DATELINE: JUNE 16, 2024 – RURAL NORTH CAROLINA
It had been six months since The Mucus headed off on his mission to Ecuador, but I hadn’t really gotten the chance to truly appreciate his absence, because I hadn’t gone fishing without him yet. That was all about to change.
Aaaaaaand there he is. My living reminder than not having kids was a good decision. (Perspective from Marta: As a teenager, Steve was likely just like The Mucus.)
Luckily, his Father was not in Ecuador, and wanted to go fishing. Chris and his red Dodge pickup have become a tradition for sleep-deprived, maniacal road trips across the US in search of species. The 2024 edition would be the first time I had been out with just Chris and Carson, but I think I’m still supposed to say something kind about The Mucus here.
(Crickets.)
I got into Phoenix late on a Friday, had dinner with friends, then tried to get some sleep because it would be an early morning and a lengthy drive. Getting from Arizona to available species gets longer and longer, but figure we spent at least 12 hours in the truck, which thankfully is comfortable and, as far as I’m concerned, impervious to stains.
The gang hits the road. Despite his denial that Bill Laimbeer is the greatest basketball player of all time, Carson is a great guy. He’s working and in classes now, so he’s on track to be an NBA executive by 30.
This trip was not going to be a wide-open bonanza for me. I’ve done a lot of fishing. But there were some rarer species that called to me. Besides, it was a chance to spend two and a half weeks with great friends, eating fast food, seeing the country, and not fishing with The Mucus. I was certain I would eventually miss him.
Not sure what we hit here. We definitely got the better of it.
That first day had one minor triumph, somewhere in the wilds of New Mexico, where I caught the Upper Pecos version of the roundnose minnow.
This species has been determined to be genetically distinct from other roundnose minnows, but has not been given an official species name, so it goes into ID purgatory to wait for a scientist to finish the work.
I have no explanation for this.
The roundnose had to sustain me for two days, because while Chris and Carson started running up some numbers, I was busy catching nondescript shiners and assorted panfish.
Albeit in some beautiful places.
Carson somehow hooked a very unfriendly snake.
It’s not like I was missing any obvious targets – I was hoping for some uncommon stuff, and the chips didn’t fall my way. Luckily, there was plenty of fast food.
In this case, special orders actually did upset them.
By day four, we were already into Mississippi.
Where we ate charming local cuisine.
I was getting a bit petulant – I was only on the board for half a species, and by this stage, I had expected to do better. Our morning destination was a repeat location – a small creek in Columbus, MS where I had gone on the advice of Dom Porcelli. I thought I had gotten everything there was in the place, but I also remembered that it was fun fishing, so I approached it with an open mind and good memories of Dom. Besides, there’s nothing I love more than splashing around a creek looking for fish.
McCrary Creek, Columbus, MS.
The place was teeming with life. While Chris and Carson got some rarities, like blacktail redhorse, I stayed busy with shiners, and got one that stood out. It looked sort of like one of the ubiquitous blacktails that had haunted us further west, but much skinnier. There had been rumors of a split. When we got back in the car, I did intensive research, or called Jarret, I forget which, and this fish was, indeed, a new species.
The slender blacktail. I was ecstatic. And I was even more ecstatic that this was a milestone fish – species 2300.
Moments later, I caught a shiner with bright orange fins – the aptly-named orangefin shiner, and I was up two for the day. I always encourage newer species hunters to visit locations multiple times – depending on season and conditions, places can produce entirely different stuff on any given day.
I had completely forgotten the last three days.
The following morning, somewhere in Tennessee, I added a highland shiner, sprinkled in with dozens of less-interesting Notropis nondescriptus.
Species number 2303.
A bluehead chub – beautiful photo by Carson.
We had something of an ambitious plan that night. There were supposed to be two sucker species inhabiting a creek in very Southern Virginia, so we got hotel rooms nearby and headed out to hunt some rarities. It turns out most of the rarities were in our hotel sheets, and our meteorological research missed that there had been heavy rain the week before. The water was unacceptably cloudy in the creek, and the shower. We gave it a game try well after midnight, but finally threw in the towel, which quickly disappeared, because the water was so murky.
Speaking of towels, this is an honest-to-God, unretouched photo of the towel they gave me, before I handled it. I dried off with a t-shirt.
Unaware of the desperate conditions in the guest rooms, the manager’s cat was sweet and playful.
The following day, we bounced around a few locations, but our main goal was night fishing for the elusive torrent sucker. We got to our spot late afternoon, and we saw a few suckers, but they showed no interest. No stranger to sucker fishing, I realized it was likely to be long night, so I took careful stock of the available Red Bull and Cheez-Its.
Carson and Chris both got theirs within an hour of sundown, and they encouraged me to come up to the pool they were fishing. I stubbornly spent a couple of hours trying to get one particular fish to bite, which it wouldn’t. It was almost time for the late news when I made the common-sense decision and moved up where the guys had both caught theirs.
I faced the “nocturnal fish paradox.” If it’s dark, you can’t see the fish without light, but if the fish is nocturnal, it doesn’t like light. So, you can not scare the fish but have low odds of catching it, or you can spook the fish but at least see what you’re presenting to. This is also known as “The Pirate Perch Effect.”
I suffered with this for another hour. I would see one, but it would freak out because of my headlamp and flee or not bite. I tried my best to use a dim setting and take direct light off any fish I spotted, but if you figure there were five different fish in that pool, I had annoyed them all. But persistence is a powerful thing, even when it ranges into stupidity, and I eventually got one to sit still and sniff my offering. As I held my breath and squinted into the dim depths, the fish moved up a little, then took off with my bait. I lifted back hard, and the fish, likely rather surprised, sailed through the air and landed on my tackle bag.
I had added another sucker – my 41st from the group.
The next day, we explored the Roanoke River in Virginia, the scene of some previous adventures with the fabled “Uncle Pat.” We picked random riffles to explore, and Chris and Carson caught riverweed darters instantly, while I did not. It took some going over their run, but I finally did add the darter and get on the board.
The savage riverweed darter.
We also visited another area of the river to address a years-old fish ID issue. The chubs in this region, especially if they aren’t large male specimens, can be difficult to pin down. I had likely caught bull chubs before, but could not make a positive ID. We had both good information on where the fish were and very detailed ID elements to look for, and I am pleased to report I can finally count one.
The beast, species eight of the trip.
That night, we made a poor decision, based pretty much on hope and ignoring all science and common sense. We went back to Southern Virginia and took another shot at the suckers. The main creek was still a mess, so we gave up on that quickly. It was late, and we still could have gotten some sleep, but we were so obsessed that we rolled the dice and went to a tiny tributary that we reasoned might be clearer. It was, but access was horrific, and only one person at a time could drop down to a tiny ledge below a rickety one-lane bridge. I drew the short straw, so Carson went first. We definitely saw a few suckers, which got our attention for the evening. I fished from the bridge, but it was a longshot to try to present to occasional fish looking straight down on them with a headlamp.
An hour or two into the ritual, Carson whooped as he hooked up and somehow managed to keep a fish on the line despite swinging it all over the river before Chris grabbed it out of midair. It was a rustyside sucker, and we were committed for as long as it would take us. Chris gingerly traded places with Carson, and kept getting occasional shots at fish.
Carson’s rustyside. Well done, dude.
It got very late, and we all acknowledged that we were strangers in very rural country. Chris made the first “Deliverance” joke. Just then, a 1970’s vintage car, with original paint and original oil, came roaring onto our little side street, stopped just in front of us, and rolled the window down. We couldn’t see the driver because of the single bright headlight, but he yelled “Do you believe in Bigfoot?” I quickly responded “You know my stepmother?” The driver yelled “Bigfoot is real!” and drove off into the night. We were stunned, slightly frightened, and amused. I imagine he felt the same.
We decided it was time to leave.
In the morning, we were off to the south again, hopscotching through river systems on a day that would end with two species and a heavy dose of humility.
After a number of false starts, I ended up with a Pinewoods shiner.
Again, I managed to catch the most dully-colored specimen in the entire spot. Some of the fish were practically glowing, and I got this.
Each day had a few gorgeous spillways like this. I could spend all day at each of them, which would make the trips a lot longer.
Randomly on the sidewalk nearby. She did some beautiful music.
It was then time for some overdue revenge. I had unsuccessfully pursued speckled killifish several times, including that epic day where some local thought we were terrorists. This time, I actually saw them. (The killifish, not the terrorists.) This time, they stayed more or less in one place, until some drunk teenager stumbled through my spot and delayed the process an hour.
But I finally got one, and before anyone starts making fun of the size, this is actually a huge speckled killifish – only 14.5 ounces shy of a world record.
The humility came shortly afterward. One of the trophies in the area is a Roanoke bass, a rock bass relative that has a fairly small range. Carson was obsessed with catching one, while I was obsessed with going for a pizza. I had fished this spot previously, and had never seen a Roanoke anything there, so I strongly encouraged the boy to leave. He was not to be dissuaded, and he disappeared up to the spillway, where he remained missing for around an hour. Chris and I both texted and called him repeatedly, but he was unresponsive, and started to make me long for The Mucus.
Just then, the boy showed up with the largest Roanoke Bass I have ever seen.
Well played, Carson.
I briefly thought this meant we could go for pizza, but Chris hadn’t caught a Roanoke either. He too was hungry, but he looked at the fish imploringly, then looked at me even more imploringly, and off he went. It didn’t take long.
Both fish were close to a pound. Who knew.
When you’re on the road for three weeks, you have to be budget conscious and there may not be that many choices. Still, our lodgings in Rockingham, NC stood out. The sink had hot and cold running rust and the pool was “closed for maintenance” but was most likely “closed until new forms of life develop.”
It smelled just like you would expect it to.
Who even thinks of putting up a sign like this? I would never, ever go near a pool with this sign, unless, of course, I had diarrhea, because the pool was still nicer than the bathroom.
We headed south again in the morning. We took a crack at some darters in a rural creek, but a local ran us off on the odd theory that he owned the creek and all the parking anywhere near the creek. Species hunting often calls for us to get in creeks that may, at some stage, run through private property. Generally, most US waterways are public, as long as they are “navigable,” but this is not a good argument to have with someone who is heavily armed. We try to let common sense and courtesy be our guide. While the dude was not openly hostile, and the road and access were clearly public, he was carrying at least four firearms, so we were on our way.
We then caught up with local species hunting guru Tim Aldridge. He’s good guy who has encyclopedic knowledge of the regional fish, especially the ones that live in dense swamps filled with snakes and spiders. He had given me previous advice on places as far afield as Wisconsin, and it was great to meet him in person.
We drove to a small, fast-slowing creek and got to it. Within moments, I added a darter – the Southern Tesselated.
I felt myself longing for Southwestern England, because if I caught this fish there, I could have called the blog “Tesselated of the D’Ubervilles.” Who says that English Lit class with Professor Dale never paid off?
I also tacked on two shiners at the same spot.
The comely shiner.
The highfin shiner. These took me to 13 for the trip, which made me feel pretty good about things so far.
Our evening didn’t go as well. We slogged so far back into a swamp I expected to see Yoda training Luke.
The name alone should have made us reconsider.
It looked full of possibilities, so we forgot about having our legs covered with foul-smelling muck and nearly losing Carson on one of the crossings. Alas, the nighttime beasts did not come out for us, so we parted ways with Tim, and our group headed further south before sacking out for the night after multiple showers. With Brillo.
Carson was always ready to fish until 3am, because, like his brother, he napped all day.
This was as far from home as we got, and the rest of the way – eight more days – would be gradually working our way back west. I was ahead 13, and had put a few major species onto the list. But the back end of the trip would end up with a few truly epic surprises, the foremost of which would involve Chris’ left ankle.
Steve
Leave a Reply