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

DATELINE: AUGUST 25, 2025 – LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

The Fish Gods work closely with the Weather Gods, generally against me. If even one of these deities gives a bad signal, smart people give it a miss, and when both are portending poorly, it’s time to binge-watch Last Man Standing. And yet, because I am stubborn and often have nothing better to do, I rarely cancel trips despite obvious signs that frustration is the only thing on the menu. Some call this determined. Some call this stupid. You be the judge.

This adventure started through the web of internet connections stemming from Martini and Ben Cantrell, leading to the Moore family, eventually leading me to Mark in New Jersey. Mark is a very well-regarded species hunter based in the Garden State, and he has figured out almost everything that lives in the area, salt and freshwater. The main fish I wanted were big ocean species – various rays and especially a sand tiger shark – but there were also more than a dozen excellent freshwater targets.

In good weather.

This is where I just didn’t get the hint. The weather turned FOUL. A hurricane worked its way up the east coast, and while NJ didn’t get a direct hit, there was plenty of wind and rain.

This is a giant sign to stay home.

Did that stop me? Of course not. But it did stop the fish. I had a day of micros come to naught because of the rain, and then a saltwater pier jaunt that netted exactly one small sharpnose shark because the wind was blowing 30+ all damn day.

The beast.

The coastal flooding should have been a big hint.

By the time Mark was free to fish with me, I was one big ball of frustration. I had been at it for two long days with nary a species to show for it, and conditions were still unsettled. To top it all off, one of the pitching aces from my beloved 1972 Tigers, Joe Coleman, passed away.

I still own this exact baseball card. At least we still have Mickey Lolich.

Mark and I tried a few freshwater ideas, but we didn’t find pirate perch or mudminnow. As it approached midnight, we decided to move from something difficult to something nearly impossible – the eastern creek chubsucker. These satanic little fish are a close cousin to the reviled western creek chubsucker, a creature noted for almost never biting. What the hell, I figured – let’s really put me over the edge emotionally.

Mark led me into a full-on smelly swamp, where each footstep gooshed ankle-deep into sulfuric muck, and I expected to see some part of Jimmy Hoffa float to the surface. Fifteen minutes into our search, we spotted the fish, much, much bigger than the western I had caught. “Holy #$%@” I said. “That’s a big chubsucker.” Mark let me know they actually get much larger. There is actually a world record on them – one and a half pounds by Anthony Russo II of Pennsylvania. He is my new hero.

I upsized my bait and eased it toward the fish. It didn’t seem very light shy, and I figured it didn’t have to be because it probably didn’t see us as a threat because it had no plans to eat. To my great surprise, it ate immediately. I was in no way ready for it, and before either of us could grab the fish, it popped off the hook.

Mark tried to take the blame, but I was the one holding the rod. As I started breathing again and tried to deal with my crushing disappointment, I noticed that the fish had settled right back into the same little break in the weeds and was staring at us mockingly. I put on a fresh bait and went right back at him. Nothing happened. The fish would look at the worm and ease an inch to the left, then ease back, all the while giving me the furry eyeball. Still, nothing happened, for 45 minutes.

But I stayed there 46 minutes. And in that 46th minute, the fish, while looking directly into my tortured soul, slurped in the bait. I reacted instantly, and the fight that followed, which was maybe five seconds, seemed like an hour, all of which was spent keenly aware it could unbutton at any second. But it didn’t. Mark scooped it up, and I was on the scoreboard.

Oh hell yes.

My yowls of joy echoed through the swamp, frightening off some homeless people and the Jersey Devil. (Which scared the hell out of me as a kid. We won’t even talk about the hockey team, because they cheated my beloved Red Wings out of a Stanley Cup in 1995.) I now had all the chubsuckers except the sharpfin, and I’m not even sure that’s a real fish.

The next morning was spent napping – separately – and then eating at Cracker Barrel, because we had another long night ahead of us.

Hurray for chicken-fried steak.

We were driving to Delaware, to shore fish for sand tiger sharks near Lewes, where I had fished in 2003 and added a summer flounder and tautog to my list. We would be meeting up with a good friend of Mark’s – Kevin “Catterman” Van Vlijmen, a local shore-based guide who specializes in big sharks from the beach.

Steve, Mark, and Kevin.

We were joined by his buddy John, who is also a keen surf angler. We all met up late afternoon and began schlepping the gear about a mile down the beach. There are huge backpacks and wagons involved, because this type of fishing involves everything from big-game trolling rods to kayaks. The shark baits were impressive – whole dogfish, skate wings, and similarly large, meaty offerings. In the meantime, while we waited for it to get good and dark, we cast out surf rigs to see what might be roaming around. No, I did not catch a northern kingfish. I never catch a northern kingfish.

But it was a gorgeous day.

We managed to get a few assorted sharpnose sharks and skates, which added to the bait pile, and we met an assortment of beach walkers, even well after dark. Kevin was irrepressibly confident and upbeat, explaining that the really good action would be more toward midnight. He does a lot of this and knows his stuff, and I had nothing but time and Red Bull. It was a pleasant, warm evening, and we could kick back on the beach and listen for the clickers to go off.

There was at least one false alarm from a good-sized sandbar shark around 11, and as that day turned into the next, Kevin started watching the rods much more intently. It wasn’t much after midnight when one of the rigs started paying out line on short, loud bursts. I raced down to the sand spike, grabbed the setup, and slowly reeled out the slack. Something was moving off with the bait. I waited until it pulled the line as tight as I dared, and started reeling hard into the big circle hook. Whatever was on the other end was not pleased, and started ripping drag off a 30-size trolling reel. The game was afoot. This was a big shark. I thought through fighting a big fish – keep up the pressure, be ready for runs either direction, and back off a little when we get it close. What I hadn’t considered was the actual landing process. Kevin’s photos made all look so easy. I figured the fish was around a hundred pounds, and three of us could fairly easily maneuver it for photos without too much trouble.

I walked up and down 200 feet of beach to keep the fish in front of me, and I started gaining line, but remember we are starting out at least 250 yards. I kept hard pressure on the fish, and after 30 minutes or so, I had it close to the beach. We saw some splashes beyond the wave line, and Kevin cautioned us all to have all phones, wallets, and keys out of our pockets. It occurred to me that he expected someone was getting wet, namely, me. In the meantime, I now had the fish right outside the (small) breakers – it was a sand tiger, not South Africa size but a solid fish pushing seven feet long.

As it turns out, the sharks can’t be removed from the water for conservation purposes. It’s not a bad rule, it’s just one I didn’t expect. Kevin briefly explained that he would take the leader while Mark and I would get behind the fish and take the tail and pectoral fins. The guide’s role was critical – these are an unusually limber shark, and if he lost his grip, the fish could easily turn around and bite one of the other guys. As I waded in behind the shark, I briefly wondered what in the hell I was thinking.

At least one of us was perfectly calm while handling the shark.

Yes, that is a look of pure terror on my face.

The waves looked quite tame to the casual observer, but when you are facing away from them, in the dark, trying to hold on to an angry 100 pound animal and smile for photos, it feels like the North Shore surfing pipeline.

This was unsettling to say the least.

Just as we tried to pose, a wave would hit me in the back and make me lose enough grip on the fish to be worrying. Then I would try to smile and get hit again. At least a pound of sand made its way into my underwear, and this makes things more chafy than optimal. We all did our jobs, and while the shots look more like Robert Capa’s D-Day photos than my regular fishing pictures, at the least we got it on film and walked away with all the fingers and toes we started with.

I had my sand tiger shark, and the trip was now officially epic. The only thing that could have made it better is if we had used my eastern creek chubsucker for bait, but perhaps another time.

I was far too amped up to leave right then, so we stayed and waited for another bite so John could get one. It only took about 20 minutes before another rod went off, and he was on with another big fish. He made efficient work of it, but again, without really thinking about it, I volunteered for the landing party, and we were right back in the water with an angry shark.

John and his fish.

This is what had me so worried.

The photos went as well as could be expected, and with that, we started the long, slow process of packing everything up and heading way back down the beach to the parking lot, where I said my goodbyes to everyone. If you are ever in this area, you gotta give this guy a call. He’s a damn good guide, and a lot of fun besides. Look him up here: The Catterman Adventures, learn about Cape May and Delaware Fishing Charters

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT – The beach we fished is a public park, but just off the beach are large private homes. Although Kevin and crew are quiet, respectful, and never leave a mess, someone, and we can only guess who, has attempted to manipulate Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources (DENREC) into banning shore fishing for sharks, under the frankly bizarre theory that the long lines endanger swimmers. Please show me the idiot who swims in shark infested waters at night – a sober person hasn’t done that since “Jaws” premiered. This would make the beaches basically private after dark, and that just shouldn’t be. Please join me in being irritated by this – there are plenty of ways to share the beach safely and cooperatively without banning fishing.

I think I got to sleep around 4am, and at some stage late the next morning, Mark and I were off back to New Jersey to take a shot at some of the alleged “low hanging fruit” that the weather had denied me. We hopped from harbor to harbor, but conditions were still roiled enough to make things difficult. Somewhere in there, we stumbled onto a striped anchovy.

Not exactly a trophy, but a species nonetheless.

It was a beautiful day, just not a beautiful ocean, and the stuff Mark counted on as “gimmes” just weren’t showing up. I needed to get up to Long Island that night to continue my trip, and over burgers, we discussed if I should just call it a day and get on the road.

Mark was not to be defeated so easily, and suggested that we give the slimy sculpin one more try. (No matter how many times I rewrite that sentence, it still sounds faintly dirty.) I had missed this creek denizen in the initial rainstorm, but Mark was confident we could get one. It would add about two hours of driving, plus fishing time, to my trek, but I was determined to get something else on the scoreboard.

The creek had certainly settled in three days, and visibility was excellent. I hunted the water for about half an hour, saw two sculpins that fled, and then got on one that stayed still under a rock. It took some teasing him out, and a drastic increase in bait size – sculpin have large mouths and often ignore darter-sized offerings. But he finally gobbled it down, and I had species four of the trip. This one was purely owed to Mark’s dogged persistence in getting me to try for one more.

Thanks for a great trip, dude.

But it wasn’t over for me. Waiting, up in Long Island, was another well-known species hunter, Mike. Again, an internet connection from one of my fishing buddies, Mike has figured out about every possible species in Long Island and the surrounding areas, and there are a lot more fish there than one would think, especially in late summer when the Gulf Stream brings up all kinds of tropical oddities.

Two things were working against us. First, the same storm that had New Jersey had slammed Long Island, so everything was unsettled, and second, Mike had a broken ankle and was on crutches, meaning he could now move only slightly faster than me.

We spent the days fruitlessly pounding assorted pier and beach spots, but the larger fish were just not to be, and there was so much loose seaweed in the water that it was impossible to keep a bait down for five minutes.

This dude has some serious local knowledge.

Mike did have some interesting night spots, especially for one of the recent pirate perch splits – the yellowbelly. Being that I spent years trying to get one pirate perch species, the idea of catching a second was very appealing. The only complication – the spot was about a mile of forest trail from the parking lot, and Mike was on, say it with me, crutches.

No decent person would ask him to do it, and yet, he volunteered.

It actually took two trips, because on the first night, we had miscommunicated as to whether I had the species, but on the second, we waited until perhaps 30 minutes after dark and the things showed up everywhere. He had great advice on using a larger bait and keeping my headlamp away from them (I’m terrible at that) – but after three or four missed strikes and spooked fish, I nailed one.

This alone made the Long Island part of the trip worth it.

We spent the next day hobbling around more beaches and catching a lot more seaweed. (By the way, if you fish this area, make sure that you somehow figure out their Byzantine parking regulations, because the parking ticket I got was $200. That is not a typo.) That evening, Mike wanted to try one of the harbors and see if we could dredge up a tropical drifter or two. After a brilliant fish and chips dinner, we headlamped our way through one of the local marinas. Mike was disappointed – the storm had clearly cut down the variety of stuff he usually sees, but we did get to view some truly tropical oddities, like teensy butterflyfish. Alas, none of these would bite, but I did end up with a small seaboard goby, so that took the overall trip to six and left me with a definite rematch for a future summer.

The beast. On the right.

I can’t thank Mark and Mike enough, especially Mike who toughed it out on a bad ankle. What a mensch.

The following morning, I headed for the Connecticut ferry and Cape Cod, for the trip that was finished in the installment before this, the already-fabled “Cape Cod, For Love and Sharks.” We now return you to your regular timeline.

Steve