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

DATELINE: JUNE 21, 2023 – LOWER LEFT-HAND VIRGINIA

It had been an exhausting week, but I still I didn’t sleep much the night of the 15th. We stayed someplace that should have been called “The Marital Crisis Inn” that put us in adjoining rooms, with an arguing couple on either side of us. Making matters worse, either Chris or Brayden snores like The Tasmanian Devil trying to eat Jello through his nose.

We were up early on the 16th to get over to Phil Foster Park, an old and reliable Dom spot. I started on the pier, hoping for one of the random whatsits that frequent the place. As I worked through the standard stuff – grunts, snappers, and pinfish – a guy on the other side of the pier walked up and asked what we were all fishing for. I started to explain the species hunting thing, and he suddenly smiled and said “I know who you are!” I was hoping I didn’t owe him money. To my great relief, he turned out to be Alexander Orr, a well-known lifelister from the upper midwest, who is well over 500 himself – and he has done all that pretty much in the USA with spots he has found himself. Darn impressive.

And he conceded that I wasn’t as much of an @$$#@$% as he’d heard, which made my day.

Hopefully, I can meet up with him someday and track down a channel darter.

We stayed a few hours, with both Moores tacking on a couple of new ones. Late in the session, on a random sabiki cast, right in front of The Mucus, I landed a dusky jawfish – a small but cool addition to my species list.

My second jawfish species. The first was in the Sea of Cortez. I was at 17 and counting for the trip.

That afternoon, we headed over to Boca Inlet. There are always angelfish here, although they won’t bite, and the ridiculously elusive orangespotted filefish, which everyone except me seems to have caught. It was a breezy but clear afternoon, and we caught loads of damsels and wrasses in the rocks right below our feet. The Mucus spotted and sight fished a green moray – this was just a mile or so from where I got my first one.

We saw more, but Chris couldn’t connect.

In the meantime, I focused on the filefish. For hours. There aren’t that many of them, and so the idea is to wait and present to them when they show, but then dozens of damsels and wrasses move in and steal the bait. I must have missed eight of them, and Chris and Brayden both had one by then. As a matter of unfortunate fact, I think Chris caught six.

I did catch plenty of scrawled filefish. This is an emotional fish for me, because a pre-Marta girlfriend caught one years before I ever did.

Late in the afternoon, Chris mentioned that he kept seeing an orangespotted near him, so I plopped down there and waited. He pointed it out to me. I cast. It showed interest but then a sergeant moved in and spooked it. It showed again. A wrasse stole the bait. The filefish wandered by a third time and moved toward my bait again – every muscle in my body tensed as I looked for the bite, but I couldn’t see my bait. I was so focused that I barely registered Chris yelling “SET THE HOOK SET THE HOOK SET THE HOOK,” but I finally snapped back and launched a small orangespotted filefish over my shoulder and onto the grass.

We had done it, despite my cluelessness.

They really do have orange spots.

I had species 18 under my belt, and best of all, it started pouring rain as we left, so we got to sit down for dinner and get a reasonable night of sleep. The next day, June 17, promised to be a biggie – Dom Porcelli would be hosting us on his boat. Dom, an avid species hunter (well over 1000,) had lived in the area for quite a while and seems to take special delight in helping visitors add to their totals.

We set off at the crack of dawn into what looked to be a nice day. As always, Dom had prepped thoroughly, and we had every bait from shrimp to live scad. We spent the morning bashing some medium reefs, and while I had nothing new to report, The Mucus did great work on live bait.

His first red grouper.

And a solid amberjack. Dom really knew his stuff.

The Mucus in full sun-protection mode. Never mind that he was wearing shorts and didn’t put sunblock on his legs.

Around noon, for no good reason, the weather went suddenly and completely to hell. We stuck it out despite the conditions, but to my dismay, neither of the Moores barfed.

Chris doggedly sticks it out.

I decided to try small sabikis, and somewhere in that mix of tomtates and wrasses, I got a parrotfish that looked unfamiliar. It took weeks and the involvement of a scientist, but the fish was finally identified as a striped parrotfish, number 19 of the trip.

A big thanks to Dr. Ross Robertson of the Smithsonian for the ID.

Dom decides it’s time to go.

Dom took us in a bit early because the inlets were starting to get dangerous. We got inside safely, but just as we hit the no wake zone, the skies opened up into a downpour.

As always, Dom was all smiles. 

There are two dry spots on Dom’s boat, and there were four of us. Dom let The Mucus drive and took a soaking – he is one of the most generous people I have ever met. We parted ways that afternoon, and as we headed south, he headed out for dinner with Tracy. I can’t help but think he had the better evening.

It let up by the time we docked. You don’t see many rainbows in Florida.

We found excellent pizza – our third and final sit-down dinner of the trip. As we headed for Homestead, I received a random and game-changing phone call from a former co-worker. He had taken over as CEO of a private-equity buyout. Weeks before, he had asked my help in finding someone do to what I used to do. One thing led to another, and they put a job offer on the table. I took it, and agreed to a start date of July 10, which would be my 60th birthday. My retirement would last just shy of four months, although I knew this new job would truly be my last. So while my first 10 days of the trip were as a retired person, the last 10 would be as a guy who would be going back to work in a few weeks. Marta sounded understanding and supportive when I gave her the news, but I could hear the faint sounds of the “I Told You So” dance in the background.

This would add some urgency to the last 10 days of the trip, as I would definitely have less free time in the coming months. 

As we closed out the 17th, our 10th night on the road, we were still actually heading away from home. We would not reach our furthest point from Phoenix until the next afternoon, and while I was sleep-deprived and unhygienic, we were stacking up the fish. If I could keep pace, I would finish with 38 – and I would have been ecstatic with 30.

Little did I know that in just five days, The Mucus would have the single worst outing of his life.

June 18 would be one of the most important days of the trip for me – we would try for gray angelfish near Marathon Key. Angelfish are amazing and beautiful creatures, and I am awful at catching them. I had 2203 species to my credit at that stage, and only one of them was an angelfish. (The King angelfish from Mexico in 2019.) 

The angelfish process involves a lot of King’s Hawaiian Rolls, the same food that helped Martini survive the bird flu in 2014. Our first spot was a harbor, which would be the apogee of the trip – 3125 miles from Phoenix. We managed to raise a couple of parrotfish, but Chris was quickly distracted by the possibility of green morays. The area was loaded with them, and Chris managed to pull a big one out from under a concrete boat ramp with 12 pound gear.

Chris is a magician. I lost one this big on a 100# leader.

By late morning, we realized the harbor wasn’t going to produce the parrots and angels we wanted, so we headed for the primary spot. This was an otherwise unspectacular stretch of bank on the seaward side of a bridge, bolstered with a low concrete corrugated metal and concrete breakwall. There were a few kids fishing there, but plenty of room for the three of us to set up.

I have to admit I was a naysayer at first. The place looked like any other dingy shallow spot, and I thought it would be loaded with grunts and small snappers. But then Chris started tossing in bits of bread. In about 15 minutes, the first parrotfish showed up – big rainbows. As they started cruising by regularly, we took out our rods and floated out loose pieces of bread. We watched them drift down, and as soon as they disappeared, our lines would shoot off for deep water and we would hook into a hard-fighting parrotfish. 

Over time, a few different parrotfish started joining the group – blues. Rainbows were still the most common, so we had to steer baits away from them and in front of the blues. It was an imperfect science, but after a while, I hooked one. This was a relatively light rod – eight-pound class, so the fish ran pretty much where they wanted to, but after a while, we had it in the net. I was up a species.

20 for the trip. The Cracker Barrel hat had brought me good luck.

These things are just so darn cool.

More and more fish joined the frenzy. We saw some sort of darker parrot that kept flitting around the edges of the group, but no one could get a good look at it. We also saw our first gray angelfish. This is why I was here – and Chris and Brayden both had one, so I had a clean shot at any fish that showed up. We kept drifting bread, and in between more rainbow and blue parrots, I got a hard hit and run off the bottom. It took a few minutes to get it back to the seawall, but when I saw what it was, I yelled for Chris to get the net. It was a midnight parrotfish, beautiful and relatively rare, and Chris deftly landed it. I was up two unexpected species.

Of course, The Mucus also caught a midnight, but Chris did not. That’s morally wrong.

At this stage, I was totally focused on the angels. They would drift in and out of the group, hard to present to because they were more mobile than the parrots. I spent at least an hour of narrow misses when a golden opportunity presented itself. A gray angelfish got right on top of the water and started nibbling a bread bait. Unfortunately, it was Chris’ offering, but when the fish actually ate the bait and headed downward, I unceremoniously snatched his rod and set the hook. I’m going to presume that Chris had no problem with this. The next 90 seconds seemed like an eternity, because the fish battled like a three-pound bluegill, but it finally came to the net, and I had my second angelfish species, completely due to the kindness and generosity of a good friend.

I can only hope Chris would tell the story the same way.

 

One of the worst photos of Chris ever taken. I can’t explain the look on his face, nor can I figure out where his right hand is.

Due to rain and hostile picknickers, we left that location and went a few bridges north to try for assorted damsels. There are more of them than you would think. I added on a cocoa damsel.

Number 23 of the trip.

Two more bridges north, right before more pizza, we got checkered frillgobies, which I must unfortunately credit The Mucus with finding.

The frillgoby. I was frilled.

Five species in one day. That doesn’t happen very often for me. I was up to 24 species on the trip, 2208 lifetime. Which means that my goal was 2209. Stop the 3000 talk, Marta.

The next day, June 19, was our last serious shot at Florida saltwater. We spent most of our time at the Miami waterfront, watching The Mucus try to ignore the bikinis.

The whole park is loaded with structure – and fish.

I added one new fish that day, the threespot damsel.

Cousin Chuck – can you guess how many spots it has? 

Dr. Ross Robertson provided the ID on this one, and he shared that these are indeed the feistiest of the damsels. When he was snorkeling with them to do research, they would often attack, and had a particular penchant for biting him on the lip. So the next time you’re tempted to make fun of my small fish, just remember that some of them are actually lip-hunting monsters.

I also got an adult striped parrotfish, which The Mucus still couldn’t catch.

We had been blessed with pretty good weather for most of the drive so far, but our luck started to run out on the 20th. Our intention was to head north, aiming for central Virginia, where exotic sucker species awaited us – but the eastern seaboard weather report began looking FOUL. We sat down over the satellite forecasts, and it was obvious we would need to call an audible. 

We reached St. Augustine by evening, and while we had plenty of action on the pier, there were no new species to report. And then the weather found us. It was brutal. We piled into the truck, soaked and shivering, and drove northwest, as we could see the rain didn’t go too far inland. We spent the night at some Motel Fungus in Georgia. 

The next morning, we checked the weather again and decided to head to lower left South Carolina. It was a long, rainy haul, made longer when The Mucus would wake up and debate my position on whatever I was talking about. At one stage, he claimed the metric system was “incorrect,” just because I said I liked it for fish measurements.

Chris’ iTunes playlist saved us frequently. This is one of the many songs I bought when I got home.

Slowly, we got back into brighter skies, and we pulled up to a beautiful little creek. It was narrow; not a lot of room for three people to maneuver, but we made the best of it.

Chris and The Mucus explore the riffles.

There was the occasional darter. and loads of shiners with bright yellow fins. We all caught one of those quickly – the aptly-named yellowfin shiner – a new species.

Number 26 of the road trip.

I settled into hunting the stray darters in the shoreline, but these turned out to be westfalls. The Mucus kept himself busy under the bridge, which I hadn’t bothered with because it was fast, riffly water and in deep shadow. He seemed very focused on something, which is unusual for more than 12 seconds, but after 45 minutes or so, he suddenly set a hook and went sprinting for shore. He had caught a turquoise darter – a rare and beautiful member of that family. Of course, Chris and I wanted to get in on the action, but it was hard. It required a “Minnowview 3000” – a five-gallon bucket with the bottom cut out and replaced with plexiglass – that allowed us to see what was going on under all that turbulence, plus a headlamp because it was surprisingly dim under the bridge.

Chris and I made it a two man job, with one guy maneuvering the bucket and light, and the other fishing. Chris got his pretty quickly, but I kept missing bites.

Searching for darters using modern technology.

Brayden got into the act to help. Both of them were very patient with me, as we spotted several more that spooked while the strong current was waving my bait crazily in their face. We found another one, and I tried to ease the tanago down as gently as I could. The bait looked perfectly positioned, and I held my breath. And then I couldn’t see my bait. Chris emitted a loud but unintelligible grunt and I looked at him curiously. I looked down again and still couldn’t see my bait. Chris finally used his words. “SET THE HOOK SET THE HOOK SET THE HOOK!” I couldn’t see my bait because the turquoise darter had eaten it and was sitting there cooperatively. I lifted up and swung him into the bucket.

Courtesy of some excellent teamwork, I had species 27 of the trip.

We also saw what was likely the last Bud Light ever consumed in South Carolina.

The next fishable spot was a heck of a drive – to the Clinch River in southwestern Virginia, a place that the legendary Pat Kerwin had introduced me to a few years back.

I’ve always wanted to spray paint an “S” over the small heart.

As we struggled through Red Roof Inn’s free breakfast early on the 21st, I had no idea that in only two days, The Mucus would have the worst fishing day of his life. 

It was overcast and a bit chilly, but we missed the really bad weather and the high water that came with it. We tried a few creeks through a drizzly morning, but got to the Clinch as the skies started to clear in the afternoon.

The Moores hunt the river.

There were darters EVERYWHERE – but we had no idea what they could be. We all got one fairly quickly – these turned out to be wounded darters, an excellent new species.

Number 28.

The Mucus then spotted something different, worked on it diligently, and ended up catching a rarity – a banded darter. After appropriate photographs, he released it by the boat ramp.

Me with a wounded, The Mucus with a banded.

Chris and I spent at least half an hour upstream, unsuccessfully looking for the same species. I walked back up by the boat ramp, and, I’ll be damned, there was a banded darter sitting on a rock about 10 feet away from it. It was likely Brayden’s fish. It had the whole river to escape into, and it just sat there. Naturally, I decided to try for it – both Chris and Brayden advised me fish won’t eat once they’ve been caught, but they obviously have never been pike fishing. 

The fish seemed indifferent at first, but when I trimmed my redworm down to a mere fleck and moved the split shot further away, he stirred. A few presentations later, I landed it microns in front of his nose, and he flat-out nailed it. I had my second darter of the day.

Trip species 29. I suppose I should thank The Mucus.

We then got in the truck and drove and drove to lower right-hand Tennessee, stopping for some sort of Chevron microwave calzone that mostly ended up in Chris’ door panel. We were finally heading back west and toward home, although we were still thousands of miles from adult supervision. We sacked out around 1am at the “Warrants Welcome Inn” and were up early, because we still had a couple of hours to drive through the rain, to a familiar but unexpected spot.

Steve