

I mused how much I had come to trust Ron, because these are exactly the kinds of places where bodies are dumped in low-grade horror films that involve depraved power-tool maniacs and exceptionally stupid teenagers. At about 1am, we pulled up at a dead end with the classic “bridge out” sign, and parked the car. It took me a moment to put on my waders – but Ron will never, EVER takes his off again. The embankment was a bit dicey, but even from a distance, I could see it was darter heaven – shallow, some current, an assortment of rock sizes and structures. We got down there, set up the micro rigs, and despite the 39 degree temperature, action started quickly. The first score was a brighteye darter.

The brighteye darter, number four of the trip.

About an hour later, I got a firebelly darter, the fifth species of the evening.

And 2113 lifetime. The only disadvantage to fishing this late in the season is that the fish are not in their spawning colors, but hey, a species is a species, and they’re still beautiful.

It was another hour, pushing 4:30am, when I got another new species. This is not to say there wasn’t constant action the entire time. We caught plenty of darters – and madtoms – we had gotten previously, and we also wasted quite a bit of time trying for sand darters, which were present but do not eat food. Ever. But at some stage before the sun came up, I zeroed in on a darter that looked different than everything else I had seen and got it to bite. To even Ron’s surprise, it was a Gulf darter – very unusual this far north.

Again, not the most colorful specimen, but that’s six for the day.

As the first light was beginning to show, I reached the limit of my endurance, and luckily, so did all my headlamps, so I had an excuse to leave and find a local hotel for a quick nap. I think Ron would have been ok with me leaving him there, but he reluctantly came along when I mentioned that I thought I saw some guy wandering through the woods with a chainsaw. 

I don’t remember taking this picture.

After a couple of hours of shuteye in some off-brand place in rural Kentucky or Tennessee, I forget which, we saddled up again and drove off to hit a couple of spots Ron knew on the way home. I was so wiped out I made a memorable hygiene mistake.

Oh, like you wouldn’t have missed this too.

Wading through a few small creeks buoyed by Red Bull and hope, I was likely not at my best. (But neither was Peyton Manning when he won his second Super Bowl, and I always take inspiration from that. And we both knew that if we dropped something, Cam Newton wouldn’t try to pick it up.)

I missed at least two slough darters because I pretty much stepped on them, but just as we were ready to head elsewhere, I found one that clearly was not as smart as the other slough darters. It stayed cooperatively in the open and snapped at every bait I presented, allowing itself to be hooked and dropped twice before I landed it and added number seven of the trip.

And number 2115 overall. Life was very good, despite the fact that my bladder wrote me an official letter of protest after the sixth Red Bull.

At the next creek, we, and by “we,” I mean “Ron,” had a terrifying close call. Part of looking for darters is flipping over rocks and poking under banks. This should be done with great caution, as some of these same hidey holes contain unpleasant wildlife, like snapping turtles and snakes. 

For example, this is me inadvisably poking around prime serpent territory.

I was perhaps 150 feet upstream of Ron, who (thank goodness) had started using a stick to explore the undercut shoreline. I heard a noise – let’s call it a manly grunt of alarm, because I wouldn’t want to call it the high-pitched stream of bad words it really was. I turned around to see Ron in full Wile E. Coyote mode, feet spinning backwards in place on top of the water with a large, irritated cottonmouth in hot pursuit. Luckily, he got away, but it was a sobering reminder to be careful out there.

Safe due to his excellent reflexes, Ron breathes a sigh of relief. I would have wet my waders.

We made one more stop on the way home, chasing what Ron described as an outside shot at a bandfin darter. I entered the water with low confidence, clinical exhaustion, and snake awareness, and I nearly stepped on a darter. Ron eased up next to me and verified it was the right one, and it bit immediately. 

The beast.

The triumphant anglers. I was ready for a nap, but we had five hours of driving ahead of us.

So that was it for the catching on this trip – eight species in less than 24 hours of fishing. That doesn’t happen for me very often. I can’t thank Ron enough for going with me, and Ron and Jarrett for their incredible knowledge of the area.

But notice I said the catching was over, but not the fishing. Because I had such a long stretch in the Midwest, and because Steve likely reached the limits of his hostly patience when a batch of redworms escaped in his immaculate refrigerator, I decided to head for Columbus, Ohio. Cody Cromer, who is one of my lifetime heroes because he helped me get a bluebreast darter, was kind enough to meet me in central Ohio and give it a try for variegate darters. 

Success has many parents, but I was the single mother of failure that day. Cody must have shown me at least six variegates, and I managed to spook or miss them all.

The river was absolutely gorgeous. And full of variegate darters.

Steve and Cody, as he tries his level best not to burst into laughter at my inability to hook a variegate.

That night, I had dinner in Columbus with two very dear old friends – Scott “K-Man” Kisslinger, one of the greatest wiffleball pitchers in history, except for one notable meltdown, and Sue Niezgoda, who is probably better at wiffleball than either one of us.

Yes, I wear Michigan stuff at restaurants in the middle of Columbus.

I headed back to Indianapolis Thursday evening for another Skyline dinner. Marta took the redeye into Indianapolis on Friday morning, went straight to the art museum to let Steve and I sleep in, and then joined us for a weekend of sports and fried food. Although she had been through Indianapolis before, this was her first stop for any length of time. 

Marta irrationally hates John Elway, so Steve prepared her a special pillowcase.

At the circle in the center of downtown Indianapolis. I used to work – and met Steve Ramsey – in a building just out of the shot to the left.

Saturday was a return trip to Bloomington to watch the Hoosiers get blasted by Maryland. It was still a beautiful fall day, and Steve gave Marta a better tour of campus than he ever gave me. What the heck.

Steve and Marta in some alum building I had never seen before.

A tribute to “Breaking Away,” one of Marta’s favorite movies.

Before kickoff, so the game was still close.

As things got out of hand, a group of IU supporters decided it was a good idea to take their shirts off and wave them around. Unfortunately, they were all men, and unfortunately for them, it had gotten rather cold. They didn’t seem to care.

I’m guessing beer was involved, but you have to respect their commitment.

They even made ESPN. Note that the Michigan score happens to be on screen.

Sunday was the big event. Ron and Carol, Steve’s best friends from college, were hosting a large group of family at a Colts game and generously invited us, mostly because Carol likes Marta.

Lucas Oil Stadium – “The House That Peyton Built.”

Speaking of Peyton Manning.

We got to watch a thrilling Colts victory over Jacksonville, and even though I think it was the last game they won that season, it was still a great experience. 

The whole gang poses for a photo post-game. A big thanks to Ron and Carol for putting it all together and including us.

After the game, we wandered the downtown area, taking in more sights and mocking the fact that Trevor Lawrence has better hair than Taylor Swift. Dinner could not have been better – we managed seats at St. Elmo’s steakhouse, an Indianapolis landmark that I first experienced in 1989.

It was founded the year before my grandfather was born. 

St. Elmo’s is also famous as the favorite steakhouse of Parks and Recreation’s Ron Swanson.

We are standing in the exact spot where they filmed dinner in the “Two Parties” episode. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please take the week off work and binge-watch the whole thing. It will make your life better.

Marta and I flew home the next evening, but not before I gave the elusive goldeye a shot in a river south of Indianapolis. I failed, again, but I did catch something memorably unexpected.

A shovelnose sturgeon, first caught by me in Nebraska with Martini in 2015.

And so we were back in California, putting up the Halloween lights and preparing to watch such terrifying fare as “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” There would be one more major fishing trip before the weather and the holidays set in, and if I had known how badly it was going to turn out, I would have … oh who am I kidding. I still would have gone.

Steve