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

Dateline: December 23, 2012 – The Guest Bathroom, San Ramon, California

A lot of what I do is breathtakingly dull, but I rarely let that stop me from taking at least 2000 words to describe it. In this case, however, I was stumped. Between September and December of 2012, I added 7 additional species to my total, bringing me up to a year-end score of 1178. None of these, however, had much of a backstory, so I have opted to lump them into a year-end hodgepodge that will bring the 2012 posts to a (merciful?) conclusion.

The first noteworthy event (by my standards) took place on September 19, when I took a few hours after a business meeting in Denver and added Colorado to my state total. I still feel bad for the guide – Nate Zelinsky at www.tightlineoutdoors.com. Nate is a top-notch walleye expert, but I wanted to fish for suckers. While we didn’t get any new species, at least he gave it a Rocky Mountain try. I did get some nice trout and bluegill, so that’s state number 40 – just 10 to go.

The rainbow trout that added Colorado to my state total.

We then fast forward to October 6, 2012. Scott Perry and I headed down to the central coast of California for a day of salmon fishing, and of course, since I have caught salmon before, I began looking for other creatures. Dropping cut anchovies great depths onto a sandy bottom, I didn’t expect much except sand dabs, but it’s always worth a try. Predictably, I caught interminable dabs for an hour or so, but then I got a more robust bite. It was another sand dab. Moments after that, I hauled up what I was certain was either yet another one of these pestilential flounders, or a lump of kelp, but I was stunned to see that it was a Pacific hake.

The first hake ever proudly displayed in a fishing photo.

This creature is caught in droves by salmon fishermen who are trying NOT to catch them, so it follows that since I was trying to catch one, I would probably get salmon. And I did in fact get a salmon.

Sometimes I just feel the need to prove I can occasionally catch a gamefish. It doesn’t hurt that Jaime has never caught a king salmon.

Of course, once I got this nice fish, I started TRYING to catch a salmon, and the only logical outcome of this was that I caught something else entirely odd – a sablefish. These commercially-important creatures are usually in deeper water, but this juvenile must have decided to ignore the regulations.

The elusive sablefish. Catching this one saved me some serious deep-drop fishing later in life.

To finish off the day, we stopped on some shallow reefs and picked limits of rock cod. Scott got some very solid reds and blacks.

Scott and some fine rockfish.

Toward the end of our day, we were treated to a bunch of sea lions frolicking behind our boat – see: http://youtu.be/5Uud0ot1dGc

Oddly, someone commented on my YouTube channel, complaining that I am “glorifying” sea lions, who are, in his opinion, fish stealing vermin. This is America, so I guess we all have our right to miss the point.

We then take you to November 3. Martini Arostegui and I spent that day wandering across northern California, with a main purpose of getting Martini a redeye bass, which requires a jaunt to the Cosumnes River east of Sacramento. (See http://2000fish.com/2011/09/10/a-bridge-too-near/) It was a beautiful day, and we got the redeyes quickly. Moving down to the Highway 16 Bridge to take a shot at some other odd species, we had caught a few nice spotted bass when Martini almost jumped out of his shorts. (Ironic choice of phrase, as you will see a couple of paragraphs down.) He pointed out to a rocky outcrop about 10 feet offshore and said “There is a HUGE bass on that edge.” I cast and hooked up right away – it was a solid spot about 2 pounds. I looked up at Martini, and he was still peering into the water. He said “That wasn’t the big one.” He cast to the same spot and immediately got crushed. The fish peeled line off of his light spinning reel, but he turned the fish and started working back toward the shore. Moments later, he landed the largest spotted bass I have ever personally seen – over five pounds.

This is a flat-out hog of a spotted bass. Annoyingly, he also caught redeye bass here, which I wasn’t able to do on my first trips here, necessitating a lot more driving.

We then headed over to the American River in Sacramento to hunt the elusive Sacramento suckers. We did not get any, but I did get a tiny, tiny bite that turned out to be the start of an odd journey that brought me closer to my alma mater, UC Davis. I somehow managed to catch a tiny freshwater sculpin.

This creature turned out to be a riffle sculpin, species #1174.

Because I respect Martini, and because I fear his cat, I did not publish the unedited photo. I thought I was doing my standard arm’s length shot with a lovely background of the American River, but to my dismay, I discovered later that young Mr. Arostegui had photobombed me. (While continuing to fish – how’s that for manual dexterity?) 1000fish is a family blog, and we always censor such prurient items. (Unedited prints available for $5 at Martinimoon.com)

These sculpins are quite difficult to identify. Subtle characteristics like fin ray counts, toenail shape, and musical tastes make a difference, and without the kindness of Dr. Peter Moyle at my alma mater, UC Davis, I would have been lost.

Dr. Peter Moyle, UC Davis. He knows how to tell sculpins apart. This makes him my hero.

Ironic that I am keeping in touch with science professors at UCD when I devoted my academic career there to avoiding them. (I was most comfortable where essays were required. Imagine that. Although I did once get partial credit on a chemistry exam for drawing a box of Wheaties when asked to diagram a carbohydrate.)

That one “sympathy point” made a big difference in my grade, and I don’t even like Wheaties. Now Quisp – there’s a good cereal.

A few days later, still attempting to catch the elusive Sacramento sucker, I did a trip with old friend Ed Trujillo on the American River in Sacramento. (See http://2000fish.com/2011/01/29/trout-blasphemy/ for more on Ed.) The sculpins, which I had never seen in 30 years of fishing the American river, had taken over.

The prickly sculpin. Pound for pound, they are one of the more savage sculpins. That’s Ed Trujillo, steelhead guide extraordinaire, in the background, back in the saddle and being forced to catch undignified creatures.

I caught over a dozen sculpins, even on some fairly large hooks. I donated a Pepsi bottle full of them to UC Davis, and Dr. Moyle had one of his classes identify the beasts. I was in for a magnificent surprise, like when I went in to beg for more time on a paper and found out my professor had broken his leg skiing and wouldn’t be back for a week. Dr. Moyle informed me I had captured not one, but two different species of freshwater sculpin, the riffle and the prickly (which would be a great name for a pub in an edgy part of London.)

I then turned my attention to the California splittail. Teejay O’Rear at UC Davis made me aware of this Delta species, although I was not sure of it being actually catchable, but Martini Arostegui actually found data on people fishing for them. I made three trips up to the Suisun area. Everyone I spoke to had a different idea on how to catch them – on a float, on the bottom, close to the shore, out in deep water … so I tried everything. While I didn’t even sniff a splittail on my first two trips, on November 7, I did get a Shimofuri Goby, a lovely import from the far east that has taken up residence in our brackish waters.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know it’s small. But it’s not the size of the fish that matters … well, who am I kidding. Of course size matters. I need to go catch a marlin somewhere.

A few evenings later, as I struggled with the fact that Delta mosquitoes apparently don’t mind cool weather, I landed a splittail. Not a beast of a splittail, but a decent one. I will be going back there in the spring, albeit wearing a full mosquito net or maybe a full suit of armor, because there are bigger ones to be had.

I can’t explain the look on my face either, because I’m the one who took the photo. How is it that I surprised myself?

The final species of the year was added in the guest bathroom in my house. No, I was not fishing in there, although I have been guilty of worse. I was just sitting there, minding my own business and contemplating the wonder of fiber, when an email arrived. This email, from sharp-eyed 1000fish reader Thorke Ostergaard of Denmark, suggested that the weever I caught in Croatia (http://2000fish.com/2011/07/10/where-have-all-the-vowels-gone/) appeared to be different from the weever I caught in Morocco (http://2000fish.com/2011/12/30/hamak-for-samak/) A bit more research and an email to Dr. Carvalho later, it turns out that these were 2 different species, the great weever and the spotted weever. Sometimes, I just miss one. I have yet to catch a basket weever.

I wanted to thank Thorke and publish a nice fish picture of his, and what do I get but a %#$&ing plaice. Perhaps he had no idea what a bitter memory this species of flatfish holds for me, but for those of you who care to read about a particularly humiliating day in my life, check http://2000fish.com/2010/07/23/a-plaice-in-the-sun/. Thorke also warned me that this pictures is, as his wife put it, “a few haircuts ago.”

A plaice? A plaice? Really?? My most bitter fishing memory and Thorke has caught one from the shore?

So ended another year in my fishing career, the time when we look back at the numbers and engage in deep personal reflection. Or not. The numbers were up to 1178 – new species are certainly getting harder to come by, but the fact that I got so many within an hour of my home also fills me with hope. The record count was 67, and these too were getting harder – Martini had warned me that the last 10 seem to take forever, and I am nowhere near the last 10.

But looking back a few months later, it was a great fall. I got to fish with some of my best friends, I continued running up the species total, and best of all, I to wear my stunning new pair of holiday pants, which were a big hit at the office Christmas party.

Steve

Dateline: October 27, 2012 – Silver City, New Mexico

Fishing and weirdness go hand in fin for me. I have driven 16 hours to fish for 50 minutes. I have set a world record while buck naked. But I had NEVER been fishing with someone who was wearing an Elvis costume. As it turns out, the person wearing the Elvis costume wasn’t even the person who I thought was at risk for this sort of thing, and the fact I thought someone on the trip might be at risk for wearing an Elvis costume should tell you things were already odd.

This all brought me back to August 16, 1977. It was a warm summer Tuesday, and my family was vacationing in a cottage up in Port Sanilac, Michigan. The cottage was a grubby but beloved place where we voluntarily lived in squalor a few weeks each year, “roughing it” in our own way, which meant no privacy, suspect plumbing, and a lot of insects. That afternoon, we heard on the radio that Elvis Presley had died. I will never forget how sad my mother was. Elvis was a part of her childhood, and now he was gone. I was 14 and didn’t really get it at the time – to me, Elvis was some guy in Saturday-morning movies, although I always thought it was cool when Nixon gave him the DEA badge. Little did I know that while Elvis was not part of my childhood, 35 years later, his music would become the soundtrack for my capture of a rare trout species.

I don’t think Nixon had any idea what to make of Elvis.

Elvis and the 1000Fish blog have crossed paths previously. In February of 2011, I went sturgeon fishing with, of all people, an Italian Elvis impersonator named Gabriele Elli. (See http://2000fish.com/2011/02/27/blue-suede-sturgeon/) Gabi now lives in New Mexico with his American wife, and he is a passionate fisherman. When I mentioned to him that I would be in Phoenix in October, he encouraged me to stay for the weekend and come to western New Mexico to chase a Gila trout.

The Gila trout is the rarest of the North American trout species, and is limited to just a few bodies of water in western New Mexico and eastern Arizona. Gabriele had found an excellent local guide, Rex Johnson Jr., who is quite the expert on the odd trout endemic to the southwest and Mexico and is also a math professor at Western New Mexico University. Of course, with rare species involved, an invite went to Martini Arostegui, and he managed to escape to Phoenix for the weekend and join us.

Martini and I started the drive early on Friday, and the desert scenery took the sting out of a 5 hour drive to Silver City, New Mexico. Part of the route matched my 2010 trip to catch the Apache trout, a pun-filled adventure memorialized at http://2000fish.com/2010/06/13/puns-in-the-high-desert/. (By the way, the “Puns” post is new and improved, so if you do not read it, you will likely burst into flame. Of course, if you do read it, you will burst into nausea. Your call.)

Gratuitous cactus photo. Gotta have one of these in every southwestern blog.

This was beautiful scenery. For the first few hours.

I didn’t know they made these any more.

They’re so cute when they’re sleeping. I spared him the screaming wakeup call a la Eminem (see http://2000fish.com/2011/07/03/my-failed-weekend-of-parenthood/). We drive together too much, and his sense of revenge is strong.

We arrived in Silver City in mid-afternoon. Our first task was lunch at Taco Bell, to add a sense of danger to sharing a room. We then met Rex and headed to a local stream to chase the longfin dace. These minnow-sized creatures are common in the area and we soon both caught one on my nearly-microscopic #24 hooks.

We’ve covered this. A new species is a new species.

I had gotten something useful from a math teacher! As a teenager, I always challenged the life relevance of math or any other subject that was not tested via essay, but let’s face it, we use it every darn day. When we do not remember our math, bad things happen, like tax audits or speeding tickets in Serbia. (I am still waiting for my unfortunate adventure in high school trigonometry to pay off, with all due respect to Mrs. Haeberle, who never liked me, probably for good reasons.)

We also visited a couple of nearby streams hunting for other species, and though we did not get anything else new that evening, we got to enjoy some astounding scenery. (Oh, and we lost Martini in the woods for about an hour after dark, but he found us before the wolves found him.)

Martini shows off the rental car.

Gabriele got in after Martini and I had crashed out, so we saw him first thing in the morning at the hotel breakfast buffet, which made me long for Waffle House. It was great to catch up with Gabi – he and his wife are doing well and have just bought a new house outside Albuquerque.

I had half-expected Gabriele to show up in an Elvis jumpsuit. But he was smarter than that, as Elvis jumpsuits are not especially hiking-friendly, and we were going to trek  some distance down into two canyons, first to hunt suckers, then to pursue the Gila trout. We took off in the rental car, and moments later, the CDs came out and we were singing Elvis at the top of our lungs, each in our own key.

(Needless to say, Gabi was the one on key – see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-O2qvh7cxI&list=PL38A24D7EA0C1C255)

Arriving at the trailhead, we set off down a ravine, found a creek, and started looking for small pools. It was clear but frosty, and Rex had warned us we were late in the year and might have to wait for things to warm up. But it was beautiful – mountains on either side of us, towering pine trees, and a clear, small stream.

Frigid creek. Next time, I bring the water shoes, because my wet socks were cold all day.

The canyon scenery. I had quite a shock coming moments after this photo was taken.

Imagine my surprise when I turned around in that isolated meadow, a mile down the canyon, to see Martini standing there in a black, rhinestoned, show-off-the-chest-hair jumpsuit. And a cape. A red satin cape. “Oh, dear God.” I said.

Gabrielle smiled broadly, and Rex simply stated “Well, that’s a first.”

I think the look on my face says it all.

Further down the canyon, I unhappily discovered that the trail repeatedly crossed the stream. It was so cold I hadn’t thought to bring my water shoes, so crossings were a slow and dangerous process of finding the right rocks to hop across. This delayed things quite a bit, and after about an hour, Martini and I both gave in to expediency and splashed through the water in our regular footwear.

An hour and some two miles later, we hadn’t seen many fish apart from a few stray rainbows and a big Gila that simply would not bite. Rex swore the fish were there, but that the cold weather simply had them holed up. We decided to head back.

Martini’s cape flapped in the breeze as we trod up the path.

Where do you even buy something like this?

We were getting close to the car, and only had one more crossing to make. Sharp-eyed Gabriele spotted some small fish in the shallows and alerted us – “There are some small fish in the shallows!” Rex gave that thoughtful look math professors often do, and said “The water has warmed up.” He walked upstream a few yards, and called out “There are fish here!”  We sprinted back and quickly set up gear. Martini went up to the first pool, and I stayed by a slight crease below it. I dropped a piece of worm behind some rocks, and a small fish pounced on it. A rainbow. Grumble. I dropped another bait in, got a bite, and hauled up a wriggling fish – it took a moment to see what it was, but when it finally stopped thrashing, it was no trout. It was a Rio Grande sucker, small but definitely a new species, and one that wasn’t supposed to be in this watershed. I was beside myself with joy.

Rex points out the fish in this photo. Rex is a fantastic guide – look him up at RexJohnsonJr@Gmail.com if you’re in the area.

This is a male Rio Grande sucker. For about 24 hours, I thought it was another species. Of course, there are some who would maintain that males are another species.

We tried for a little while longer, and the bites stopped. Rex was getting used to us by this time, and took it in stride as I celebrated a six-inch fish.

The canyon adventure had eaten up a lot more time than we had hoped, so we bundled into the car and raced for the Gila spot. Back out came the Elvis CDs, and Gabriele led us in song until we arrived at the top of another canyon. We began hiking down a steep trail, keenly aware that we would need to walk back up afterward.

Rex is a great guy, and he has many talents. Not among these talents, however, is the ability to estimate hiking distances. Everything is “about a mile.” After about 2 miles, we reached the bottom of the canyon, and as we approached the creekbed where my Gila was supposed to be, we noticed that it was missing one subtle but key ingredient needed for Gila trout: water. The creek was bone dry.

Rex explained that there would be small pools higher up – “about a mile.” We exchanged suspicious glances and hit the trail. The sun disappeared behind the ridge, reminding us that sundown was coming, and when that happened, the trout wouldn’t bite, so as we crashed through the woods with burning legs, we prayed we would have enough light when we got there.

The creek began showing signs of water – first some mildew, then small puddles, and finally some shallow, hot-tub sized pools, but nothing that would hold fish. We marched on, oblivious to the pain than ran from our toes, up through our eyebrows, and back down again to our toes, regretting that we had not brought water or provisions.

At last, we reached a larger pool that Rex swore would hold trout. It was definitely twilight, and I was praying that there was enough sun left to give me a shot at the fish. I clambered down an inadvisably steep grade and balanced on a small ledge overlooking the water. I whipped on a small hook, split shot, and a plastic maggot – I have no idea why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

I cast.

The line slowly sank, and in a few seconds, it twitched. I set the hook and had a fish on. I held my breath as I swung him up into my hand, and there he was – a Gila trout.

No, I am not about to bite it. It was safely released, and I only hope my yelling didn’t damage its hearing.

You can Gila broken heart, but can you Gila trout?

Martini and Gabriele had worked their way onto the ledge via a much safer route, and Martini took the next cast. Whap, fish on, fish up, fish photographed.

Martini and Steve with their Gilas.

Gabriele then took a crack, and after a few misses, he too got one. It was almost completely dark, and we had a long hike ahead of us, but we had done it.

Gabi with his Gila. It was his only fish of the day, but he made it count. And does he have perfect teeth or what?

Of course, I didn’t catch my Gila trout wearing an Elvis jumpsuit, so although I do get the species, Martini gets all the style points. And Gabi gets all the points for inspiration.

The hike back up wasn’t nearly as painful as I had anticipated, because our mission had been accomplished and I was basking in the glow of accomplishment and a heavy dose of adrenaline. We reached the crest and walked down the dark road, singing “Don’t be Cruel” at the top of our lungs, the full band – Elvis Elli, Sexy Rexy, Stevie Wonder, and Martini, the little-known fifth Backstreet Boy.

Moonrise as we hike out of the canyon and head for the fried food.

That night found us eating the sort of celebratory dinner that makes cardiologists wince. It was apparently fried food night at the local steakhouse, and the closest thing to roughage was the onion rings. We toasted Rex, we toasted the trout and the suckers, and we toasted the onion rings. We toasted Elvis in general, and many of his songs individually. After all that toasting, I decided it was best to walk back to the hotel. “How far is it?” I asked Rex. “About a mile.” he said. I took a taxi.

Steve

Just another Saturday night, in a rural hotel room in my underwear with two Elvis impersonators.

Dateline: August 18, 2012 – Flamingo, Florida

Hexes are powerful things. But they don’t always hit the intended victim, and in this case, I was the collateral damage.

On a windswept Caribbean beach in the late 17th century, the founder of the Arostegui clan, Ebeneezer Juan de Igfa Arostegui, ran afoul of a powerful priestess, either voodoo or Presbyterian, the records aren’t clear. We’re not sure what made her so mad – perhaps she was jealous of his perfect hair – but whatever it was, she placed a powerful curse on him and his descendants. This spell was so vindictive that it persists to this very day, but it was also so bizarre, and indeed, so lame, that they didn’t notice it until I showed up, 341 years later.

Ebeneezer Juan de Igfa Arostegui, circa 1671. Portrait by the famous Cuban artist Tomas Alfonso del Kincayde, “El Pintador de la Luz.”

The hex was simple in form – “De verdad se tomó la molestia de traducir esto!” which means something like “Ebeneezer, from now until eternity you and your guests will catch no small fish!” We don’t know why the priestess invoked this particular hex – perhaps she got the wrong page in the hex book, or she was drunk, or Polish. The Arosteguis, being trophy hunters anyway, went about their business, and the unfortunate episode faded from memory.

But when you’re a species hunter like me, small fish are critical, so a curse like this represents disaster. I am quite familiar with curses – see http://2000fish.com/2010/10/19/curse-of-the-gypsy-crone/ – but this was far worse than the Romanian mess.

If you are unfamiliar with the Arostegui family, I might refer you to a couple of earlier posts – see http://2000fish.com/2011/08/04/pilates-of-the-caribbean/ or http://2000fish.com/2011/11/11/from-zero-to-cero/.  Fundamentally, they are a family of world-class anglers based in Miami. We have become friends through some of the IGFA events, and they have been kind enough to bring me fishing whenever schedules will allow. As I was already on the East Coast, the Arosteguis extended an invitation. In the middle of the summer, surely there was something for us to catch together.

The targets get more limited with each trip, but Martini is tireless in his research and found two shark species in the gulf – the blacknose and finetooth – that we could attempt to catch. The three of us headed out to the Everglades early on a Wednesday morning. It’s a long, straight drive with swamp on both sides, but it’s nice to see someplace that isn’t jammed with condos.

I kept a sharp eye out for alligators during launch, but we were not attacked. We ran the boat out a few miles and set up on a grass flat to catch our bait, the dreaded pinfish. (See http://2000fish.com/2011/03/24/communing-with-manatees/) These vicious little beasts tend to be the “dominant pest” wherever they are found, and they have prevented me from catching dozens of species by racing to the bait first. I am slightly ashamed to admit it gave me some feeling of revenge to use these savage pests as bait. Perhaps they would learn their lesson.

Because we were hunting sharks under 20 pounds, we used largemouth bass-type gear -spinning rigs loaded with light braid.  This would make catching smaller sharks a lot of fun. I quietly wondered what would happen if we hooked a larger fish, but the Arosteguis looked at me bemusedly and both said “You fight it. You land it.”

We put out two float rods while we loaded up on bait, and in moments, one of them went down hard. Too hard. As the fish headed for the horizon, it occurred to me that it was much bigger than we had hoped. I looked at the Arosteguis, then at the pitiably small rod. “You fight it. You land it.” they said. It took a long time, but I finally did bring a rather large lemon shark to boatside.

Steve stares forlornly at a big lemon shark that he wishes was a small finetooth shark.

One big shark could be an exception, but this is where the Arostegui curse came in to play. It’s not like they didn’t try to get the smaller fish. All I wanted was a nice 10 pound finetooth or blacknose shark, and they stumbled into a bunch of 150-pound lemon sharks – we didn’t catch anything less than six feet all day. I am likely the first shark fisherman to ever complain about this, although snook and bonefish guys do it all the time when their trophy turns into hammerhead chow.

For video of one of the lemons http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adAeqB_sZ9U&feature=youtu.be

As always, I learned quite a bit about fishing from just observing. You know, the basics. Circle hooks. Small swivels. Proper wiring technique. Not weighing 220 pounds on the front of a small skiff in choppy water. And just to show me, Martini put on a light-tackle clinic by landing a 200-ish-pound bull shark on a rod I wouldn’t use for pike.

Martini does light-tackle battle with something big.

Marty moves in to grab the leader.

This all took less than 45 minutes. If I had hooked it, we’d still be out there.

On the way back in, we were whizzing through some weed patches at 30 miles an hour when Marty suddenly shut down the boat (causing me to cough Pepsi up through my nose.) He threw me a rod and yelled “Tripletail! Cast in front of him!” I still can’t figure out how he spotted it. 

It’s not a huge tripletail, but they are sure fun to catch. Not sure whose blood is on my knee, but the pants needed emergency laundering that night. With some spare candles and a portrait of St. Jude, I turned this into an exorcism ritual that would hopefully break the “no small fish” curse.

That evening, we had dinner at a local sushi place, and I got to meet Martini’s sister Danielle. She also has world records. And even though she is appreciably better-looking than Martini, she is also smarter, and she has never snatched a huge Spanish grunt from right under my nose.

Dinner with the Arosteguis. Less than an hour later, the family cat would add some excitement to the evening.

The entertainment that night was provided by Rossi, the Arostegui cat who has eaten a couple of dozen fish species I have never caught. Danielle must have done something to make the cat mad. Cats are vengeful creatures, and Rossi acted with immediacy and purpose. He marched his little kitty self outside and yakked up a half-digested bird onto Danielle’s windshield. He then strolled back inside and expected to be petted.

Rossi Arostegui lounges, satisfied that he had taught Danielle a lesson.

On the second day, we took the big boat and headed out into Biscayne Bay off Miami. The quarry: anything new. There aren’t a lot of new critters for me off South Florida, as I have been there quite a bit and pounded the reefs in every season with every bait and every size hook. Still, there are surprises to be had, and I was certain I was going to find one of them.

A hazy dawn as we head out into the bay.

Father and son keep a keen eye out as we set up over one of the reefs.

Martini with a beautiful parrotfish. We caught quite a few, but alas, all were species that were already on “the list.”

A redfin parrotfish. These things usually eat by scraping coral, but they can occasionally be caught on shrimp.

A little tunny. You can’t say we didn’t get a good bit of variety.

We roamed from reef to reef, and all the while they tried to help me catch a new species or a record. Martini behaved himself, except for one unfortunate 5 minute period, when he did his best Jaime Hamamoto impression. (She’s cuter, but he has better hair.)  He started out by shamelessly catching a Caesar grunt, which I never have.

This is a Caesar grunt. Et tu, Martini?

Moments later, he caught a record Spanish grunt. Grunts are usually not big animals. This thing was a beast.

Just like Charlie, he stole my fish.

Frustrated at these two events, I was forced to be pointlessly vindictive. I would have thrown up a half-digested bird on his windshield if I could have, but the below will have to suffice.

Because Martini chose to catch my fish, I am forced to publish what may be a photo from his junior prom, or a random photo from the internet, I forget which.

So we spent an entire day pounding the reefs with no new species for me, which is a big clue that I need to go to Fiji. Still, a day fishing with the Arosteguis is a good thing, and there’s nothing wrong with catching solid fish on almost every cast all day long. But as we headed back to the boathouse, I was still determined to catch a new species, and when I am determined, I do stupid things.

This stupid thing involved a # 28 hook and a species Martini likes to call “the boathouse minnow.” Breathtakingly tiny creatures, these small, silvery ribbons live near the entrance to the Arostegui’s boathouse, and I had previously written them off as fry of something I had caught before. But with an afternoon to kill, I figured I would give it a shot. This involved bits of bait so small that I had to face the fact that bifocals are in my immediate future.

After an hour of hits and misses, I finally hauled one of the little beasts up onto the dock. It turned out to be the tragically undermarketed tidewater silverside, a close relative of the equally obscure Atlantic silverside I had caught up in North Carolina the previous week. I was on a silverside roll.

The tidewater silverside. And I was actually PROUD of this at the time.

For our final day, Martini and I headed back to the Everglades. Although we knew our rare shark chances were low, Martini is even more of an optimist than I am – there is a fine line between being bubblingly positive and stupid, and frankly, we cross it often. It would still be better than watching Martini drag up rare grunts, so off we went into a hazy Florida dawn.

My dirty pants ritual had apparently not worked. We anchored in a backwater channel, and our first two sharks were intimidatingly big. After an hour or so with no small sharks in sight, Martini and I hit on the bright idea of going a bit further offshore, out to deeper, less turbid water. We set up near a channel marker and floated out some baits.

To keep myself interested, I started casting a few jigs, and I don’t think even one of them reached the bottom. Speckled trout, jacks, and even catfish jumped all over the lures. It was some of the best steady action I have ever had – a fish on every cast for a couple of hours. The shark rods went down a couple of times, but these were blacktips – a hard-jumping, surface fight. At one stage, we had dozens of small blacktips circling the boat and tearing into anything that we put into the water. But still no oddball sharks.

Video of a savage pack of small blacktip sharks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgV38MAvJ5E&feature=youtu.be

Early in the afternoon, the pinfish bait rod went down again and we hooked a fish. This was a different fight than a blacktip, less zooming side to side and more head shaking and going deep. It was the right size, so I wondered if it possibly could be one of the target fish. As it got close to the boat, Martini suddenly changed his tone to all business. “Steve. Back off your drag, don’t pull on him too hard, and do NOT give him any slack.” I know better than to question him. Moments later, we landed a beautiful blacknose shark, the very species we were hunting. We gave high-fives and man-hugged, and then he showed me why he had been so concerned – the hook was only pinned onto a tiny flap of skin on the edge of the shark’s mouth. One slip and it would have been gone. Damn the kid is good.

The blacknose shark I had been looking for.

We celebrate the beast. Martini had a lot more to do with it than I did.

You have to really trust someone to get this photo. Sure, I thought about driving off, but his mother would have killed me.

We drove home in great satisfaction, stopping for milkshakes and randomly high-fiving. We had overcome great odds and an ancient curse, and somehow found yet another species for me in South Florida. On the way home, we had one of those rare moments of understanding that come from spending endless hours on the water together.

Martini said “Of course, my Spanish grunt could have eaten that shark.”

I responded “I should have left you on the channel marker.”

Thanks again, Arostegui family, for all the hospitality and few more marvelous days on the water. And thank you Rossi, for not leaving anything on my pillow.

Steve

Dateline: August 12, 2012 – Duck, North Carolina

My nephew has made bad choices, and I was forced to de-nephew him. It’s not like he did any of the semi-forgivable normal teenager stupid stuff, like drink the last Pepsi. It was worse.

Against all good sense and family love, he caught a fish species that I have not.

This is my ex-nephew, back when he was cute. We call this one “The Boo-Boo Face.” He will not be pleased to see this in print.

It all started on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. These endless stretches of narrow sand islands are a magical place, a summer getaway for much of the east coast. My sister’s family has been going there every summer since 2004. I have joined them several times, most recently last year in the aftermath of my Mom passing away. http://2000fish.com/2011/07/23/two-and-a-half-menhaden/

My sister and her family. From left to right, that’s my ex-nephew Charlie, brother-in-law Dan, sister Laura, and niece Elizabeth. I was so proud of Laura for going ahead with their Christmas photo even after she lost a tooth in an unfortunate misunderstanding at a local tavern. Elizabeth was just recovering from Polish measles, a rare condition caused by an uncle discovering Microsoft Paint.

Much of the time at the beach is spent busily doing absolutely nothing. This is not something I do well, and so I occupied many hours – and you’ll have a hard time believing this – fishing. There are only so many things to catch in this area, but there were still a few I had not caught, and so dutifully, each morning and evening, I was down there with a light surf rod and a tub of squid, fishing for whatever would bite. As a kind uncle, I brought Charlie along and helped him with the basics – he’s developing into a fairly solid angler. Much of the catch was three species – spot, southern kingfish, or Atlantic croaker. But once in a while, something odd would turn up.

And let’s face it, it’s never a bad thing to be out on the beach, cold beverages at hand, and bait in the water. Except when your nephew, with whom you have been pretty much the best uncle EVER, turns on you and does something very bad. But we’ll get to that later.

During the course of these pleasant hours, two odd somethings showed up for me. One was the gulf kingfish, a less common relative of the southern kingfish we catch all the time here.

The gulf kingfish. Now, can someone tell me where to catch a northern kingfish so that I can complete the elusive “kingfish hat trick?” That’s Elizabeth on the left, and Leigh El-Hindi on the right – her family joins my sister’s each year at the beach. As you may recall from last year’s blog, she and her brother have sworn to destroy each other.

That’s her brother, Jamal, on the far right. He ducked out of most photos, apparently hoping to create an alibi. “No, that couldn’t have been me who put the hair remover in her shampoo bottle – I was at the beach, and your photos can not prove otherwise.” 

The other fish was more work and far more shame – the Atlantic silverside, which does in fact have a silver side when viewed under a microscope. I spent most of an afternoon groveling in a backwater area with a #24 hook and a fleck of bait, trying to hook one of these remarkably skittish little things.

Insert small fish punchline here. Go ahead. I can take it. Except from you, Jaime.

It is really cool when I get new stuff, but when my bratty nephew tried to get into the act, it wasn’t as amusing. Late one afternoon, he went all Jaime Hamamoto on me and caught an unusual little beast called a leopard searobin. I was displeased with him. You see, I have never caught a leopard searobin. This one was clearly intended for my hook, and he jumped in and stole it.

Charlie – the child formerly known as “Steve’s nephew” –  and his leopard searobin. I hope he’s happy. Snot.

It’s not like he even gloated, but the fact he chose to do this instantly took him from beloved nephew to being as welcome as Michael Vick at a dog park. To make certain he was aware of this, I maturely poured cold water on him in the shower and added Tabasco to his lemonade. Leigh took careful notes – some of these ideas could come in handy against her brother.

The one break from the beach routine was on Friday the 10th. As a treat for the kids, I set up a day on a charter boat, with old friend Caine Livesay. (Call him at 252-305-2683 if you’re in the area.) We hoped to get a nice day on the sound, catch a bunch of the local bottom fish, then cruise outside and see if we could get a few sharks. Of course, my sister, being stricken with maternal sun paranoia, insisted that the children take the utmost in UV protection.

The only sun outfit that would make my sister feel at ease.

I hoped it would be a great bonding day with Charlie and Elizabeth, and that the water would be relatively calm, as my brother-in-law Dan tends to go rail bunny at the slightest provocation.

Dan goes rail bunny, July 2004. One more heave and he would have brought up his shoes. My sister hates this photo. Consequently, this photo has appeared in more of my blog posts than any other.

Earlier in the week, I had defied the Fish Gods to get my white marlin, so they were foul and vindictive. The weather was therefore rotten when we got up. It stayed rotten for the whole drive down to Oregon Inlet, and it got worse when we got on the boat. It’s one thing when I am subjecting myself to nasty conditions, and it’s just plain fun to take bets on what Dan will egress, but when kids are involved we have to be reasonable. Caine decided to make a quick run outside, in the lee of the strong west wind, and see if we could find a few fish. Dan immediately collapsed in the cabin and made noises like a failing garbage disposal.  (For a more in-depth look at seasickness, see http://2000fish.com/2010/08/07/im-a-sole-man/ .)

The children show kindness and compassion toward their stricken father.

We set up just off the beach and began trolling. Dan stayed inside the cabin, wrestling with his breakfast. Charlie answered the bell just long enough to catch one bluefish before the threat of rail-bunnyism overtook him. Elizabeth showed none of this moral weakness and gleefully caught a number of bluefish and Spanish mackerel.

Elizabeth, who for some reason is nicknamed “Ebbitt” in the family, shows off one of her bluefish.

This didn’t last long, because father and son were so very sick that it even tugged at my heartstrings. It was that wretched pre-barf part of seasickness, where all they could do is sit there and compare shades of green.

Charlie contemplates the age-old question – over the rail or in the lap? 

My ex-nephew was heartbroken that he felt so bad, but this was apparently the judgment of the Fish Gods for his catching the leopard searobin. So there. We raced back in, a few steps ahead of an intimidating thunderstorm. 

Inclement weather follows us back into port.

Back at the harbor. Elizabeth is smiling because she caught the bigger fish. Charlie is smiling because he can stand again. For the record, he did not barf, but he sure wanted to.

Dan and the kids headed back home, with Charlie mumbling “I love dry land” over and over. I wanted to get back out after sharks, but no chance. The sky turned midnight black in the south and the weather radar showed solid red. I stuck it out and tried to catch a mullet in the harbor, which I did not, because mullet hate me. It was time to go back to the beach house. And there we stayed for the next few days, except for occasional runs to the bait store. The whole experience was a pleasant and relaxing break from the office. Even though I did not get any more new species, I caught a bunch of stuff, got to hang out with family and friends, and I got to enjoy the water, the food, and the wildlife. Almost everyone took a turn with the fishing rods, and the week left us with a series of lifetime memories, many of them positive.

The surfers in this photo were about 60 yards offshore. I can just hear them saying “Gee, I hope that’s a dolphin. That has to be a dolphin, right?”

Even my sister got into the act, catching a pair of Atlantic croakers. Her new tooth was safely installed the week after we got back.

As Steve unhooks a fish for immediate release, the family looks on. I had never seen Jamal Sr. with his shirt off, so imagine my surprise*.

The girls claimed they were digging for sand crabs, but their smiles indicate a more sinister purpose. Little Jamal stayed far away.

Steve and Charlie pound the surf. Note that the girls have rejected Charlie, likely because he caught my leopard searobin.

It was fun watching the kids all have a great time together. The El-Hindi children were not as in to the fishing thing this year – as they grow up, they are spending almost full time plotting against each other. I tried to stay out of their way, because I didn’t want to catch a crossbow bolt or batch of napalm in the back. (The kind of thing little Jamal chillingly calls “collateral damage.”) Charlie and Elizabeth don’t tend to fight so much, which disappoints me. Laura and I battled constantly through our childhoods, and this left us both with skills that relate to real life. For example, Laura learned to falsely rat someone out, and I learned how to push that someone down the stairs.

Now, some of you liberal types – notably my sister – have already complained that my treatment of Charlie, e.g. de-nephewing him, was too harsh for a first offense. Bear in mind that I am a proponent of “one strike” laws and also feel that hanging is an appropriate penalty for double parking. (Except when I do it.) So I will let the readership decide if Charlie gets a second chance. You know where to find me. I leave his fate in your hands.

Steve

*Of course, Jamal Sr. will be just as surprised to see this tattoo – nice Photoshop work, Chris Stickle!

Dateline: August 7, 2012 – Cape Hatteras, North Carolina

Marta, despite the fact that she has caught seven species I have not, is not the woman who has caused me the most consternation. That distinction doesn’t even go to Jaime Hamamoto – it actually belongs to one Val Kells. Val has caused me to lose more sleep than not just Marta and Jaime, but perhaps all other women in my life combined. And why, you ask? Is Val some sort of psychotic relative, disturbed former love interest, or even worse, both? Not at all. Val is a well-known scientific illustrator – she paints those painfully accurate fish for scientific books. And one of her books, A Field Guide to Coastal Fishes from Maine to Texas, has shown me, for hour after painful hour, exactly how many species I have not caught in the Atlantic. This sort of thing makes me lose a lot of sleep.

If you too want to feel my pain, order the book at http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Coastal-Fishes-Maine/dp/0801898382/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353861401&sr=8-1&keywords=val+kells+fish#

An example of Val’s art. It’s an Atlantic beardfish, and no, I have not caught one. Illustration by Val Kells (c) 2012 – all rights reserved.

We met through Dr. Kent Carpenter, Professor of Biological Sciences at Old Dominion University. (And a superstar who has identified dozens of difficult species for me.) Dr. Carpenter is her co-author on the book, and once introduced, Val and I became fast friends online. I can’t hate her for doing her job. She served as editor for the 1000fish blog for about a year, and so you have her to thank for removing the glaring grammatical issues and the worst of the toilet humor for most of 2011 and part of 2012.

The species game is usually about numbers. I will often pass up a shot at trophy fish to take a crack at larger numbers of less-dignified species – who else would ever admit to catching an Atlantic silverside, let alone spending two hours doing it deliberately? (See next blog post.) Still, there are some trophies that are an essential part of any fishing bucket list, and the white marlin is definitely one of these trophies.

White marlin are the smallest of the marlin species, usually not exceeding a hundred pounds. They are supposed to be common in the gulf stream off the Outer Banks in the summer, and with another family trip to Duck coming up in August, I knew I had to give it a shot.

Val’s family also takes a summer vacation on the North Carolina beaches. Val and I got talking about offshore fishing early in the year, and just as passionate as I was about getting a white marlin, she had never caught a sailfish and could not die happy unless she did. So we decided to fish together in August, and hopefully at least one of us (well, hopefully me) would get the home run. Val also decided to bring her youngest son, Dave, who shares her sailfish obsession.

Dave, Val, Steve. This was taken before the weather got really nasty – see below.

A lot happened between those calls and the August trip, but it all seemed to go by faster than Guido slipping on a pork chop. (See http://2000fish.com/2012/05/20/serbing-our-time/) Suddenly, it was August 6, I had made it to the beach house where we were enjoying fabulous weather, and the marlin trip was the next day.

I didn’t sleep very well, and I ended up leaving early to drive down to Oregon Inlet. As I drove down to the harbor, I noticed it was windier than I would have liked. Where had all the nice weather gone? I passed the Wright Brothers monument, where the first powered flight was late and had bad food, and it began to rain. Just as I pulled into the Oregon Inlet harbor, it hit me that I had never met Val in person. The internet is a strange thing.

We met the skipper, Arch Bracher, and the first mate, Lee, who, like famous models and soccer players, will go by first name only in this article.

Steve and the crew of the Pelican. That’s Arch on the left and Lee on the right. This is a great boat and crew – if you’re planning to visit the Outer Banks, look them up at summerbracher@charter.net

The weather was unpleasant in the harbor, and it was flat-out lousy offshore. It rained steadily, and the wind had driven up the seas – nothing mountainous, but it was an unpleasant run out, and trolling wasn’t any nicer. It was a confused, uncomfortable sea, and I could hear rain splattering on the wheelhouse above me.

I took shifts watching the back of the boat pitch up and down, then dozed for a while in the cabin. After 4 hours on the troll, it didn’t look like the fish were going to cooperate. I was mentally prepared for this – big game trolling is a waiting game, and usually has a lot more waiting than game.

The great thing about trolling is that an awful day can become a great day in a split second, and Val’s split second happened just after 1pm. A sailfish hammered one of the baits and was hooked up. The deckhand yelled “Sailfish!!!” In pouring rain, she raced onto the back of the boat, and the fight was on.  Val is not a large person, but she handled the setup very well, and like a good skier, her body stayed very still as the boat pitched in three dimensions.

                  Rain, wind, and a big smile. That’s what it’s all about.

The fish hurtled into the air 6 or 7 times, but Val stayed with it the whole way, backing off as needed, putting on the brakes when she could. Slowly, the fish got tired and started getting close. This is always the “hold your breath” part of the fight when so many fish are lost, but Lee was an expert on the wire and had the fish in hand quickly. Val let loose a primal whoop of joy.

                Val and her big catch – an Atlantic sailfish.

I figured that it was cool that we got at least one fish, and loathe though I am to be glad for others when I haven’t caught a thing, it was fantastic to see her pure joy. It was so much like my own, and it hit me – Val was like the sister I never had.

Oh, wait – I do have a sister. Scratch that.

Settling back into the cabin, I was rooting through another box of Nutter Butters when the right side bait went off. The clicker screamed over the crashing waves and wind, the deckhand yelled “Fish! Fish! Fish!,” and I sprinted out onto the back deck into the deluge. I had brilliantly left my rain jacket in the trunk of my car, and I am not exactly suitable wet t-shirt contest material.

We couldn’t tell if it was a sail or a white marlin at first. I tried to look out over the waves under the brim of my cap, but the rain blew right into my eyes. A few minutes later, as I saw a fish jumping in the distance, the deckhand told me “That’s your white. Take your time.” A lot of people had done a lot of work to get me to this point – on with a white marlin – and I was going to do my best not to lose it.

Steve’s white marlin makes one of about a dozen jumps. I purposefully chose a picture that didn’t show much of me – the wet shirt material didn’t leave much to the imagination, and this is supposed to be a family blog. Still, I might be a big hit on prurient websites that cater to this sort of thing.

It’s a strange pressure to deal with – I knew I would have one chance at this, and I just focused on one crank at a time. The fish, probably about 75 pounds – jumped and ran and did everything it could to throw the hook, and I just focused on one crank at a time. The whole fight was around 15 minutes, but it seemed like two hours, and the longest part of it was at boatside, with the leader in the mate’s hand, knowing I had credit for a release but wanting that photo so darn badly.

Lee was taking in about two feet of leader  at a time, and I held my breath until his hand came back holding a bill. We both reached down and gently lifted the fish over the side for a quick photo session.

If you’re going to catch one fish all day, this would be a good one.

Only two species to go for the IGFA royal billfish slam! I felt exuberant, but also humbled and lucky. To go out and get a white on the first try doesn’t always happen. I wandered the back deck, high-fiving anyone who came near, content that my week of fishing was already successful.

But Lee was all business – we had a little while left to troll, and he was not going to miss it. He was already rigging baits and getting them back into the water. Dave was up next. Could we turn a rotten day into a tripleheader? (Could Dave pull a Jaime Hamamoto and catch a blue marlin under my nose?) It didn’t take long – a sailfish pounced on one of the ballyhoos, and Dave, who was bright enough to bring his raincoat, was on.

Oh, to have the presence of mind to smile while fighting a fish.

Dave’s sailfish. We released it at boatside.

With that fish landed, we began the long run back in to port. Arch passed down the release flags we would fly on the way in to port, symbols of both our triumph against the odds and the fact we had let everything go to fight another day and fulfill someone else’s dream. Months later, as I think of that day, I can remember exactly how the fight felt, and exactly how the fish felt when I held it up, but I don’t recall the seas being all that rough. Selective memory is a wonderful thing.

One day, three lifetime dreams. What rain?

Steve

SPECIAL BONUS SECTION – A FAITHFUL READER TURNS ON ME

Apparently, my pain over the Hawaiian species Marta has caught and I have not is downright funny to some of you. Sadists! No sooner had I shared my deep anguish over the red cornetfish Marta caught in 2006, when reader Dom Porcelli just HAD to write in and share that he too had caught one. Dom is an avid angler based in Cincinnati, but now I shall never cheer for the Bengals again. I’m sure Jaime Hamamoto  is somehow behind this.

                          Nobody likes a smartypants, Dom.