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

DATELINE: AUGUST 16, 2024 – MOOREA, FRENCH POLYNESIA

“Southern Cross” may be my favorite song of all time, even though I didn’t understand half the lyrics for much of my life. The internet is meant to solve problems like this, and one sleepless night a few years ago, I finally got online and figured out what Stephen Stills was talking about.

Got out of town on a boat going to southern islands, sailing a reach before a following sea.

She was making for the trades on the outside, and the downhill run to Papeete. 

I had never put together that Papeete is the capital of French Polynesia, or what I have always just called Tahiti. (Tahiti, as it turns out, is just one of the many islands that comprise the country.) I discovered this well after Dom Porcelli and I had set up a fishing trip there.

I miss Dom. It seemed like forever since he passed away, but it had been less than five months. (Remember, I’m writing about last year.) I think about Dom all the time – everyone’s best buddy, fishing friend to strangers, family man, mostly-proud dog owner. He comes up almost every time I talk to one of the gang – some odd species caught only because Dom stayed out late on his boat, or drove that last 60 miles at midnight, or found some obscure spot now lost to history. It was a journey writing the Africa blogs after he was gone, really his story more than mine, and then working through that final November 2023 trip to Florida that went so badly wrong.

Dom Porcelli.

I decided quickly to do the trip anyway – the show must go on – but I needed to find a volunteer to fill Dom’s soaking wet low hikers. It took one phone call. Gerry Hansell, the Chicago-based, adult-onset species hunter, was up for the twin challenge of a long flight to the South Pacific and six days fishing with me.

The trip was going to be a bonanza for Gerry, but realistically, I hoped for around 10 new species. I’ve fished the region quite a bit, but each island seems to have something that won’t bite anywhere else. Tops on my list were a titan triggerfish and a dogtooth tuna, and the guide, Captain Matahi Ateni, thought we had a shot at both.

The flight from San Francisco to Papeete is a quick 9 hours. They land in the evening, so we had to wait for a morning ferry to Moorea, a quieter island about 25 miles away.

Standard arrival shot. This would be my 99th country visited, although I had not caught a fish in four of them. (Venezuela, El Salvador, Russia, and The Vatican. Yes, The Vatican City is a country, and yes, I plan on catching a fish there someday.)

A better-planned shot with some local culture.

We spent that first evening running errands to make sure we would be fully prepared. We obtained items as diverse as a case of Red Bull and a blender. (Gerry makes healthy smoothies for breakfast. I would only use a healthy smoothie in self-defense.)

I would not have expected this to be a brand name in a French-speaking country. Unless it’s made by a German company, and then it’s pretty funny.

I was more impressed with this. Interestingly, these were surrounded by German products. Gerry wanted to buy it, but I said “Nuts.” (This is a history joke, and a bad one at that. If anyone but Lee Sullivan gets this, I’ll buy you a pizza.)

Gerry was palpably excited for the next day, and had clearly done his homework. Not only he was naming tropicals I had never heard of, he also rattled off some freshwater opportunities I hadn’t considered. (Which actually led to near-disaster. See below.)

The ferry was quick and organized, and we were in Moorea harbor in about 45 minutes. While we waited for the shuttle to the resort, we inspected the shoreline. We were stunned.

The place looked like a tropical aquarium, clear blue for 30 feet, hundreds of fish, small and large, in a wide range of sizes and colors.

Still, we reasoned that the first place we saw on the trip could not possibly be the best place, so we headed off to our lodgings, a small resort perhaps 30 minutes away.

We got unpacked, put some rods together, and explored the beach in front of the hotel. Even this small, sandy patch was loaded with mullet, flagtails, and a few huge rays. As there were other guests around, it would have been tasteless to catch the rays (these are also considered sacred and hence off limits anyway.)

You can imagine how frustrating this was for me.

We had two days of shore fishing before we would be fishing on a boat for four more, so there was plenty of time to explore. We stopped at the local supermarket for assorted bait, and drove back to the ferry landing. We both set up a sabiki rod and something for larger species, and, after all that travel and preparation, we were finally fishing.

Damn the place was beautiful. Way more beautiful than I imagined, and I can imagine a lot. I’ve been to the most remote corners of Hawaii. I’ve been to Fiji and the Maldives. Heck, I’ve even been to Cleveland.

As soon as the sabikis hit the water, we got fish after fish. I hardly knew where to start – everything looked new and wondrous. I had to stop and take a breath to make sure I took even semi-decent photos. That half day was a triumph, with five new species for me. These were:

The bicolor chromis. This meant that French Polynesia was now the 95th country where I had caught a fish.

The lemonpeel angelfish. Only my third angelfish species, I spent the majority of the time there trying to sight fish one. Although I finally did catch this marvelous creature, I question whether my target-fixation is a good or bad thing.

The lattice soldierfish, which spellcheck originally corrected to “laxative” soldierfish.

Solander’s toby, another one of those really cool small puffers.

And finally, the ninestripe cardinalfish, which I actually caught at the resort.

Five species in a day. More than I expected, and epic in my book. We had five more days left, four on a boat, so my hopes were very high for continued success. I also caught some critters that I had gotten before, but I’m still going to post them because they are so darn gorgeous.

For example, a beastly sapphire damsel. (Which I first caught in the Maldives.)

And an adorable orange-lined triggerfish, which I first apprehended on the Great Barrier Reef. If memory serves, I still have the world record on this species.

The next morning, I made a quick stop in front of the resort and caught a squaretail mullet.

Species six of the trip.

We then got in the car and headed inland. Gerry had done some excellent research – there were apparently some creeks that held a variety of sleepers and gudgeons, and I looked forward to a little bit of midwestern-style creek-hopping. Little did we know that terror awaited us. Luckily, when you’re wet-wading, nobody can tell if you wet your pants.

It started harmlessly. We found a beautiful freshwater stream, parked our car, and got light gear ready. Some random French guy came by and parked right behind us, and, as he started to ride off on his bike and leave his car within feet of ours, he told me that we shouldn’t park there. (Remember this place is a French possession, although the Tahitians never surrendered to anyone.) Dick.*

We stepped into the water and began sight casting to some assorted small creatures that were holding in a shallow riffle. Both of us caught a dusky sleeper, which was a neat new species.

The water was shallow and appeared to be completely safe.

We had just begun a more detailed hunt for a goby when it happened. I was casting a smallish piece of shrimp on a jighead. It drifted into the deepest part of a small undercut, maybe two feet at most. I let it sit, and as I started to reel, it hung up, which was bound to happen sooner or later. I tried to gently work it out with no luck, then began snapping the rod back to see if I could get dislodged. After I pulled hard a few times, something decided to pull back, and then it started slowly taking drag. I was bewildered.

I leaned back and put as much pressure as I thought the hook would stand. Whatever it was had moved downstream about 20 feet and was shaking back and forth and kicking up a cloud of mud. I walked downstream and kept on pressure, and then whatever it was swam back upstream. As I continued to lean hard on it, it began swimming more aggressively and trying to get under the bank.

Perhaps five minutes into the battle, it showed itself. I was dumbfounded. It was a positively enormous freshwater eel. As big around as my arm and at least five feet long, it was terrifying – and I had been wading just a few feet from where I hooked it.

Ten minutes later, I gently slipped a boga grip onto its jaw and landed the largest Anguilla species I had ever seen – 20+ pounds and over five feet. I was just glad to get it back into its home and walk away safely. And that was it for my freshwater fishing on this trip.

We found out later these creatures are considered sacred by the islanders, and when we looked at some of the coastal creeks, there were hundreds of them. So don’t swim there.

We decided to hit a few shorelines and piers that he had found, and we spent the spent the rest of the afternoon enjoyably, with me catching reef fish and Gerry being broken off by something large and hateful. He kept pitching bigger baits into a dropoff maybe 50 yards out, and he kept connecting with some kind of beast that would run him back and forth for a while then break his line. I had my suspicions that these were reef sharks, but GTs are also a suspect.

Gerry gamely reties his leader.

I added a yellow dascyllus, so that took me to four for the day. And we had four boat days ahead of us. The odds were gigantically in my favor for a big week.

I would have gladly traded my sister for a lagoon triggerfish just a few years ago, and now I’m catching two at a time.

As the sun went down, we decided it was time for dinner. We are definitely different eaters, but most humans who have survived to 60 do not eat like I do. Gerry, like a normal person, wanted to try assorted local restaurants and cuisines. I would be perfectly happy with a mix of REI camping food and some sort of touristy restaurant that serves overpriced local seafood. We did find common ground at a food truck, of all places, which whipped up a mean chicken curry. (Made from mean chickens.)

The next day began the boat phase of the trip. Captain Matahi and deckhand Tuahere were simply awesome – friendly, knowledgeable guys who were clearly going to do whatever it took to catch up some great fish. I knew I had fewer prospects for much of the boat excursion, as we would be looking for offshore species that I had caught previously, but fishing is fishing, anything can happen, and I was in a beautiful place with a great friend. I could actually, God forbid, just relax a little and enjoy the place.

Matahi and Tuahere. Highly recommended. You can find them at MooreaFishingAdventures.com.

We started with bottom fishing on some shallow reefs.

Everything was this beautiful. And jammed with fish.

The area was loaded with stingrays, which would have been a new species but they, as I mentioned earlier, are off limits.

Imagine how frustrating this was for me.

Gerry did get an eagle ray by accident, which was quickly released. For you fellow fish geeks, this family has been recently split, so check those old photos.

We headed out to the west of the island and did some trolling, then worked our way back across dozens of impossibly blue coral reefs. On one of the deeper ones, I got a golden hind, a type of small grouper that was added to the list after considerable ID work by Dr. Jeff Johnson.

Thank you again Dr. Johnson.

I scraped up a new flagtail in a creek on the way home, so it wasn’t a bad day.

I had 11 species, and we had three days of boat fishing left.

On day two, we did some more trolling then moved inshore to the reefs. Gerry was racking up quite a score, and even though I wasn’t continuing my torrid pace from the first couple of days, I was catching a ton of fish and having a great time. As we approached the dock, I realized I hadn’t gotten a new species that day. Impossible, I thought to myself. After we landed, I spent at least an hour hunting the nearshore coral for stonefish.

Yes, I want to catch a stonefish. But please remember they do not make good pillows, and never, ever put them in your pants.

Matahi’s one-eyed cat liked to visit me in the bathroom.

Boat day two took us way offshore, looking for any big game for Gerry to tack onto his list. (I had my own agenda – there are spearfish here.) We put some nice tuna in the boat, and the rods were bent most of the day. I did have one heartbreaking moment when my tuna bait got hammered by an oceanic whitetip shark, which came to the boat and then nonchalantly bit me off.

One of Gerry’s big skipjack, trolled on a Stella 20000 and a Sportex heavy travel spinning rod. Note the Ferguson hats.

Gerry does battle with a tuna. We were at least 30 miles out, and this was as rough as it got. I never understood the whole black sun shirt thing, but he looked a lot more stylish than I did.

I was so busy catching fish and watching Gerry log new ones that I hardly noticed I hadn’t caught anything new in two days. I spent another couple of hours looking for a stonefish, which seem to show up only when they are not wanted, which is almost always.

Our third boat day found me getting a little antsy. We went out and loaded up on tuna – both yellowfin and albacore, but I could not dredge up a dogtooth. (The Seychelles beckon.)

I won’t ever turn down yellowfin, one of the toughest fights in the ocean.

Whiny as I may sound, it’s still pretty awesome to catch tuna, and I had no idea the place was loaded with big albacore.

I increased my personal best by 3x.

In case I hadn’t mentioned how beautiful the place was.

We then worked back into the reefs on the south side of Moorea, and finally, the slump, if you can call it that, was broken. I pulled up a small grouper, which turned out to be the aptly-named hexagonal grouper, and I was finally up to 12 for the trip.

And there was much rejoicing.

Unexpectedly, I also caught a rather large floral wrasse, a species I had previously gotten in Malaysia. On a hunch, I checked the IGFA database, and this was indeed an open species – so I added record number 240.

I could now confidently say I was halfway to Marty Arostegui’s number.

But Gerry was quietly running up a huge score himself. One of his most impressive catches came back in the shallow water – some kind of huge cowfish that wouldn’t bite for me.

This was at least the third fish Gerry could have turned in for a world record, but that’s just not his thing.

For our final day with Matahi, our weather luck ran out, and there was wind. Our skipper was nonplussed – he just switched sides of the island and we continued to fish perfectly flat water. I appreciated Matahi’s attention to this, and Gerry doubly so, as Gerry can become impressively seasick in the wrong conditions.

I caught nearly a hundred fish, but alas, not one of them was new. I gained some consolation from catching a one pound goldspot emperor, which gave me world record number two.

The emperor in question.

I should mention that Gerry caught a panther flounder that would have easily been a world record, but again decided not to go through the paperwork. He was ahead 41 species for the week, an excellent haul, especially considering some of them were large, angry pelagics.

The whole Moorea gang. The crew were truly excellent fishermen.

That last evening, Gerry found a local outdoor restaurant that served an excellent steak frites, and we chatted over what had been an outstanding seven days.

Gerry and Steve at dinner.

We toasted our success, we toasted the excellent weather, we toasted Matahi and Tuahere, and most of all, we drank to Dom’s memory. Not a single species had been added without thinking of him and all the work he had done to set the trip up in the first place.

Steve

*For purposes of this story, let’s say his name actually was Richard.