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

DATELINE: JUNE 27, 2023 – RURAL NEW MEXICO

Looking at a map, it made no sense. But in deference to the weather, we headed from Southwest Virginia back to Northwest Alabama, to the Sipsey spot I had fished with Dom Porcelli in 2021.

We covered a lot of miles.

The rain cleared as we got there, and as we set up on the morning of the 22nd, I still had no idea that The Mucus would have an absolutely traumatic day coming up in just 24 hours.

As we walked down to the river, I couldn’t help but remember what an awesome day I had there two years before with Dom – four species, including three darters – in an absolutely pristine location I could wade for hours. Some winter storms had moved big trees around, so there was less of a deep pool at the bridge, but that just meant that there was more darter territory.

One of my favorite spots in Alabama. Dom first fished this in a February. At night. In tennis shoes and shorts.

The guys cleaned up with several species each, but I was busy hunting the one darter I had missed the last time – the Warrior. I went a quarter mile in both directions, catching plenty of mobile logperch and Tuscaloosa darters, but didn’t see my target. Until The Mucus caught one right in front of me not 10 feet from where we got into the river. They were there. Right there.

It took me another hour – they were finicky – but I finally got one.

The warrior darter – my 30th species of the trip.

I just sat on the bank and drank a Red Bull, content that I had caught what I had come there for. The Mucus, meanwhile, was setting up a float and worm. I asked him what he hoped to get, and he said “Warrior Bass.” I hadn’t thought of that – this spotted bass split indeed was in this river system, and while it wasn’t common, Dom had gotten one.

So while The Mucus cast his float, I half-jokingly pulled out a small, white hard bait that legendary German guide Jens Koller had given me – the magical “Chubbie” crankbait. On my second cast, I got bashed and pulled in a nice little Warrior bass.

Species 31.

The Mucus got a smaller one moments later, and then Chris moved in to try for what should have been an easy catch. But the Fish Gods are fickle, and Chris got nothing but sunfish. We got on the road toward dark, and worked west in Alabama, knowing we would finish the next night in Tennessee. I know this all sounds geographically inefficient, but with the weather and spots we had to work with, it was the best we could do.

I slept that night utterly unaware that The Mucus would have a life-changingly bad day when we woke up. Looking back on it, I still have to smile, because he did irresponsible things, like drown all the red worms.

We gave him ONE responsibility – rebag the worms so they wouldn’t get immersed in melted ice, and he just couldn’t do it. This led to several unplanned Walmart stops.

At a Walmart somewhere in Alabama, we entered him in a cutest puppy contest. He came in 7th.

After a very short night, dawn broke on June 23, which would be The Mucus’ Worst Day Ever. I almost made that its own blog, because yes, I enjoyed it so much. If that sounds spiteful and immature, I will refer you to my lawyer, who will have no comment. But you’re not missing anything.

The kid had been intermittently driving me nuts for around two weeks, whether it was arguing the metric system or killing all the redworms. (Stuff I likely did as a kid as well.) In any case, he had been talking about one particular fish the entire trip – a river redhorse – and this would be the day we had a shot at them. 

We opened up in a small creek near a swap meet in Alabama. Although I got a nice photo upgrade on the flame chub, both Moores caught blackside snubnose darters.

Now’s that a nice flame chub. That’s the Mucus in the background, catching his fifth blackside snubnose darter, which left me none by the time I had taken this photo.

The Mucus was so wound up about getting to the river redhorse spot that he kept pestering us to get on the road. I wanted that darter, but I wanted The Mucus to be quiet even more, so I just gave up and got in the car. I had thought being a good Dad was about consideration and giving, but I realized that there must also be a fair amount of capitulation as well.

A spot nearby. Chris missed a prime chance.

An hour or so later, we arrived at a medium-sized creek with some wonderful deep blue pools. According to reliable sources, the place was loaded with river redhorse, (which I’ve already caught,) and this was one of the few times I saw The Mucus palpably emotional. He raced down to the creek ahead of us. Chris gently steered him to the tailout of a deep pool about 100 yards upstream. At the same moment, we all saw them – two big river redhorse, slowly cruising the bottom in about five feet of water. The Mucus was trembling with anticipation, and the extra hormones this pumped into his teenage brain may have been the reason his first cast landed five feet up the other bank and snagged in the rocks. 

Frustrated and in a hurry, he just cranked his drag down and walked backwards. He got lucky and the whole rig – which had way too much weight on it in the first place – came whistling back across the river and landed in the bushes behind him, where he still had to undo it for a few moments. I gently tried to advise him to re-tie and go with less weight, but he was not in a listening mood.

The Mucus, seconds before disaster.

He cast again, with all the finesse of dropping a depth charge on a U-Boat. But this attempt at least hit the water, and a few minutes later, somehow, one of the redhorse bit. It slowly loaded up the kid’s rod, and I knew from experience that it would take off shortly. The fish had to be at least four pounds. 

Just as it started running, I remembered that the boy had never loosened his drag from the snag, and disaster loomed. I yelled “LOOSEN YOUR DRAG! LOOSEN YOUR DRAG!” He dismissed me like Meghan Markle waving off the Queen, and a split-second later, his line snapped with a loud crack.

I hate to use terms like “butt-hurt,” because Marta doesn’t like me to say “butt” in the blog, but The Mucus was as butt-hurt as any human could possibly be. I probably didn’t help much by pointing out the drag issue. He half-heartedly argued with me and started re-tying. This time, he went with a hook tied directly to light line with some split shot above it. Both his father and I gently advised him that he should use a leader, as there are rocks in the area. I offered to show him a quick knot to tie on the right rig. He ignored us and, as the butt-hurt really took hold, he actually started bickering with me again that this rig would be the most effective. I responded with something to the effect of “We will probably never know, as you spooked every river redhorse from here to Oklahoma.”

Meanwhile, I caught a beautiful longear.

He cast the rig through the pool for about 20 minutes, and then the Fish Gods, with their capricious sense of humor, granted the boy another bite. It was another river redhorse – we all saw it – and it took the bait down solidly and began to run upstream. Toward the rocks. The process was as quick and heartbreaking as Cousin Chuck’s honeymoon, because the minute that light line hit the structure, it broke. The look on his face was simply priceless, but even I knew better than to do the “I told you so” dance. The kid was inconsolable and looked like he has lost all hope in life. Moments later, I walked up to him, put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and said “Wow, you #@$%ed that one up.” Chris gave me a chilling look that, without saying a word, conveyed that I was not being helpful.

Shortly thereafter, we were off for our evening spot, a river landing in central Tennessee famous for darter variety. Brayden, still in a deep depression, managed to shake things off a bit by adding duck and spangled darters before Chris and I could get rigged. We fished well into the night, with the guys tacking on the occasional shiner or chub, and me just enjoying being there. I got the duck darter fairly quickly, but the spangled eluded me.

My duck darter, species 33 of the road trip.

Just as we were about to leave, there was one of those random accidents that caused us to stay there until 2am.

The gang, shortly before Brayden decided he was never leaving.

I had given up trying to headlamp the spangled, and was pitching tiny baits out into the deeper water to see what would pick it up blind. I got a few shiners and stonerollers, and then, at about 10pm when I really could have left with no problem, I got a spirited little bite and pulled up a fish, perhaps four inches long, that looked like a small bass in the water. I lifted it into my hand to unhook it and realized it wasn’t a bass. It was an Ashy darter, a rare and protected species that is really only found in this area. I released it right away – you can’t help what grabs a worm, but when I showed it to the Moores, Brayden had another emotional moment. “I just wanted to see one of those. I’ve wanted to my entire life.”

This is someone else’s photo off of the internet. I was up to 34 species for the trip. We didn’t even see another one, even though the kid stayed up until 2am trying. It was truly an awful day for him. Two “fishes of a lifetime,” two fails. He was actually quiet as we drove to the central Tennessee Motel Fungus.

The following morning was the stuff of sweaty late-night darter dreams. On very little sleep, because we got in at 3am the night before, we walked into a city park somewhere in Tennessee, where Chris said there had been three darter species sampled over the years. Generally that means that you will get one of them, maybe two. But it was our day, and in 45 minutes, we all had all three of them. This in no way cheered Brayden up.

The redband darter. I mentioned that these make good river redhorse bait.

The saffron. It was sitting under the same rock as the redband.

The Fringed. These were all caught within 50 feet of each other.

That was 37 and counting, although at this stage of the trip, the drives would be longer and the fishing stops shorter. Chris needed to be home the night of the 27th, and we still had 1700 miles to cover. We worked our way through the rest of Tennessee and into Kentucky, and while I didn’t add species for a long stretch, I did manage a substantial photo upgrade on the scarlet shiner.

My first one may have been the plainest scarlet shiner ever caught. Take that, Cody!

On our last stop of the day, at a creek that was a bit high and cloudy, I stumbled into species 38 of the trip, a suckermouth minnow, a species that normally bites only at night.

Chris also got one, but the Fish Gods did not reward Brayden. I’d like to think that I was gracious and kind about that, but who am I kidding here.

We got some amazing sunsets as we worked our way west.

The following day, June 25, took us through some very familiar territory – Poplar Bluff, Missouri, home of so many fishing adventures with Tyler Goodale. We unfortunately were not able to catch up with Tyler, but we had enough local knowledge by this stage to make the day worthwhile. We fished McLane Park, site of my triumph over the western creek chubsucker, and while the guys loaded up on a few cool new ones, I drifted baits in the main creek and randomly stumbled into a redfin shiner.

Species 39 of the journey. This whole area is gold. Never mind that this is the plainest redfin anyone has ever seen, it still counts.

I also got a great photo upgrade on brook darter.

We finished the day up at the same Arkansas Creek where Dom and I had gotten Arkansas saddled darters. Chris and The Mucus were positively wound up to have a chance at this rarity, and even though I didn’t have much new stuff to go for, I was glad to be there.

Another gorgeous creek, eminently wadable and jammed with darters.

The water was lower than it had been with Dom, which you would think would be an advantage. As soon as it was fully dark, we started seeing them. I acted as an extra spotter, and soon, we had both guys presenting to fish. But this is where it got weird. That slight change in water flow, while it made the fish easier to present to, also seemed to have them off the bite. We worked at it for hours, but they all seemed to have lockjaw.

At around midnight, The Mucus, who had been perched over one particular fish for over an hour, let out a high-pitched gurgle of triumph. He had managed to get an Arkansas saddled to bite – a marvelous example of his dogged persistence. Of course, this meant that Chris thought they would bite now, so we spent a couple more fruitless hours before he threw in the towel. We stayed in the same Motel Le Grunge that Dom and I had stayed in a month before, and I think I recognized some of my old dandruff on the pillowcase.

To have any shot at getting home on time, we needed to end the next day west of Oklahoma City, so, with our fishing detours, that meant about 500 miles of driving. We made several stops, and the guys put a few more on the scoreboard, but I drew a blank until the very last stop of the day, somewhere in Western Oklahoma. It was there, in perhaps the slipperiest creek I have ever stumbled through, that I added a Ouachita longear sunfish and finalized my Lepomis collection.

I was up to 40 species on the trip – epic by any standards.

The gang celebrates.

Speaking of slippery, a suggestion for those of you making similar trips. While I normally wear water shoes for wet wading, since we had so many days in a row, I used an old pair of low hikers. These provide a lot more stability and protection, although they have to be thrown away at the end of the trip because there is no way to ever get the smell out. The socks doubly so.

These, and the socks, were ritually buried at the end of the trip.

The socks put up quite a fight.

Sunset somewhere in Eastern Oklahoma.

Our route that night took us through Shawnee, Oklahoma.

That’s the birthplace of Brad Pitt, for those of you who don’t know the music of “Bowling for Soup.” Brad Pitt is the third-coolest person ever born in Oklahoma. (Chuck Norris is the first two.)

The 27th broke dark and rainy, but since our first stop wouldn’t be for a few hundred miles, it didn’t bother us. We had 985 miles to cover that day, so the fishing would be limited to three quick stops. This is part of the deal with long road trips, but these are actually good guys to travel with. There are always more fish to talk about, and the conversation was pleasant unless The Mucus woke up. If I started in on him too hard about the river redhorse, Chris, apart from his giant music playlist, had a great assortment of comedy clips to choose from. My personal favorite was Ron White’s routine on the digestive consequences of aging, but Larry the Cable Guy is also a genius. (If you were expecting Mozart, you have the wrong blog.)

Somewhere in the barren wildlands of Texas, we stopped at a creek that was stuffed with plains killifish. We couldn’t have been there 10 minutes, but a species is a species.

Number 41.

It was a long, long run to our final spot of the day, a creek in the middle of New Mexico, far enough off the freeway where they would never find us if we encountered a family of chainsaw murderers. We drifted small float rigs on the edge of the current, and again, in less than ten minutes, we all had Rio Grande chubs.

My 42nd and final species of the adventure. To put this in perspective, Chris got 99 – the same number Dom got in South Africa – and Brayden got 103. This took them to 628 and 643 lifetime. That puts them in roughly the top 30 in the world.

We still had five more hours to Phoenix, so there was one more stop for burgers – we’ll see if Chris ever finds the pickles. I knew, at last, I would be staying someplace with non-transparent towels and no wildlife in the shower. I knew I would be sitting down for meals and taking as long as I wanted to eat.

Sunset over Northern Arizona, just a few hours from home.

But I also knew I would miss the whole three weeks terribly – we only get so many male-bonding, weeks-long fishing trips in a lifetime. I had to grudgingly thank The Mucus, because he certainly found me a few fish, but most of all, thanks to Chris, who put up with two teenagers in the truck for 21 straight days.

Steve