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

DATELINE: APRIL 2, 2024 – PERTH, AUSTRALIA

As many times as I’ve been to Australia – and that’s at least 40 visits over the past 25 years – I had explored a curiously small amount of a very big country. I’ve hit the east coast a reasonable amount, going north to the Barrier Reef and the Gulf of Carpentaria, and south down to Melbourne, but I had never fished west of either location. That’s a lot of unexplored territory, and, according to the fish guides I read constantly, home to hundreds of fish I haven’t caught.

West Australia is a long, long way from home. We’re talking 15 hours from San Francisco to Sydney, a layover, and then five more hours to Perth. And then, if I wanted to go to any of the legendary fishing destinations up north, Exmouth in particular, that’s two more hours. Australia looks small on a wall map, but we have Mercator to blame for that.

There were three particular fish that inspired me to sit on a plane this long. The samsonfish, a jack that reputedly fights harder than a giant trevally, is off Perth in numbers, as is the dhufish, which looks like a giant silver perch. Steve Baty had regaled me with stories of the samson years ago, and the idea of one crushing a vertical jig kept me up at night. And then there was the longtail tuna, which lives further north. This bluefin variant has tormented me for years – I have been in the middle of schools of them in Australia, Oman, and the Maldives, and never had so much as a bite.

I started looking at this adventure seriously in the fall of 2023, and discussed it in depth with Dom Porcelli. We chatted for hours, mostly drooling at fish books, but we had trouble getting the schedule together – remember that he and I had a Tahiti trip planned for August of 2024, and unlike Marta, Tracy actually wanted him around the house. Then, the universe interceded. David, an old friend from my job with that big, sinister German company, randomly checked in and suggested that we put a fishing trip together. In Perth. (He lives in Singapore but is from Perth and keeps a home there.) He would get to Perth right at Easter, to visit his newborn grandson. (I razzed him for this, but David pointed out he is younger than I am.) David is not as crazed a fisherman as I am, but he said “You can go fishing, I’ll come along, drink beers, and offer criticism.” As far as peanut galleries go, he’s a savage one.

David is fluent in Australian Sign Language.

Because that week is a school holiday in Australia, we needed to move quickly. David found accommodations and liquor stores, and I set up the guides. We decided to hang around Perth for a few days, then fly up to Exmouth for four days of world-class gamefishing. It was set, and even before Christmas, I was packing and repacking my samsonfish jigs.

The flight was longer than I remember it, and there’s something discouraging about finishing 15 hours only to realize you have to find your luggage and go fly five more. But Qantas was awesome – not only friendly and efficient, but they also snuck me onto an earlier connection. I spent the flight re-reading my Field Guild to Marine Fishes of Australia and Southeast Asia by Gerald Allen – a must-read for all connoisseurs of serious literature. 

Some of the in-flight view. I’m guessing Adelaide.

I finally, finally get there, after 23 hours of travel. It was time to change underwear.              

An Uber ride later, I was set up at David’s condo, where he had generously agreed to put me up, apparently unaware of my personal hygiene. He had even arranged for bait to be left in the fridge. They wouldn’t arrive for another day or so, so he’ll never know exactly what happened to his pillows.

52 minutes later, I had three rods set up and was walking over to the harbor, which looked positively crammed with fish. I was in Western Australia, where almost everything should have been a new species. I walked over to the maze of rockwalls and breakwaters that run for miles through the harbor. I was only 200 feet onto a mole when I started spotting fish – small puffers and baitfish. I stopped. I baited. I cast.

Seconds later, I hooked something. After a brief fight, I hoisted up a whiptail-looking thing that I knew couldn’t be whiptail because whiptails don’t live in Perth. That left me with one choice – a western butterfish, which meant that I had travelled 9,155 miles and caught a new species on my first cast.

It’s great when a plan works out. You will note the Dom Porcelli signature ballcap, which goes on every trip, in his memory. I’m still putting together a Ferguson hat album of anyone who has fished with Dom, so please buy a Ferguson hat, get a fish photo in it, and send them over. (To be clear, you wear the hat. The fish doesn’t.)

After photographing the butterfish, I cast again, and caught something with brown stripes. This would be a striped trumpeter, and I was two for two.

Species 2251. I would end up pretty tired of this one shortly.

A new species on every cast was obviously not going to be sustainable, and for the next couple of hours, I regressed toward the norm. The trumpeters established themselves as the dominant pest. I also added in loads of small puffers (a previous catch from Melbourne,) and tarwhine, a previous catch from almost everywhere from Africa to Sydney.

The tarwhine. Fun to catch but amazingly widespread. My first one was in Sydney, 2440 miles east, and I have also caught them in Mozambique, another 4920 miles west.

I was getting quite a variety and some decent-sized fish, but the new ones seemed to be avoiding me. I was especially surprised that I hadn’t gotten a tommyrough, a relative of the Australian salmon (which isn’t a salmon) that is supposed to be here in droves.

Late in the afternoon, I got a whiting that looked different than the King George whiting I had been getting all day. Courtesy of Dr. Jeff Johnson, it was identified as a western trumpeter whiting, and I had three for the day.

These are not easy IDs.

A King George whiting. I caught dozens of these – a blast on light tackle. Interestingly, at least to me, it is named after Britain’s King George III, one of the more mentally ill monarchs in European history.

As the sun started going down, I got repeated small bites right at my feet in the rocks. These turned out to be Gobbleguts, a cleverly-named local cardinalfish.

Four and counting.

I had left a large bait soaking on the bottom most of the day, and had gotten a couple of tentative bites, but nothing stayed hooked. That changed shortly after dark, when my Baitrunner 4000 started screaming out line. I grabbed the rig, set the hook (not a great idea because it was a circle) and the fight was on. The reel holds about 300 yards of 30 pound braid, and I needed every inch of it as whatever I had hooked headed for the harbor mouth. It was half an hour before I started reliably gaining line, and another half an hour before the fish was back inside all the assorted obstacles I thought were going to break me off. It was a full 90 minutes before I started seeing a shape on the surface in my headlamp beam. There were loads of sharks and rays I needed in the area – I didn’t have anything except an eagle ray. 

So, of course, it was an eagle ray. But what a fight. It was a great way to close out the day, and I dropped my gear off back at the condo and headed out to a fantastic dinner. It had been an excellent start.

Sunset over Fremantle.

Passing the iconic ferrous wheel on the way to dinner. It’s made of iron.

The dinner spot. Outstanding food.

The next three days were booked with Captain Allan Bevan, one of the most highly-regarded skippers in the area and a samsonfish expert.

This is the first picture I ever saw of Allan, off his website. He is holding a positively huge Western Australian Salmon. It’s not actually a salmon, but I’ve never caught one.

I anticipated that we could spend a day jigging for the big stuff and then have plenty of time left over to catch the loads of smaller species that awaited me in local waters. This is where the weather started interfering – and remember, the Fish Gods don’t care if you flew 9,155 miles. The wind will go when the wind goes, and for the next day, Easter, it was a mess. I would be shorebound for the day.

I planned to fish the jetties again. There just had to be something new – at the very least, I could pick up one of the ubiquitous tommyroughs that I had somehow missed the day before. I gamely walked down to the southernmost rockwall early in the morning and got to work.

It was a pretty place at least.

The trumpeters rose again. I tried inside the harbor. I tried outside. I tried different lures and rigs. I caught squillions of trumpeters, quite a few butterfish, and some other assorted stuff – but nothing new. This was humbling, but Allan thought we would be able to get out the next day, so I had hope.

I did catch a very pretty juvenile butterfish.

And I randomly passed by the Halco headquarters. These guys make excellent lures – far sturdier than most of the ones we get off the shelf in the USA.

Walking around the Fremantle area, I managed to run into a few other culturally important items.

The swans here are black.

I had no idea Bon Scott was from Perth. AC/DC, played loudly, was the soundtrack for much of my high school career.

David and his surprisingly lovely wife, Rachael, flew in that day and met me for dinner.

She’s awesome. We have no idea what she’s doing with him, but she’s awesome. She and Marta should form a support group.

I kept an eye on the weather forecast all night, and it didn’t look promising – still very windy. When Allan and I spoke early on April 1, he was surprisingly optimistic, but realistic at the same time. He explained we could get out into the lee of Garden Island and catch all kinds of cool stuff, but that we wouldn’t be able to get out to the samsonfish water. I was itching to go and I’ll clearly take whatever cards are dealt. I got over to the dock at 6:30 and when I finally met Allan, it felt like meeting an old friend. 

The Boat pulls up. Note that he is sponsored by Halco.

A large, bearded man with a ready smile and a deep knowledge of local waters, he steered us out into the 10 or so miles of slop we would need to navigate.

The boys get ready to do battle. (With the fish.) Spoiler alert – the guy is awesome. If you find yourself in Perth, you can book him at https://www.shikari.com.au/.

The ride went quickly, and once we were set up, we had plenty of calm water available to us. I dropped baits on a mix of hook sizes and the occasional lure, and the catches started stacking up immediately. 

The very first fish was a flathead, and I know from experience that these can be all sorts of different species, so I made sure to photograph the head spines and the tail pattern.

It turned out to be a western bluespotted flathead, the first new species of the day.

It was still early, so I mixed in some lure fishing, and as I bounced along a small leadhead in around 80 feet of water, I got absolutely crushed. Whatever it was stripped line off so quickly that Allan had to idle the boat toward it, and it was 15 minutes before it was even off the bottom. I had high hopes for a dhufish, but low hopes of landing whatever it was – I was only on 15# braid, and I was getting fishhandled. The total fight was a little over 30 minutes, and as I got it up in the water column, I could start seeing broad silver flashes well below us. (The water was amazingly clear.) I kept saying dhufish prayers, but as the beast surfaced, I was disappointed that it wasn’t a dhufish but absolutely delighted that it was the biggest pink snapper I have ever seen – at just shy of 14 pounds, it was three times bigger than my previous largest. 

Oh hell yes.

I thought back to hundreds of hours with Scotty Lyons and never getting one over two pounds, and a few days with Shaun Furtiere, where I got a solid one, but nothing like this. I was thrilled – I’d love to get the photo to Scotty, but he seems to have dropped off social media – anyone know where to find him?

Next up was a gorgeous little fish – locally called a footballer sweep. 

This is the kind of thing I gladly fly 20+ hours to catch.

My very next bite was a little more substantial on my light rod, and I found myself battling with something that didn’t respect my light line very much. After a spirited tussle, I lifted a brownspotted wrasse on board. This is a species I had gotten in Melbourne previously, but this example was a beast. We had enough internet signal for me to determine it was a world record, and I was on the IGFA scoreboard for the trip.

World record number 233. That’s about half of Marty Arostegui’s total.

The next couple of hours were a wrasse bonanza, and I got three more new species: the western king wrasse, the blackspotted wrasse, and the redbanded. Wrasses are a fascinating and widespread family – I have caught almost 90 different types in 23 different countries, ranging from the tropics to central Norway.

The western king.

The blackspotted.

And the redbanded.

In between more quality snapper and assorted other fish, we tacked on one more species, the rough bullseye.

As I’m sure you noticed, it’s a close relative of the bullseye I got with Scotty in Port Hacking in 2017.

We made the return trip with the wind at our backs, so it was quick and easy. I knew I had a fishing contact for life here, and I just needed to get to Perth on the right week. As it was, I had a big bag of snapper fillets to take to David’s place, and we and some of their friends had a fantastic barbecue that evening. 

David and I hoped to go out with Allan on the 2nd, but the wind shifted and got stronger. We actually boarded the boat, but Allan had to call it off. He was as bummed as I was, but it really was a mess out there. Despite all that, Allan’s species mojo is so strong that I caught a new fish just casting off the boat – a black bream.

That is the first time a captain has ever gotten me a new species without untying the boat. And yes, a seagull got me.

David and I, still determined to catch something, headed up the river system in Perth and tried quite a few spots.

It was truly lovely, but we didn’t find much. I waded out in this spot to cast for flathead, only to find out later the whole river is jammed with bull sharks.

To David’s bewilderment, I spent 30 solid minutes on a school of tiny baitfish – even though he had seen me fish for small stuff previously, he hadn’t realized the full extent of the micro-obsession, and yes, he was judgmental. I finally caught one – which turned out to be a western hardyhead.

Species 12 from Perth and 2261 lifetime.

Steve and a bewildered David at the scene of the crime.

We had a wonderful meal with some of David and Rachael’s friends that evening – it’s comforting to know they trust me in public. I also can’t thank them enough for inviting me and putting up with me for several days, but in my defense, I didn’t break anything that an average forensic plumber couldn’t fix.

What exactly is an “unusual item?” I need examples.

The next day, we would be off for another adventure of a lifetime – Exmouth – a tropical fishing destination that’s about the farthest place from Sydney that’s still Australia. There were dozens of species and quite a few records available up there, so I didn’t sleep much that night, even though I stopped drinking Red Bull by 10pm.

Steve