DATELINE: APRIL 5, 2025 – THE MOST ISOLATED PART OF NEVADA IMAGINEABLE
At this stage of my career, I often find myself going long distances after a single target, usually revisiting a location I hit before and cleaned out the easier stuff. This gives me something to do when Marta is off at yoga retreats, but the disadvantage is that it’s hard to build an interesting blog (and “interesting” is a highly subjective term here) around that one species.
Therefore, to save you four single-species writeups, I have combined these trips into a single post, mostly because Marta keeps sending me editorial notes like “TLDR.”
Administratively, this one will be a little confusing, because I’m lumping in four trips, starting with one in January 2025 and finishing with one in April. The next blog in sequence, a magnificent and much more readable journey to Central America, occurs in February, so that should restore your timeline to normality and keep this from reading like a Marvel movie.
PART ONE – REDONDO BEACH, JANUARY – (Marta made me put these in because she thinks you’re easily confused by my jumping from topic to topic. Preposterous.)
It began early in 2025, when a random shot at a troublesome species led to what Marta likes to call “a terrible decision.” LA-based species whiz Zach, who you may remember from “The Redondo Beach Boys,” had developed very good intel on where to catch Coralline sculpin, a fish so maddeningly rare that Neil Diamond wrote a song about it. (“Song Sung Blue” – go see the movie right away. At least the first 45 minutes.)
It was mid-January, and Los Angeles, which is where this fish lives, was on fire. And yet I got in my car and drove there – right through the middle of the city to get to Redondo Beach. But the place is so vast that, apart from a few closed exits on 405, I never saw any evidence that 18,000+ homes were being destroyed. (Most of the damage was well to the northwest of where I went.)
I got into Redondo around noon. It was strangely peaceful afternoon – gorgeous weather, especially for January. I picked up Zach just after school, around 3pm, and we headed south, from insane real estate prices into completely insane real estate prices, and finally, to the cliffs at Palos Verdes. I had never been to Palos Verdes, and my only connection to it was an especially humbling afternoon in college when I sent roses to the best-looking woman in my dormitory, Mandy from Palos Verdes. I think her boyfriend ate them.
Back in the present day, I was beginning to realize that “the cliffs of Palos Verdes” was a lot more literal than I wanted it to be. As we peered down at the target tidepools, I looked vainly for a path, or some hint from Zach that a helicopter was coming. I finally asked him how the heck we were going to get down there. He looked over at me, thought for a moment, and said “Slowly.”
I did a lot of it on my buttocks, but we got to the water.
I headed for the closest pools, but Zach warned me that only the third set of crevices held the fish we wanted, and that we would have to gather brine shrimp for bait. “It’s a sculpin.” I claimed. “They will eat anything we put in front of them.” Zach responded quietly. “These things only eat the shrimp.” If I have learned one thing over the years, it’s to respect local knowledge. That kid spent a lot of hours not catching fish to figure out how to catch one, and my hat is off to him.
The actual process was undramatic but unjust. We netted shrimp, baited up, and went wading. I spotted a couple of regular sculpins, but Zack spotted the first coralline. I eased the bait down to it, and it pounced right away. My first fish of 2025 was a new species, the first time I have ever done that.
I sang to myself – “Sweet coralline. Bah, bah, bah.” This joke was lost on Zach, and at least 70% of you. Dated as my cultural references can be, they are my cultural references and I will stick with them.
The unjust part – it was a beautifully-marked specimen, with bright pink and orange patches and perfectly-formed circles on the lower body. Zach had caught dozens of corallines, but never a gorgeous one.
Zach at work in his native element.
My guilt subsided quickly. I splashed around the pool another half an hour, catching two more corallines that I spotted myself, and we were off to Chick-Fil-A.
A gorgeous sunset off the cliffs. That’s Catalina to the far left, scene of some amazing fishing trips with Ben Florentino.
We did a brief attempt at reef finspot that night, but that species had long since become my tidepool spearfish.
PART TWO – SAN DIEGO, FEBRUARY (As if I ever change topics with no warning.)
Our next chapter, some six weeks later, takes us 400 miles north and then 500 miles back south, to lovely San Diego, where my company had decided to hold a kickoff event. San Diego has given me 15 years of nonstop success, largely due to the patient efforts of Captain James Nelson. There isn’t a bunch left for me there, except for the random grunts that bratty kid from Indiana keeps catching the week after I leave, and, of course, the aforementioned reef finspot, a fish that has vexed me for a decade. Most of the folks I know who have caught one have caught it in San Diego, but only on big minus tides in the middle of the night.
One of our company events was held at the Petco Park. As they Padres have never won a World Series, they have tributes to the two years they at least made it to the Fall Classic, and I stumbled upon a relic of one the best weeks in my life – when my beloved Tigers destroyed the Padres in 5 games to claim the 1984 championship.
Goose Gossage still regrets throwing that pitch to Kirk Gibson. I don’t think the ball has landed yet.
The moment I found out I was heading south, the first thing I did was look at the tide charts. To my delight, there was a nice -1.4 tide the day after the business ended – at 2:45am. Many of you are sitting at your computer saying “Awwww, too bad it was too late to go fishing.” Anyone who says that lacks dedication. I thought it was perfect. That gave me the chance to finish up work, check into a new hotel near the finspot, and head out for the day with Captain James (and a special guest, Zach of coralline sculpin fame.)
It’s always fun to get out onto San Diego Bay and toss around some lures. We caught loads of barracuda, quite a few bay bass, and assorted croakers, but alas, nothing new. We also soaked plenty of squid, and awkwardly, I caught a diamond ray right in front of Zach, who hasn’t gotten that one yet.
The gang and a nice spotted bay bass. If you’re ever in San Diego, you gotta get out with James – you can contact him by clicking HERE.
I headed back to the Hyatt, had a burger in the bar, and got some shuteye until 1:45am, when 3 different alarms went off. My tanago gear was rigged and ready, and I just had to walk down to the back of the property, pass one very bewildered security guard, and nose around the lowest exposed rocks on the shoreline. In deference to my 61 year-old eyesight, I use a very, very bright headlamp. This creates what I call “The Cryptic Fish Paradox.” You can’t catch them unless you see them, but if they see light, they spook and take off. Basically, my strategy becomes to find the one badass finspot who will stare me down and bite anyway. Or burn their corneas out. I’m good either way.
As I peered into the shallow, clear water, I started seeing little pairs of eyes reflecting back at me. Some of these will be shrimp, which have caused more false micro-fish alarms than any other creature. But several of them were definitely fish. It was a windless, mild night, and trying to keep my industrial headlamp off to the side as much as I could, I lowered the bait in front of the tiny shadow below me. It scurried off. Same with the next few. But about five fish into the session, one bit. I lifted back hard on my 11′ tenkara rod and swung a small fish through the air into my left hand. My heart skipped a beat as I opened my hand, but alas, it was a bay blenny, a fish I had caught with Ben Cantrell not too far from here.
20 minutes later, a got another blenny. But I knew the finspots were there. I had seen them. Straining my head to keep as little light as possible on a promising set of glowing miniature eyes, I saw a fish dart out of a crevice and attack my bait. I swung it out of the water, and could see there was a reef finspot on the end of my line. It took perhaps 1.5 seconds to swing it up onto the walkway, but it seemed like an hour. I had, at long last, and well after everyone I know, caught the reef finspot. I yelled in triumph, attracting the security guard yet again.
This is what passes for my ecstatic look at 3am.
And of course this one gets a closeup. This fish cost me a lot of hours of sleep.
I also saw this sticker on a boat. This is what happens when men name stuff without adult supervision, and while I love it, you have to think there’s some family dysfunction lurking in the background. Imagine if the owner actually has a daughter – or ever worse – if he has two.
PART THREE – TAMPA BAY, MARCH
Three weeks later, I found myself enroute to Tampa, Florida, to fish with old buddy Ryan Crutchfield – the man who helped organize my 2000th species.
We decided to spend serious time hunting gulf flounder and grass porgy, both creatures being caught in the area fairly often by children, so how hard could it be?
A pelican kept me company while I didn’t catch a grass porgy. Coincidentally, this is the exact spot where the Great Road Trip of 2014 wrapped up.
We spent one day fishing jetties and another from a rental boat, and while we caught dozens of great speckled trout and other assorted bay residents, the target species never did show. So, to be clear, it was great fishing, just not the right fish.
Ladyfish on light tackle are one of the better fights you can find. They jump like tarpon, pull hard, and most importantly, aren’t fussy about what they eat.
Ryan is a wizard with jigs.
The gulf flounder is becoming a real pain in the ass.
But Tampa does have Skyline Chili, so all was not lost.
On our last day, we luckily had a good old-fashioned slam dunk – the diamond killifish. This beast was a bit emotional for me, because The Mucus caught one out of the blue a few years ago right in front of me. I have two words for you, Mucus – River Redhorse. Ryan and I arrived at a particular swamp around 11am, and I could see dozens of little fish gliding around the surface. “Which ones are diamond killis?” I asked. He responded “All of them.” It took one cast.
Oh, if they could all be this easy.
And I think my specimen was far beastlier than The Mucus’.
Yes, one species is more than enough of an excuse to fly 5000 miles. Besides, it’s always great to get on the water with Ryan, and then have pizza with his family. They’re awesome.
THE FOURTH AND FINAL PART – RURAL NEVADA, APRIL
And finally, trip four – where we save the stupidest for last. Marta was gone for the weekend at some work thing, so I figured I would road trip and track down some geographically inadvisably creature. I was picturing something up the north coast, but Chris Moore, bless his heart, talked me into driving all the way to Las Vegas. There were, according to him, some aquarium escapees that had taken up lodgings at some hot springs in parts of Nevada that are rarely visited. He had seemed to catch them with relative ease a few months ago, and that information was good enough for me.
It is a very long way to Vegas, and I don’t enjoy Vegas all that much. So, after a desolate all-day drive, I took up modest lodgings on the outskirts of town, ate at Denny’s, and got to sleep before I could think too hard about heading down to the Bellagio and putting my life saving on the Lions to win the Super Bowl.
But you do have to respect Frank and Dean.
The next morning found me exploring Rogers Hot Springs. It’s always loaded with mollies and mutant Texas cichlids, but once in a while, something cool will show up, like a freshwater angelfish for Carson. This was not to be my day, so I found more Red Bull and drove all the way up to the Ely area, where a particular hot spring is supposed to be loaded with, and I don’t make these names up, the false yellowjacket cichlid. What the hell are they, and why can’t we import real ones?
These are long, flat drives, and there are only so many times you can tell yourself that’s beautiful, sparse scenery and just face the fact it’s a desolate hellscape. There’s a reason they tested atom bombs here.
Honestly, can you tell if this has been nuked or not?
Still, the spring was a lovely little patch in the middle of nowhere.
And the local ranch was cleverly named. Again, this is what happens when you let men name things by themselves.
My buddy Chris Moore (alleged Father of The Mucus) had indicated these fish were quite aggressive, so I went in pretty confident. I saw cichlids. They seemed rather cooperative, and after a few false starts, I got one. Just like that. But, as a college girlfriend, Lauren, used to say to me quite often – “Not so fast, bubblehead.” As I compared my catch to some online photos of my target, I became concerned that I had the wrong critter.
After texting with Chris, it became clear – I had the wrong fish. Even worse, what I was catching was one of those dreadful, hard-to-identify things that was probably an offshoot of something I had gotten before.
If any of you have any idea what the hell this is, please contact me on S_Wozniak10@Yahoo.com. If you get me a definite ID, you win a pizza with me. If you get a definite ID and it’s a new species, you get a pizza with Marta.
What I was looking for was more of an off-brand Jaguar Guapote, with a longer body and much more powerful jaws. This meant it was late in the day and I hadn’t caught anything new. Walking around the spring and examining the dense weeds, now and then I would see a larger shape gliding around, generally near the surface. I started chumming some bread into the water. Moments later, something exploded on top and grabbed one of the floating pieces. I reasoned that a surface presentation would be my best bet.
Using the floating bread flake technique I learned from Roger Barnes in England, I pitched a piece of bread out to the other bank and watched it slowly waterlog. Just as I was questioning whether I should have changed my four-pound leader, the fish answered the question for me. I got another big blowup, a hard run, and an unmistakable, sickening snap. It would have taken me less than a minute to tie on a more appropriate leader, like 12 pound fluoro, and it might have cost me a species.
I rerigged and got hit again right away, but I missed the hookset. Noting that the light was starting to fade, I recognized the utter silliness of driving what would end up 1100 miles and ending up with one or two casts to get my fish. But good fishermen, like good punters and bad mathematicians, have short memories. I just made sure the bait was perfect and that I landed my cast, and this time, when he ran off with it, I counted to three and leaned into him. He was on, well-hooked and giving a solid fight – all of these cichlids seem to be spunky. It took me a moment to get him over to the bank, and I got my new Merrell low hikers soaking wet making sure I got him firmly in hand. I had added a species, without long to spare, and I had that to comfort me on the 550 miles home the next day that I drove in socks because my shoes were drying.
The beast, in my new photo tank that’s too big for darters and too small for false yellowjacket cichlids.
Note the jaw and teeth.
So over those four creatures you have now suffered through, we’re talking an investment of 1700 miles of driving and about 7000 flight miles. Roughly fifty hours of travel, and we’re talking about less than a pound of new fish. Those of you who didn’t stop reading after the finspot are questioning how it could be worth it, and all I can say is that it just is. Whatever number I’ll finish at, I’m four more closer to it, and each one holds great memories of what I had to go through to make the catch; the friends I saw, the Skyline Chili, and of course, the fact that Marta would be waiting at home for me, knowing she would have to look at least faintly eager to see a photo of whatever it was that I caught.
Steve
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