Dateline: April 26, 2020 – Honolulu, Hawaii

It is with great sadness that I report that Dr. Jack Randall, a true giant of the ichthyology world and one of the great heroes of my species hunting quest, passed away on April 26. He was 95 years old. Dr. Randall, who never let me call him Dr. Randall in emails – he was just “Jack” – described and named 830 fish species in his lifetime. That’s over 2% of all known fish, and that number will undoubtedly rise as the scientific community goes through his numerous papers that are still pending. In the taxonomy world, he is Babe Ruth, Michael Jordan, and Wayne Gretzky rolled into one. Notice Tom Brady doesn’t get mentioned here, because all of Dr. Randall’s pufferfish were fully inflated.

Dr. Jack Randall – 1924-2020.

Jack at work. Yes, I’ve caught everything in the picture, except a diver.

My fish ID library is jammed with his books, and there aren’t nearly enough in there, so I just bought a few more.

The latest Randall book to join my collection. This one is sort of a romance novel, because that’s a Harlequin Tuskfish on the cover.

These are tomes, hefty “go-to” fish bibles for when you’ve caught some off-brand hogfish in the Maldives and it doesn’t fit anything in the tourist guides you buy at the airport. This is dorsal spine and anal ray counts, opercles and caudal peduncles, vomerine patches and premaxilla, and where VIII + I,20-22 actually means something. Dr. Jack Randall was the man who made me study and love science – something I spent my entire college career avoiding.

I know this one pretty much page-by-page.

By no means are these works of dry academia – many of the entries have hidden nuggets of humor. One of my personal favorites is in Reef and Shore Fishes of the Hawaiian Islands, under the Yellowmargin Moray – “Divers who repeatedly feed morays often have scars on their hands from feeding that did not go as planned.”

A yellowmargin moray from Kona.

Other remarks speak to the risks taken to document a species. The Undulated Moray account contains the following observation – “More prone to bite than most morays. (One I was trying to photograph underwater lunged out to bite my camera housing.)”

Martini with an Undulated Moray. It repeatedly tried to kill him.

I was first introduced to Jack’s works by Wade and Jamie Hamamoto.

A day so wonderful that even Jamie couldn’t ruin it.

We were on some perfect North Shore beach together, well into the evening, right about the time when Wade and I would start talking about pizzas. The conversation turned, of course, to fish. I asked about the differences between two flagtail species, and they both said, “You have to get Dr. Jack’s book.” I’m pretty sure they stuck a copy of it in my tackle bag the next morning, and I’m even more sure Jamie put a dead crab right next to it.

A few years later, I was stuck on a parrotfish ID, as many of us often are, because juvenile parrotfish are the next worst thing to tilapia for IDs. In a fit of desperation, I actually emailed Dr. Randall. This was the functional equivalent of asking Arnold Palmer for advice about the windmill on your local miniature golf course. But he responded. He responded quickly, set me straight on the ID, and opened up an occasional correspondence that went on for many years. Over time, as he retired and focused on writing his memoirs, he made sure to refer me to many experts in his network, such as Dr. Jeff Johnson, who is a superstar in his own right. Jack and I always talked about getting a drink when one of us was in the other’s neighborhood, but alas, time flew by and it never happened. I regret this as much as never seeing Roger Barnes play music.

In the time since I first opened one of Jack’s books, those books, plus the emails and correspondence with other academics Jack sent me to, have helped me identify 311 fish. That’s over 16% of my 1919 total species, tied to the efforts of one man. Of my 206 IGFA world records, 108 of them were identified with resources from Dr. Randall. I love to read these books – they are a source of inspiration for future trips, and are especially treasured now while we all can’t travel.

A record surge wrasse. I had initially thought it was a Christmas wrasse – Jack gently corrected the ID. 

Marta also will occasionally read the books. She especially enjoys the section on the red coronetfish, which, she reminds me almost daily, she has caught and that I probably will never catch.

Oh, how I hate this picture.

Thus, it does not always bother me as much as it should when she trips on the pile of Jack’s books I keep near the bathroom door. It happens in the middle of the night, when she stops snoring long enough to go take a Sudafed, but somehow thinks she is being redeemingly considerate by not turning on the light. I wait, and seconds later, we get the sound of a heavy book being kicked into the door by a curiously large foot and a loud “$%@&!!! WHO THE #%$& PUT THAT THERE??” I pretend to stay asleep and smile quietly in the darkness.

Marta’s first world record, a Peppered Moray, was also identified through one of Jack’s books. (And some detective work by Dr. Alfredo Carvalho.)

Did I mention I broke her record two days later? You can read the details in “The Eels of Justice.”

John Ernest Randall Jr. was born on May 22, 1924, in Los Angeles, California. He took an early interest in the ocean, and after a stint in the US Army during WWII, he graduated UCLA with a zoology degree in 1950*. In 1955, he earned his ichthyology PhD from the University of Hawaii. He held positions at the University of Miami and the University of Puerto Rico before returning to Hawaii in 1965. In 1967, he started working for the Bishop Museum and, though he officially retired in 2009, he continued to describe species – I would guess just for the fun of it.

Dr. Jack Randall.

In 1951, he married Helen Au, and she was his lifetime partner both at home and in the scientific world. She frequently assisted him on expeditions and with manuscripts. Helen’s commitment to her work can be summed up in single sentence from Reef and Shore Fishes of the Hawaiian Islands. “Helen Randall received a wound from the preopercular spine of this species in Moorea and experienced severe pain, indicating the presence of a venom.” In addition to his wife, Jack is survived by two children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Through his entire career, he visited and dove hundreds of exotic locations, braved unknown and sometimes hostile wildlife, and established a career so legendary that he became known as “Dr. Fish.”

On Fishbase.org, they give “Randall” as the example in the author search.

Although he never sought out attention for himself, his accomplishments meant that the scientific community was going to recognize him. At the moment, there are at least 51 species — and two genera — that reference him. One of my favorites is Randall’s Snapper, which Captain Dale Leverone has caught and I haven’t.

At least Jamie hasn’t caught one.

I look at all of this, and I see a life well spent, a life that has inspired countless others, including myself, and a life that has made us all more aware of the wonders we know and have yet to know in our oceans. (If we can manage not to destroy them.) In his honor, I am setting a personal goal to catch at least 10 of the fish named after Dr. Randall. Whoops – I should have called him Jack.

Thank you and God bless you, Dr. Fish.

Steve

 

*Biographical facts in the sections above were pulled from the obituary written about Dr. Randall by Christie Wilcox of the Washington Post.

Dateline: September 12, 2019 – Poplar Bluff, MO

This type of fishing trip could land me in a lot of trouble. I had promised Marta a weekend getaway in St. Louis, where we could see a baseball game, get plenty of local cuisine, and finally fulfill her deep, lifelong desire to visit The Arch. But me being me, and recognizing that St. Louis is only a few hours away from Poplar Bluff, I made a pitch to squeeze in some fishing, for a day … or two … in what has become a rewarding and yet frustrating destination for me over the years. Southeastern Missouri has produced 29 species for me, and yet each time I have gone there, I faced unseasonable heavy rain, and many of my main targets – black redhorse, pealip redhorse, current darter, and the elusive blue sucker – remained uncaught. My luck had to change sooner or later. It just had to. (Stop emailing me explanations of how probability actually works. No one likes a smartass.) So I begged and bargained, and Marta, with great reluctance but a huge windfall in shopping and meal credits, agreed to visit “The Gateway to the Ozarks.”

Any trip to Poplar Bluff is going to involve ace local guide Tyler Goodale. Tyler has spent years finding “Plan B” fish for me when “Plan A” got carried away in a flood. Could this finally be the time? The weather report looked good – suspiciously good – just as it had on several other trips. I also had to deal with Marta continually attempting to renegotiate the terms. Quite reasonably, she wanted to be in St. Louis rather than in the more rural areas of the state. She began exploring … “So what would you have to catch on the first day to cut things off and head to St. Louis early on Friday?” Recognizing that a lot of what I wanted to catch was just going to take time sitting by the riverbank, I cleverly tossed out what I assumed was an impossible list –

1. Black redhorse
2. Current darter
3. Pealip redhorse OR blue sucker
4. Any other new species
5. Any other new species

I figured if I pulled off five new species anywhere, I was way ahead of the game. We left it at that, but I presumed we would be fishing late on Friday. Las Vegas had the odds somewhere around 100:1 against me. On the black redhorse alone, I have spent at least 50 hours casting to them without success. Still, call me an idiot, but I was optimistic about this particular trip. (This is when Jamie says “OK, Steve. You’re an idiot.”)

Bizarrely, the United flight was on time, and we started the three-hour drive to Poplar Bluff in late afternoon. Marta attempted to divert us into St. Louis for barbecue, but I was resistant to this concept, as it could take away fishing time in the morning. We compromised by finding an excellent BBQ place on the way down, starting a weekend where this genre would represent over half of our major meals, including breakfast.

Dinner on night one.

They had some interesting dessert options. Read to the bottom.

We got into PB around 9:30, giving me plenty of time to put my gear together and then lay awake because I was too wound up to sleep. Water levels looked perfect, and there was no rain in sight. When dawn finally came, I had already given up on sleep and was up rechecking my gear, to Marta’s great annoyance. (Note that she is completely wrong to be annoyed here. She is the one who sets a 5am alarm each workday, and then snoozes it for an hour, guaranteeing that I will not get back to sleep.)

Tyler was there at the appointed hour of 6:20, and we headed off into a beautiful morning. Our first stop was a daring one – Sam A. Baker State Park, a location where I had repeatedly struck out on black redhorse. Tyler reasoned that since we knew the fish were there, and that others had caught them in this very place, that we may as well eliminate those variables. This made me uncomfortable, because the remaining variable, angler skill, was firmly on me. Sam A. Baker is a special place, and the particular creek we fish on is almost always a fisherman’s dream – low, clear, full of structure and full of fish. It was gorgeous, and it struck me I had never seen it at the crack of dawn, with no direct light on the water. I threaded a redworm onto a #12 hook, and started walking the bank.

Sam A. Baker at dawn.

About eight steps later, I saw my first group of black redhorse, brazenly cruising the bank as they always do. I held my breath and cast, beginning what I assumed would be another long day of this ritual, but hopeful that it would go well for once. I landed the cast perfectly, three feet in front of the fish, directly in their path. They cruised right by it, but I could swear one of them hesitated and looked at the bait ever so briefly. I reeled up and cast once more, and while I’m no Martini, I got it right in their path again. They cruised along, happily feeding, and inched ever closer to my rig. Years of disappointment in my troubled memory, I waited for them to suddenly change direction.

But they didn’t. The biggest of the three was now just inches from the hook. He casually swam until he was parallel to it, perhaps three inches from the actual bait, and then he stopped dead. He seemed to get an idea. And just like that, he suddenly turned on his flank and went for the worm. The sound of my intestine knotting up echoed through the still morning, as the redhorse went tail up, flared his gills, and carried the bait about six inches. Operating on pure adrenaline, I gently reeled the slack out of the line and snapped back. There was a brilliant silver flash in the water as the fish felt the hook and started the fight. It was a good-sized black redhorse, and it pulled hard on six pound line, running out for the deeper water. I walked along the bank, backed off the drag, and let him get tired. Tyler saw I had a fish and raced for the net, but when I had the fish in the shallows, completely worn out, I could see it was solidly hooked in the upper lip, and I just slid it up onto the bank. I had caught my black redhorse, just 15 minutes into the day. I bellowed in primal triumph, took dozens of photos, and sent the first one to Martini, who congratulated me.

The sound of my intestine unclenching echoed through the still morning.

The black redhorse was the 1892nd species of fish I have caught in my career, and there are very few that have given me more trouble and taken more time and effort. I am rarely satisfied with anything, which helps in fishing but is more curse than blessing, but I had a moment by that riverbank where I was happy and thought of nothing else.

Tyler has been there for the majority of my failures on this species, so it was great that he was there for the catch.

Here’s another gratuitous shot of the fish just because I’m so proud of it.

We fished another 45 minutes or so, while I looked for a stray madtom and Tyler helped Marta work on her species list. With the redhorse in the bag, we needed to look for some other newbies, and the most obvious of these would be the current darter, an hour away in Van Buren. It took exactly one Red Bull and two bags of white cheese popcorn to get there, and, to my surprise, we set up in a small stream I had fished previously with Tyler. (Nabbing a redbelly dace and a fantail darter.)  We waded slowly up the narrow channel, and I started spotting rainbow darters, which are the most common animal in nature. After passing on a few of these, Tyler whispered from a few feet ahead of me “Current darter. Big one.” I crept up beside him, and there was a much lighter-colored darter, about rainbow-size, perched next to a rock. I presented a micro-bait to it, and after a few false starts, it hit.

Species #2 of the day.

Well ahead of any reasonable schedule, we went to the main river to see what was biting – I knew there were a few resident oddball darters, and there was always a chance at a pealip. We got set up, and Tyler, who has the best fish-spotting vision this side of Martini, found an Arkansas saddled darter. I missed it. He found another, and I missed that one too. They are a skittish species that lives in relatively deep, fast water, and it was not to be. Tyler helped Marta nab a few other cool fish, like Mooneye, while he was pointing out a variety of local birds, each of which he could identify by call alone. While this was going on, I managed to land a Mississippi silvery minnow – an unexpected third species of the day.

I had no idea these were even here.

It was tough to leave the Arkansas saddled darters, but we needed to get back to Poplar Bluff and the main event at Wappapello spillway. The water levels were supposed to be absolutely perfect, and I was going to give it a good, long try for blue sucker and pealip redhorse. Marta mentioned that we were 60% of the way toward an early departure, drawing chuckles from both of us – the blue or pealip would be a tall order.

As we drove across Wappapello spillway, I held my breath and looked down, half expecting to see the roaring, muddy conditions I have gotten used to. Instead, it was a faint trickle, and the channel was low and narrow – I could see every current break, every rock, every back eddy. After all these years, it was fishable. It was also blazing hot and windless, and as we scrambled our way down to the bank, it occurred to me that there were no comfortable places to sit – just hot, sharp rocks. We loaded up on sunblock and hoped for the best. Note from my buttocks – bring stadium cushions next time.

My normal experience at this spillway involves heavy weights and lots of snags, but with the delightfully low flow, we could cast to obvious current breaks and hold with very little weight. It was wonderful, like visiting my Aunt when she has laryngitis.

This is at least 20 feet lower than I have ever seen it.

The bites started immediately – bluegill, white bass, and then some more exotic stuff, like bigmouth buffalo. As the sun got lower and my buttocks got less roasted, the fish got more interesting. The buffalo got bigger, and I started getting stray oddities like flathead catfish.

A bigmouth buffalo. They get a lot bigger than this.

One of my larger flatheads ever. I need to correct this.

Steve and Tyler wait patiently for a unicorn.

Marta hooked what was likely a big gar, which she had to scramble a hundred yards down the bank to battle. Just before she got broken off, I got THE bite. It was a subtle pumping, not the frantic rattle of a bluegill nor the steady run of a catfish or buffalo. I let it go for a moment and set the hook. The fish took off, and it felt like the right size. I backed off on the drag and took my time, and moments later, I saw some red fins surface. I started to shout for Tyler, but he had seen the whole thing and was waiting there with the net. It was a redhorse – but which one? He netted it, and we scrambled to flip it over. And there it was, clear as could be – the pea-size swelling on the lip.

I had my unicorn.

For you sharp-eyed gear enthusiasts, yes, that is a Sportex rod, courtesy of dear friend Jens Koller.

As a bit of an afterthought, I weighed the fish. At two pounds, it would be more than enough to put in as a world record, which would put Tyler on the IGFA scoreboard as the guide. (I was able to get him the guide certificate on Christmas Eve, which hopefully made it an even better holiday.)

Gratuitous extra shot.

We stayed another couple of hours, Marta enjoying the action and me silently wishing for a blue sucker, which would have been quite a stretch.

For the record, my bigmouth buffalo was bigger than hers. She stole a page from Martini’s book and responded “You’re a bigmouth buffalo.”

Moonrise over the St. Francis River.

The day had been perfect. We took Tyler and his family out for a nice steak dinner,

From left to right, that’s Marta, then Tyler’s girlfriend Sarah, who is holding their son Barrett, then young and energetic Dalton, Ralph the Bear, Tyler, Steve, and Kelsey, Tyler’s daughter.

While we were chatting over dinner, Marta mentioned leaving early in the morning for St. Louis. “Hold your redhorses.” I responded cleverly. “That promise was based on FIVE new species, not four.” And that is how I found myself banished into the mosquito-filled night to search out another fish. Tyler and I ventured forth, headlamps at the ready, and explored a few local streams, looking for something, anything, that would allow me back into the Holiday Inn. Well past midnight, after missing a few odd-looking darters and shiners, we stumbled onto a small darter that didn’t spook in my headlamp. I hit in in the nose a few times with my bait, and then it pounced. I swung it up onto the muddy bank, where it flipped off the hook, leaving Tyler and I scrambling to tackle it. When we finally subdued the creature, Tyler was stunned. He explained it was a saddleback darter, definitely a new species for me, and as far as he knew, for anybody.

The saddleback darter.

I had my five species for the day – an almost impossible feat for me at this stage of my quest, and a tribute to Tyler’s amazing local knowledge.

To be fair, Marta did let us fish a little on the way up to St. Louis the next morning, but the Fish Gods made it clear I was pushing my luck. The next few days were what normal people might regard as a nice weekend getaway – we met up with dear old friend Steve Ramsey, toured St. Louis, watched the Cardinals, and ate more barbecue than anyone should ever eat in two days. It’s a great town, and I look forward to visiting again, because that blue sucker is still out there someplace.

Steve

Special Bonus Section – The St. Louis Photos

This is a very worthwhile town to visit, even if I didn’t do any fishing nearby.

The Arch at night. No, I did not go up in it. I am not good with heights.

Interestingly, Steve Ramsey does not own a smartphone. We tease him about this endlessly, but he claims he can get by just fine without one. I can’t wait to see him on a street corner, yelling “Uuuuuuuber! Uuuuuuuber!” 

Much barbecue was consumed.

The low point of the weekend – in blazing heat, Marta death-marched two disinterested males through the Missouri Botanical Garden, which is massive.

The Budweiser brewery tour was phenomenal. Try to book in advance.

We did not book in advance, and only got in through the good graces of Steve the guest services manager.

Sad but true.

The greatest soft-serve ANYWHERE. This includes Culver’s, and that’s a high bar.

DATELINE: AUGUST 31, 2019 – BIRMINGHAM, MICHIGAN

This one is going to have a very low fish-to-text ratio, so if you’re just here for fish, here it is: I added a Johnny Darter to my species list. Yes, that’s it, so you can skip the next 2700 words – unless you are locked in and bored out of your skull, in which case, even this might seem entertaining. For me, of course, it is always a longer story, with a heavy dose of my childhood memories, which, for purposes of preserving my self-esteem, will not include such unfortunate incidents as my losing the 8th grade spelling bee to Amy Clayton. (“Colossal” only has one “a.” Who knew?)

In recent years, old friend Steve Ramsey and I have started organizing larger and larger gatherings to tour a random midwestern city, eat random midwestern food, and take in local sporting events. The first official one of these, the so-called “Deja Brew Tour 2018,” took place in Milwaukee. The attendees included me, Marta, Ramsey, his good friends Ron and Carol, and no one’s good friend Cousin Chuck, plus Chuck’s long-suffering wife Joanne. We ate a lot of sauerkraut and then watched the Brewers dismantle my beloved Detroit Tigers.

Going clockwise from me, that’s Cousin Chuck (really,) his long-suffering wife Joanne, my long-suffering Marta, Steve Ramsey, Carol, and Ron. Ramsey is not a childhood Tigers fan – he has current home and away jerseys for most MLB teams in his closet, ready for well-dressed game attendance at a moment’s notice.

We also made the pilgrimage to Lambeau Field to watch the Packers play. This is an 81,000 seat stadium in a 105,000 person town, and it is a must-visit for any serious sports fanatic.

The group goes cheesehead. I grew up hating the Packers, because they always find a way to beat the Lions, but you have to respect the tradition and the trophies.

Where else can you get a bloody Mary with summer sausage and a mini-bratwurst?

For the summer 2019 edition, the group would head to Michigan, take in a Tigers game, and also see the Toledo Mud Hens – Corporal Max Klinger’s favorite squad.

Many of you are too young to remember M*A*S*H, one of the greatest shows ever. Look it up. You’ll have plenty of TV time in the next few months.

I lived in Michigan from 1972 to 1979, and I formed my sports loyalties and my love of fishing there. This would truly be a trip down memory lane, one which almost no one except me would possibly care about. If you haven’t stopped reading by now, you must be my niece, or, as we mentioned, really, really bored.

I managed to identify one potential new species – the aforementioned Johnny Darter – that was conveniently close to where we were staying. It apparently lives in the fabled Rouge River, the same place I caught my first fish on my own sometime around summer 1976. The process of discovering this began with John Leisen, he who helped me get my smallmouth redhorse,

Josh Leisen. There isn’t a lot to do in Northern Michigan.

Josh introduced me to Bob Muller, a NANFA member who also works with “Friends of the Rouge,” (https://therouge.org/), a group that promotes cleanup and conservation of this amazing waterway.

Bob Muller with a white sucker.

Bob has become quite an expert on what species live where in the Rouge, and he immediately pointed me to some nearby spots that had large darter concentrations. With the big crew we had in town, I was going to have only a few short windows to fish, but I kept thinking to myself “It’s a darter in shallow clear water. How hard can it be?” Any species hunters reading right now are laughing at me.

I knew the very bridges and riffles that Bob mentioned, and I faintly remember small fish darting out from under the rocks when I splashed through the area as a child. I was confident enough that I didn’t even go fishing on the first day – Marta and the group had already made plans to visit the Henry Ford Museum, and this is not to be missed. This sprawling complex in Dearborn, Michigan houses a world-class collection of vehicles and culture, from steam-driven times to the present day, with the notable exception of the Ford Pinto.

Henry Ford. Not as good as the Disneyland statue.

See?

The vehicle collection at The Ford is a must, ranging from the historical to the absurd.

An original Model T. My grandfather drove one, and is still probably waiting on a warranty claim for the transmission.

We actually got to ride in one.

I always wanted one of these.

This DC-3 was donated to the museum on May 28 1975. I was on a school trip to HFM that day, and witnessed its final landing.

The actual chair that President Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot. They also have the JFK car. I was a bit disappointed that there was nothing on Garfield or McKinley.

We then toured the Greenfield Village part of the complex. This outdoor area hosts a large collection of historical buildings moved from all over the world, ranging from colonial workshops to Thomas Edison’s laboratory. (Marta, a Tesla fan, was somewhat skeptical.) Every building has a few docents to explain the unrecognizable artifacts, like wall phones and children paying attention.

Marta makes friends easily.

On the way home, we visited my childhood home, which I am sure is going to be bought by Greenfield village any day now,

Sean Biggs and I use to climb on the roof and throw water balloons at my sister.

The group made the mistake of letting me choose the restaurant, so needless to say, it was Polish food.

The group, in a good mood because the sauerkraut hadn’t kicked in yet.

The Polka Restaurant on West Maple Road. Highly recommended.

I awoke the next morning with high confidence, but a certain regret that I hadn’t eaten more fiber. I made the pilgrimage to the Manor Road bridge, one of the places Sean Biggs and I used to fish. On the way, we passed by the Kensington culvert, the exact spot I had gotten that first fish on my own, more than 40 years ago.

It was just behind the overhang on the right. Marta asked if there was a historical marker in the bushes. She also asked why there wasn’t a statue of me outside the Birmingham Ice Arena. 

It was still stuffed with creek chubs, but despite a thorough look under all the rocks, I spotted no darters.

A Rouge River creek chub. One of my personal favorite fish.

Armed with knowledge from Bob, I headed to the Willits Street bridge near downtown. Sean and I rode our 10-speeds across this zillions of times in the 70s, and I never once imagined that adult me would be here years later trying to catch a three-inch fish.

The riffle in question.

And let’s emphasize “trying,” because as soon as I got in the water, I saw dozens of johnny darters, all of which fled in terror and refused to look at a bait. I had very little time before I needed to join the group and head to Toledo, and I was confronted with an uncooperative micro? Such are the Fish Gods. I presented to every likely-looking crevice and overhang, and while I saw a few darter heads peek out, nothing would bite. This was inconvenient. My time to meet the group came and went, and when I started getting text threats from Marta, I relented and left the creek, utterly defeated.

We spent the evening in Toledo, first at Tony Packo’s for a chili-dog dinner, then taking in a Toledo Mud Hens game. Minor league baseball is a wonderful way to spend a summer evening, and as I looked at the group, I realized how darn old I am. I’ve been with Marta 15 years, counting continuous service. I met Sean Biggs, my Bantam hockey teammate and owner of a head-removing slapshot, in 1975. I’ve been swinging and missing at Dave Hogan’s curveball since 1989. Steve Ramsey has been a great friend since 1990, and he has known Ron and Carol Freeney since their IU days, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. That’s 118 combined years of friendship if Marta and I are still friends at press time.

Steve, Marta, Sean, Steve, Ron, and Carol. Dave Hogan took this photo so he isn’t in it. He is too old for selfies.

This one includes Dave Hogan. See if you can figure out which one he is.

The next morning, I showed up at the Rouge with a bit more respect. And a lot more fear. Again, I only had a few hours available, but I tried to approach the rocks with Pat Kerwin-like stealth and  present baits at likely ambush points. It still went badly. I saw a few fish poke their heads out, but couldn’t get one to attack. This went on for two hours, and I was apoplectic. I tried all the identified fish spots several times, then began gently tipping rocks over to at least find some more targets. Of course, there were fish, but they fled in terror, and I firmly believe Johnny darters are faster than sailfish. I followed a few and presented to them repeatedly, which is not a high-odds approach but at least let me get a bait in front of a fish. That went on for another hour or so. I began cursing whoever Johnny was.

As it got time to leave for the Tigers game, where I would go watch more failure, I had one fish spook but then settle in a little deeper run beside a rock. I watched him from a distance for a few minutes, and saw him actively go after a few passing particles of food. This had to be my darter. I eased up to the spot and drifted the micro hook down toward him. Stunningly, he took all the drama out of the situation by sprinting 12 inches up the pool to attack the worm. He hit it twice, got hooked, and then stayed on for those slow-motion seconds that pass between hookset and getting the fish on the bank.

Species 1891. I was beside myself with joy.

A closeup of the beast.

The Tigers game was an unlikely experience. They were playing the first-place Minnesota Twins, who I still hate because of the 1987 ALCS, during which I believe they turned down the Metrodome lights when the Tigers were batting. We showed up prepared to see another Detroit loss, and hoped for small victories, like keeping the opponent under 20 runs. True to form, the Tigers gave up six homers, including one that broke the MLB record for home runs in a season. Completely out of form, however, the Tigers somehow still won the game.

We attended the game with an even bigger group, adding species-hunting buddy Josh Leisen and, of all people, Cousin Chuck. You should know the others by now. That’s Chuck on the far left, in case you don’t recognize him without the orange jumpsuit, and Josh is 4th from left in case you don’t recognize him without the turkey costume.

An historical display at Comerica Stadium. Norm Cash was a Tigers first baseman, a feared slugger, and my childhood hero. I wore his #25 in tee-ball, even though batting order was set on jersey number. I even tried to learn to hit left-handed, until someone pointed out I couldn’t hit right-handed either. 

Yes, there is a Cousin Chuck. It was nice to get a photo where the ankle bracelet didn’t show.

On the way home, I gave an impromptu tour of the odd street names in my old neighborhood.

Always loved this one.

Say it out loud.

With the fish captured, I could enjoy our last day in Michigan with a bit less pressure. The high point was visiting Frankenmuth, a town two hours north that boasts a Wal-Mart sized Christmas store, Bronner’s. No matter that you’re into, there’s an ornament to commemorate it, subject to family-friendly limits.

It’s nice to wear a Red Wings shirt and not have people stare.

Late that evening, we boarded a packed jet, bound for San Francisco.

During the whole flight, we probably washed our hands once or twice, didn’t fret about hand sanitizer or toilet paper, stood and sat close to people, and Marta hugged everyone including the stewardess when she found us an extra bag of pretzels. It was only seven months ago, and it seems like a much simpler, more human time. I hope we can get back to it quickly.

Steve

 

SPECIAL BONUS SECTION – THE IGFA CAUSES MARITAL STRIFE

The IGFA has brought a great deal of good into the world – ethical angling practices, conservation, and a place for the Arosteguis to store some of their trophies. But this past September, I watched a world record quest place a great strain on a marriage, and I was grateful it wasn’t mine. Sam and Kate Clarke are well-known to the 1000Fish community as the heartless Brits who stained our Christmas with Raymond Brigg’s “The Snowman.” They visited us again this summer, which was a win/win because it was too early for them to show us any more awful British Christmas TV and it was warm enough to take them fishing. I had taken them a few years ago, but the December cold had left us with slim pickings. This time, we had a perfect tide and weather to fish Tomales Bay for sharks.

The complication came when I mentioned that there was a potential world record available, on the Pacific Spiny Dogfish. (I have the current record at 12.5 pounds, but there are clearly bigger fish out there.) They both exhibited a strong interest in catching a world record, and an even stronger interest in the other one not catching one. This was going to be an interesting day.

I always warn people that Tomales can be a windswept mess, because it always is when Spellman and I go. But the weather turned out flat and lovely, which it always seems to be for first-timers, and they both looked at me skeptically when I put all the foul weather gear in the boat. The fishing was excellent, although we didn’t see any spiny dogfish for most of the day.

One of the five sevengills we landed that day. Damn they’re adorable. The couple I mean.

Sam with his first “Mud Marlin” – the mighty California Bat Ray.

The day went by quickly, with constant action from sevengill and leopard sharks, and plenty of bat rays. The dogfish were being a bit shy, but I had faith that they would show eventually.

A word to the wise – shark skin, even on a small fish, can give you a nasty scrape. Luckily, it was me.

Like most women I know, Kate is not pointlessly competitive, but she enjoys watching the reactions of people who are. Sam wanted this BAD, so Kate just wanted to see the look on his face if she caught it. I, of course, would have been thrilled if I got the big fish and left everyone else disappointed. I know that isn’t gracious, but if you think I’m gracious about fishing, you must be a new reader. Welcome! Around the time the tide started slowing down, the dogfish showed up. Sam and Kate each got one around 11 pounds, but they needed 12.5 to tie me. I got one right at 12.5, but it’s tasteless to tie your own records, so I let it go. They each got one more, again in that 11+ range, and as the last of the tide ran out, Sam got one more bite. I watched with perverse interest as he fought the fish. It seemed just a bit stronger than his other two, and as I carefully grabbed it, I could tell it was clearly big enough. I said a silent prayer that it wasn’t 13 pounds, and raced to the shore to take an official weight. It was 12.5, so it worked out well for everyone. Except Katy.

Sam and his first world record. Well done – Roger would be proud.

A sobbing Katy has to be carried back to the boat.*

Luckily, they are young and I am sure they will visit again. As of press time, they seem to have moved past this and are speaking again.

*Not really.

 

 

 

 

DATELINE: AUGUST 24, 2019 – SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

Last summer seems like years ago. My Mother once told me that time goes a lot faster when you get older. I was young then and thought she was full of crap, but the older I got, the smarter Mom turned out to be. So here I am, somewhere in the post-Christmas dead of winter, just going through my notes for a blog about last summer, which is already separated from us by three major holidays, and I’m not including Valentine’s Day, which hopefully hasn’t happened yet, (whoops,) because I haven’t been to the jewelry store, and believe me, a vacuum, no matter how nice it is, is a bad Valentine’s present.

Now, back to the subject – cats. The 1000fish blog has introduced us to a number of remarkable felines. Cora the cat and her memorably awkward photo with Ben Cantrell is a fan favorite, and perhaps the greatest cat of all time, Rossi Arostegui, has appeared in these pages. This summer, a new kitty coughed a furball onto the fishing scene, and his name is Rascal. Rascal belongs to Ben’s girlfriend, Katy. and since Ben and Katy cohabitate, and Ben works from home, Ben and Rascal spend a lot of time together.

Rascal takes a selfie with Ben.

On a WhatsApp group Ben set up for some species-hunting friends, when fish photos are posted, he enjoys sending a photo of Rascal with the caption “Rascal Approves.” We all consider this to be a badge of honor.

Remember – we are species fishermen and weren’t normal in the first place.

I managed to avoid business trips in July and August, so naturally, I planned some California fishing excursions. There are some excellent closeby options – my “go-to” fishing – but you rarely read about them because they do not meet one of my four blog prerequisites – a new species, a world record, or someone getting seasick, or naked, hopefully at the same time. (Molnar, we’re thinking of you.) There are precious few species options within a day trip of my house, and by now, those tend to be stupid rare (e.g., sixgill shark) or just stupid (e.g., Sacramento blackfish, which won’t eat anything.) So, in this episode, we’ll cover a few trips of note this summer, some of which involve new species, but all of which involve fish.

Speaking of seasick, the first trip involves my on-again, off-again nephew, Charlie. Chuckles somehow wrangled some sort of lame internship out here on the west coast, which gave us a rare chance to get fishing together where his mother wouldn’t try to keep it to 15 minutes and make him wear a suit of armor. Our first adventure was pier fishing in Tiburon, an excellent way to spend an afternoon, especially when there is Waypoint pizza for dinner.

The first thing Charlie caught was a brown rockfish. This is going to upset Pat Kerwin, who couldn’t get one to bite for a whole miserable day in December.

I love to hide Charlie’s sunglasses.

A Tiburon landmark, and truly one of the best pizzas anywhere.

But the main event for Charlie was to go to Clear Lake, one of Northern California’s bass meccas, and try to get a big largemouth. Charlie defined “big” as five pounds or more, and I felt confident that he could get one. I signed up guide Tom Guercio, a good friend of 1000fish regular Jim Larosa.

Tom and Charlie. Where did those sunglasses go? (By the way, Tom is on 925-813-0792 for Clear Lake bass fishing.)

We were blessed with calm, cloudless weather. Those early hours, before the sun hit the water, gave us exactly what we wanted – constant bites on plastics. We both got a few solid fish, including a nice three-pounder for Chuckles.

This was his first fish of the day.

Around 8am, Charlie got the hit he wanted, and after a spirited battle, Tom expertly netted Charlie’s five-pounder. Charlie has managed to grow up into a 20-year-old high school junior, but we have still had precious few of these moments. It was quite a privilege to be there.

Charlie and his beast. I made him wear the hat for the photo so his mother would think he cared about sunburn.

He got a bit cocky about catching the biggest fish of the day, so I thought I’d include this shot of a slightly larger beast from my portfolio.

Rascal was still not impressed.

It wouldn’t be summer unless I made a couple of trips to Tomales Bay to fish for sharks and rays. In mid-August, I ran up there with old friends Michael and Cooper. Michael is the Creative Director at a premium design agency that does work projects with Marta. While he is an awesome guy, I generally get to see him during some high-pressure consulting emergency where everyone except me is obsessed with a website launch. This is how I have gotten to know Cooper so well – he and I have no idea what the adults are talking about, so we talk about important stuff, like fishing and baseball.

Tomales can be a miserable place. It is prone to fog and wind that can turn even a summer excursion into a shivering test of willpower, but the place is full of fish. I had warned Michael and Cooper about this for years, so naturally, the day we chose to go was flat calm and beautiful.

Cooper is the one with the magnificent hair.

Not only was it sunny and still the whole time, but the fishing was excellent. We boated a load of leopard sharks, spiny dogfish, and bat rays, all safely released with a free squid lunch.

Cooper and his first leopard shark. This photo made him the most popular kid in school for weeks.

That’s Cooper’s Dad, Michael. He is smiling because he isn’t talking to Marta about 472 design changes she needs done in the next hour.

Rascal approves.

Watching a kid do this for the first time reminds me of how darn exciting it is to be on the water, so I really had Cooper to thank. Fishing with him gives me all the joy of a kid without having to get barfed on. Again, I’m thinking of you, Molnar.

Speaking of people barfing, Marta and I celebrated 15 years together last summer. People have lost millions of dollars in office pools over this.

We then move the show to Southern California. I had been giving some thought to a San Diego road trip, and there was never going to be a better time. In hindsight, I could have chosen a better route, because I drove down there via the Salton Sea, in the vain hope of catching a porthole livebearer. Everyone else catches them, yet I never do. It’s a lonely twelve hours to San Diego when the (1.5 inch) target fish was nowhere to be seen.

Once I got a night of sleep and had eaten my fill of Taco Bell, it was time to get to the serious fishing. San Diego is a gorgeous place – temperate, green, and everyone is young and good-looking. (As opposed to Los Angeles, where everyone is young, rich, annoying, and has a boob job. Even the guys.)

Illinois native Ben Cantrell has figured out a lot of the local species, and I still have a decent list of them left to catch. One of the most troubling is the horn shark. This shy beast is a close relative of the Port Jackson Shark I got in Australia a few years ago. It’s a sit and wait kind of thing, and I have done plenty of sitting and waiting without so much as a decent bite. Ben had a spot in Mission Bay he wanted to try, and we planned an evening of soaking squid by some bridge pilings. Ben had two big targets that evening, because he not only needed the horn shark, but he was also looking for a diamond ray. (The ray is a lot more common, and Ben was rightfully annoyed he hadn’t caught one yet. (I got my mine in Puerto Vallarta in 2013.)

It was a gorgeous night, which is par for the course in San Diego, and we cast out two rods each and let them sit.

San Diego is insanely beautiful.

The dreaded round stingrays, which must be stacked on every square inch of the bottom, moved in and began gnawing the squid. We caught quite a few; they are dangerous to unhook and take away from quality fishing time, but they have a right to eat too. After half an hour of this, I got a comparatively bigger bite. When I set the hook, whatever vaguely annoyed animal was at the other end was clearly not a round stingray. I announced to Ben “I have a horn shark.” “Ha ha” he replied. Moments later, Ben helped me land a horn shark, and just that quickly, I had added species 1889.

Oh hell yes.

The triumphant anglers.

They are adorable, but look closely at the dentition.

Ben is a good guy and a good friend, but he couldn’t help but mention that he had spent countless hours fishing this spot without a horn shark, and I had spent about an hour there and gotten one. This was not in any sort of spite – it was more in the spirit of mathematics and how statistical probabilities are not useful if I don’t follow them. But before I could even muse on how unfair the universe is, something raced off with my bait. I spent a few minutes battling whatever it was – decidedly not a horn shark – and announced I had a bat ray. I was wrong. I had a diamond ray – the other species Ben was after. Ben handled everything with good humor. “Nice, Steve. The horn shark wasn’t enough, huh?” I felt awful, but the competitive side of me, which is both sides, was faintly amused.

The fish in question.

Rascal did not approve.

We kept busy with round rays and small gray sharks, and the tide started slowing down. Ben was not thrilled, but he certainly didn’t blame me. As we enjoyed the warm evening, Ben’s rod folded over hard. Whatever it was, it was the biggest fish of the night, which made me feel a little better. Ben called bat ray, I called diamond ray, hoping that it was and that Ben would forgive me. Ten minutes later, Ben put 17 pounds of steaming diamond ray on the beach. He was thrilled, I was relieved, and the evening closed out as a rousing success.

Ben’s ray. Yes, he caught it on that rod, and no, he did not let it spine him in the calf.

We had a few targets for the next day, mostly small stuff in harbors and backwaters. Notable among these was the longjaw mudsucker, a goby species that is popular for striper bait that I can never seem to find in the wild. Ben felt that we could find them in the same slough where I caught my California killifish, and it turns out he is something of an expert on this, as he is helping the Scripps Institute write a paper on these beasts. I’m not bad at spotting fish, but Ben has excellent eyes and he saw a dozen of them before I found one. (Martini does the same thing to me.) It finally hit a bait after a few fits and starts, and I was 10 species away from 1900.

Species 1890.

That evening, Ben trusted me enough to introduce me to Katy. She is awesome. They are aggravatingly young, attractive, and fit, and she is remarkably patient with Ben’s fishing “hobby” (= “obsession.”)

I can’t find a picture of them NOT doing something healthy and outdoors.

They have 6% body fat. Combined.

We tried for some other sharks and rays that night, but the elusive banded guitarfish remained elusive, and I cut it off fairly early because I had a long drive home the next day. It was still San Diego, we were still out on the water, and there would always be another trip down here. Rascal approves.

Steve

Dateline: July 23, 2019 – Baja California Sur, Mexico

It all started with Heather Spellman wanting Mark out of the house. I get it – I don’t even live with Mark and I want him out of the house. Heather deserves a weekend by herself now and then, and I get to go fishing, so it’s a win/win, like when your mother-in-law drives that 12 year-old BMW off a cliff. Mark and I got talking about tropical destinations, and Cabo, or more specifically the Buena Vista resort on the East Cape, came to mind. This place holds a lot of good memories for me. Back in the 1990s, when I was certainly a passionate fisherman but hadn’t yet organized it into a push for species or world records, this was the first exotic fishing destination I ever went to. Buena Vista is where I got my first yellowfin tuna, my first striped marlin, my first Pacific blue marlin, and my first Pacific sailfish.

My first Pacific sailfish – July 21, 1996.

This is also where I got my first roosterfish, jack crevalle, African pompano, and triggerfish. That’s right, I listed triggers in the same sentence with roosterfish.

My biggest rooster, June 12, 1998.

My first triggerfish of any kind, July 20, 1996. I was desperate to get one at the time, but they lose their luster after the first 15,000 or so.

The guy I went with on all these trips, Mike “Rapo” Rapoport, was a passionate big game fisherman, but he did not share my love of bottom species.

Mike, who manages to look epic in any photo.

There was often conflict between our two type-A personalities over what to fish for, which we resolved by taking separate boats. I didn’t have as much of a sense of species hunting as I do today, but I still managed to catch some interesting stuff between trolling sessions. I always wondered what it would be like to go there just for bottom fishing, especially in the deep water that is so close to the resort. I starting checking recent reports from local contacts, and thumbing though my collection of Sea of Cortez field guides, and it looked like there was a lot of potential. Mark and I booked four days, figuring this would get us a shot at a balance of species hunting and gamefish. I also reasoned that at least one of the species would be an open IGFA world record. That next record would be my 200th – territory explored only by the Arosteguis. I was heading into the trip with 1881 species, so I knew a spectacular showing could put me to 1900, but the record milestone was on my mind big time.

Somewhere in there, we invited Martini along to add that touch of professionalism and basic hygiene we would lack otherwise. The trip fit his cramped schedule, and I hadn’t fished with him in far too long.

On arrival day, there was a dark omen – the airline destroyed Martini’s luggage. The contents were fine, but this delayed us getting to the resort. You can’t imagine my impatience, as I was positively frantic to get to the beach and fish the rockpiles I remember so well from 20+ years ago. Mark and Martini both rolled with the punches much better than I did, which will surprise no one. We finally got there in the late afternoon and raced to set up equipment. It was windier than I wanted, so the sight fishing on the rocks was limited, but we still all got some nice tropicals.

First fish of the trip – a Panamic Sergeant.

The first evening on the beach.

None of the fish were new for me, but it was great to be out on foreign water, and I stuck at it into the evening. The East Cape was just as beautiful as I remembered it.

Sunset at Buena Vista.

At dinner we met Resort Cat. Resort Cat would accept Martini’s fish, but not my pork carnitas.

In the morning, we boarded a cruiser and headed out, full of optimism and breakfast burritos. I had gone to the trouble of buying Mexico charts for Marta’s GPS unit, but it was Martini who actually figured out how to use the thing. He is, after all, a scientist. On our way, we fished some medium-deep bottom grounds – maybe 200 feet. I remembered catching all kinds of cool stuff in this area back in the early 90s, and as I shared these memories with Mark and Martini, it dawned on me that we weren’t catching much. A few sand perch here and there, and some nondescript flounder to add to my unidentified list.

These things are as bad as shiners to ID. Any ideas?

I did get a small African pompano – a great fight on light tackle.

These are fabulous eating.

We were about 300 yards from where I caught my first African pompano, on June 15, 1998.

From the old photo albums. On that very same day, Rapo lost a HUGE dorado because he was rushing to get a rig into the water before me and tied a bad knot. I still smile every time I think about it, because I am a bad person.

By mid-morning, we decided it was time for the deep water.

Martini’s expectations on deep drop fishing are justifiably high. He has spent many days carefully studying potential locales and many days dropping baits down on them. He is relentless and meticulous in all aspects of the game, and his results speak for themselves. We need only look at some of the beastly mystic groupers he has pulled up from well below 1000 feet in the Bahamas.

He caught this without breaking a pelvis or even a sweat.

It follows that our expectations would reasonably include some fish this size, and hopefully a decent variety.

We set up over some very attractive deep ledges, and down we went. Letting a rig drop 1000 feet gives a man time to think, mostly about how deep the water is. Bites were immediate, and the first creature I hauled up counts as half a species. It was a bighead tilefish, a creature I caught here in June of 1997.

The old photos were less than optimal, so this cleared up any possible ID issues.

On our second drop, I hit the first new species of the trip – a speckled scorpionfish. I was delighted to see what I presumed would be the first of many interesting creatures to come up from the deep.

Surely this would lead to dozens of species.

We dropped again. We got more scorpionfish. We dropped another time, because we just knew that something different would come up. We just new that the deep water could not possibly turn out to be a place stuffed with scorpionfish and nothing else. There was no way this could possibly happen. It was early in the trip and we were still filled with joy and optimism.

After around 50 scorpionfish, we moved back toward the beach and fished some shallow water, picking up a good batch of triggerfish and other assorted inshore critters. Martini tirelessly cast a jig after a gamefish he was certain would bite. I had personal knowledge that Pacific Crevalles were in the area, or at least that they had been 21 years ago.

June 12, 1998. My first ever fish on a metal jig.

Spellman had a good pulldown, and at the end of his battle, he landed a huge bullseye puffer. At two pounds, it crushed the existing world record, and so the first record of the trip went not to me or Martini, but to Spellman, who now has four.

How hard could it be?

My first bullseye – July 7, 2001. That purple Hi’s Tackle Box shirt disintegrated in the wash a few years later.

Once we docked, I raced to fish the shoreline – which was also curiously devoid of marine life. A couple of hours later, I was ready to throw in the towel, which left me wondering – when bricklayers quit, do they throw in the trowel? Bemused by this conundrum, I cast my small white jig a few more times, and moments later, I got a crushing hit. Whatever it was peeled line off at high speed and headed down the beach. Twice, I thought I would be spooled or rocked up, and twice, the fish grudgingly came back. After 15 minutes of fantastic light-tackle battle, I beached a gafftopsail pompano, a high-speed permit relative that frequents shallow, sandy areas. I was ecstatic.

But it wasn’t a record. I still just had one to go. This weighed heavily on me.

Still, it’s beautiful place.

Saturday’s dinner was a fiesta on the beach. The outdoor grill and bottomless margaritas were fine, but the musical stylings of “Paul” reminded us that fiesta and fiasco are only a few letters apart.

Day two started out well. We ran north, to an area Martini had scoped out on the GPS.

We ignored the morning red sky. It didn’t ignore us.

We started out in a rugged area that ranged from 100 to 150 feet, and it was there I had my best 10 minutes of the trip. (Except for that magic moment at 3:10am on the 22nd, when Spellman briefly stopped snoring.)

Proof of Spellman’s nighttime grunts.

We dropped the rigs to the bottom, being careful to stay above the jagged rocks, and got immediate bites. Just as the scorpionfish ganged up in the deep water, puffers owned the shallow reefs. We all got a few, and before the novelty wears off, it is fun to take pictures with them.

How do these things mate? I mean the porcupinefish of course.

My second or third puffer was a sharpnose, still a relatively common species, but it struck me as being a rather big one.

The beast.

Martini with a sharpnose. Adorable.

There are very few people in the fishing world that would care about the size of a sharpnose puffer, but two of these people were on the boat. I checked the record, and it was open. I weighed the fish, and it showed as the required pound. But would it still be a pound when we got back to harbor and could get an official weight? I don’t do well with drama like this, but some of the suspense ended in spectacular fashion moments later. I hooked what I figured to be another puffer, but as it surfaced, I saw a brilliant flash of yellow. It was a King Angelfish.

I had never caught an angelfish of any kind before, and believe me, I have tried.

Many of my friends have caught angelfish and mocked me because I had not.

Best of all, this was an open record and a clear pound, so I knew that if the puffer didn’t check out, I would still reach 200, four and a half years after number 100. I was ecstatic. The angelfish was also species 1882 for me. Marta’s father was born in 1882. This is not a typo, and bear in mind Marta is a good bit younger than me.

So, things were looking up. Martini continued casting a metal jig after the big jack we just knew had to be there. It wasn’t, but we still headed to the deep water with the highest of hopes. (In this blog, I often point out that the line between optimism and stupidity can be fuzzy.) We made one drop and caught – you guessed it – scorpionfish.

We laughed it off, albeit nervously.

That would be our last drop of the day. A south wind went from unnoticed to savage in just a few minutes. We had no chance to maintain a controlled drift, so bottom fishing wasn’t going to happen.

As a desperate plan Z, we put out the trolling lures in the hopes that Spellman might hook a decent gamefish. We wallowed home with big waves breaking over the bow. Blam. Blam. Blam. For almost three hours. And nothing bit on the troll. When we did dock, which was a rather difficult affair due to the high waves, I raced to the beach to weigh the puffer. It did reach the magic one pound mark and thus went into the books as my 200th record. The more glamorous angelfish would go down as 201. Martini was the first to welcome me to the club.

The official weighing of Record #200. No, you do not get another Lifetime Achievement Award. Yes, I asked.

The water was roiled up, but I still insisted on giving it a shot from shore that evening. My smarter companions enjoyed beers by the pool.

The guys eat dinner at the bar. Yes, those are fried scorpionfish.

It hit me that I had been fishing a lot with both of these guys individually, but never with them together. Martini was not pleased with the conditions, but he knew this was part of the game. Spellman, as always, was just happy to be out on the water. More disappointed that anyone else, I was likely an insufferable jerk, but kept at the water day and night in the hopes my luck would turn around. The smarter 2/3 of the group hung out at the pool bar, enjoyed some cold beers, and relaxed, which is what vacation is supposed to be about in the first place. I’m sure I was surly by the time I joined everyone for dinner. Luckily, my friends are generally forgiving.

Resort Cat refused my fish that night, because she sensed my surliness.

By the time day three opened, our optimism was waning. We made a long run south to some deep spots, hoping to find the larger and more exotic bottom species I just knew had to be there. We found the mark, and noticed to our great joy that the wind had faded. We drifted perfectly in 800+ feet of water, and hauled up, say it with me, scorpionfish.

This had gotten officially old.

On perhaps the third pass, as we boated our loads of smallish, red beasts, Martini noticed that one of them looked a bit different. A closer look revealed that we had finally, FINALLY gotten something new out of the deep water – another species of small scorpionfish.

The red scorpionfish. Yay.

It wasn’t exactly a glamour catch, but by this stage, I wasn’t picky. Moments later, Martini pulled the one non-scorpionfish animal we saw from the deep water – some sort of lost croaker that defies identification to this very day.

Whatever it is, it’s really cool and I didn’t get one.

That was it for our day on the boat, and I had officially decided that the East Cape had slipped a bit from its glory days. Nothing from our youth ever turns out to be as good as we remember it, except Heather Locklear.

The view from the pool bar. Spellman took this photo.

I of course skipped the pool bar scene that afternoon and stubbornly cast the shoreline. So, while Mark and Martini relaxed and enjoyed the scenery, I managed to drag up one lonely croaker. I had dismissed similar croakers as yellowfins, but this looked a bit different, so I photographed it. Thanks to ID help from John Snow of Mexican-fish.com, the beast was later identified as a Cortez Croaker, the 5th species of the trip.

It wasn’t what I expected, but every one counts.

Our final day was another blur of small red scorpionfish.

The guys gather their thoughts on the way out.

I really, really hate speckled scorpionfish.

We tried some shallower water, where Martini fired the metal around for another fruitless hour. In the midst of this excitement, I had the slightest of bites on a small rig and reeled up what I was certain would be a small sand perch – another shallow water pest. Martini recommended that I photograph this one, and lo and behold, it turned out to be a longfin sand perch, one of the lesser known members of this widespread and aggravating genus.

It was also species six of the trip, which was some consolation, but 1900 seemed further away than it had four days ago.

It was with not insubstantial relief that we docked the boat that afternoon. We had still gotten a few fish, but it wasn’t anywhere close to what I thought it could have been. Even now, some months later, I look at my old photos from the mid-90s, and I stand by my assertion that it was great fishing back then. On our last evening in Mexico, of course I was going to give the rocks one more try, and surprisingly, Spellman left the pool bar and joined me. It was a beautiful evening on the Sea of Cortez, but nothing would bite apart from the usual triggerfish and puffers. Spellman was poking around about 50 yards above me, and he suddenly called me – “Steve – get a small sabiki and get over here.” I trotted up the shoreline, and Mark was on a rock, about 10 feet into the water, pointing straight down. I joined him, and there was a swarm of colorful little fish right at his feet. I dropped the sabiki and instantly caught a Cortez Rainbow Wrasse, species number seven of the trip.

The aptly-named rainbow wrasse.

Just as a photographed it, Spellman waved me back to the rock. He was holding a small serranid in his hand – the fish was later identified as a Barred Serrano. He explained that these were sitting under a ledge about six feet in front of him. I never would have found them otherwise, but I got one quickly.

Species eight of the trip and 1887 lifetime.

With two quick species gifted by a friend, I decided it was finally time to hit the pool bar.

Steve

 

 

Dateline: June 8, 2019 – Southwestern Virginia

There is an eerie specter haunting the rivers of the Eastern US, and it is named Pat Kerwin. Imagine having this conversation all week:

Pat: “Hi Steve.”

Steve: “Aaaaaaagh!” You scared the $#!& out of me!”

Legendary species hunter Pat Kerwin, and one of his legendary t-shirts.

And how did we get where legendary species hunter Pat Kerwin was scaring the daylights out of me? That story begins a year ago, in the wilds of North Carolina. It was on the Appalachian Barbecue Tour trip with Martini and Pat, and someone made the mistake of mentioning the tangerine darter, one of the largest and most beautiful darter species. Strong on impulse and weak on planning, I decided that we needed to go catch one immediately. Pat patiently explained that tangerine darters live in Southwestern Virginia. I replied that it couldn’t be that far, as the states share a border. Later than evening, using advanced teaching tools, like maps, Pat educated me that the very left hand side of Virginia is extremely far from Raleigh. In fact, it’s extremely far from anything, and would need to be explored on its own trip. Common sense and fishing are a difficult mix for me.

I don’t forget these things, and when Pat and I started talking about doing a week somewhere on the east coast this summer, the tangerine darter became my main focus. We planned a few days in the wilds of southwestern Virginia, which seems closer to Phoenix than Springfield. Marta finds it amazing that I never forget a fish species I want to catch, and yet I can’t remember to empty the dishwasher.

Our trip began early on a Saturday morning. I picked up Pat in Alexandria and we headed southwest, and headed southwest, and headed southwest some more. It’s a big state, and our first fishing stop was some four hours from home.

That first stop was the Holston River, a clear, gorgeous stream in the middle of rural Virginia.

A huge thanks to Pat for finding spots like this.

Pat had scoped out some micros, and I scored immediately on a saffron shiner, the first species of the trip.

The saffron shiner – species 1865. That’s the year the Civil War ended, unless you live in some parts of Texas.

We should have left right away, because I spotted some redhorse and insisted on casting to them for quite a while. I caught all kinds of stuff – hogsuckers, bass, even brook trout – but no redhorse. This blog also could have been called “No Redhorse,” and if I had known that, I could have spent my time more productively.

A northern hogsucker. Not a redhorse.

At Pat’s gentle urging, we packed up and headed for the Clinch River. This watershed is not only home to the elusive tangerine darter, it also hosts a batch of other desirable micros, as well as some larger stuff, like, you guessed it, black redhorse.

The Clinch River. Did I mention there are black redhorse here?

We got there late afternoon, and started poking around a spillway. When that didn’t produce the desired tangerine darter, we moved to riffles about a mile downstream. We tend to fish separately to cover more ground, so when we reached the water, I wandered upriver and Pat stayed and looked at some likely darter hideouts. I caught my second species of the day – the redline darter.

I was thrilled with another darter. These are difficult to catch.

A while later, I was busily glaring at an uncooperative darter. Pat, with no ill intent, walked up to a respectful distance and said “Hi Steve.” I jumped out of my skin – “Aaaaaaaagh! You scared the $#!& out of me!” I don’t think Pat is trying to sneak up on anyone – he is just naturally stealthy, which is handy while fishing for skittish creatures. I have all the grace and stealth of a vertigo-stricken walrus, and when I am focused on a darter, I wouldn’t notice that same walrus until it bumped into me. (Or said “Hi Steve.”) When I stopped screaming, Pat let me know that he had caught a bluebreast darter, a rare and marvelous creature that I have tried and failed for many times.

Gorgeous. His photos are always better than mine.

Pat has amazing focus and hamstrings, because he can hold the “Darter Crouch” for hours without screaming or accidentally soiling himself.

The “Darter Crouch.” Photo taken by a mature person.

The “Darter Crouch.” Photo taken by me.

The next morning, we headed downstream on the Clinch and set up across a big, fast riffle. Almost immediately, I had a triumph – a gilt darter, the same species Ben Cantrell caught in front of me in Missouri a few years ago.

A gilt darter. Ben’s was prettier, but they all count the same on the scoreboard.

Ben Cantrell. (And Cora the cat. Note that Ben’s current cat, Rascal, is far cooler than Cora.)

Rascal. You’ll be reading more about him next month.

After that, the morning was soul-crushing. I spotted black redhorse, so those were on my mind, but I had also seen a quillback, and even more importantly, I saw and missed three different tangerine darters. I felt awful, and I have a hard time leaving a place that I suspect holds fish, even to move somewhere that could be much better. (Ask Martini.) Pat finally talked me into moving a few miles, to a river that was alleged to hold quite a few redhorse. When we got there, we could see dozens of them, even from the parking lot, and I had high hopes that I would finally get my black.

I walked into the water, armed with some red worms on a #10 hook and a six-pound spinning outfit. I would pick out a redhorse, cast to it, and watch it carefully avoid the bait and swim upstream. To no one’s surprise except mine, this went on for quite a while, and, as you can imagine, I was exasperated. I left the bait sitting at my feet while I was looking for targets, and was startled by a small but definite bite. Reflexively, I lifted up and felt a small fish. I flipped it up through the air and dropped it into my occasionally-reliable glove hand.

It was an impossible explosion of color – neon green, neoner yellow, and electric tangerine orange. It was a tangerine darter, completely by mistake, but it was species four of the trip, and species 1868 lifetime.

Is that cool or WHAT?

I would have done the trip for this species alone.

We fished the Clinch again in the evening, and I still did not get a black redhorse. We did meet a very nice game warden, who couldn’t believe we were fishing for something that wasn’t a bass or catfish.

There were better versions of this photo, but the look on Pat’s face in this one is priceless.

Our dinner was something special, even by the low standards of unsupervised men on the road. We found one of the few remaining Long John Silver’s in America, and, I am proud to say, gorged ourselves on fried stuff.

Oh how I love fried stuff.

Pat wrestles down the Admiral’s Platter.

We spent the next morning hopping from creek to creek, searching for assorted micros that Pat had researched. I added two to the list – the Tennessee shiner and the Western blacknose dace. I also may have gotten some sort of recently split sculpin, but these IDs give me a headache.

A Tennessee shiner.

The western blacknose dace. Species six of the trip.

Any ideas? Thor? Val?

I also caught a teensy stripe-necked musk turtle. (Thanks to reader Thomas from VA who spotted the correct species.) It was cute until it bit me.

Late that afternoon, we pulled up to the legendary New River. Ironically one of the oldest rivers in the world, the New is supposed to be loaded with species, and from the bridge, it looked fantastic.

I had read about this place for years.

When we fought our way down to the water, however, it looked sterile. We searched riffles and rocks, and saw … nothing, as if there had been a toxic spill. Pat took it in stride, but I was apoplectic. I had read about the New River for years, and now that I was finally here, it was going to shut down on me? This is a legendary smallmouth haven … but of course, I wasn’t fishing for smallmouth. And if I fished for river bass, I was giving up on new species for the day. But I love smallmouth fishing – I remember my Uncle Jim talking about them back on early 1970s trips at Port Sanilac. I figured I might as well return to my fishing roots for a couple of hours. I took a sturdy spinning rod and a box of lures, and waded up the rocky, slippery passages until I arrived at a perfectly gorgeous spillway.

Tell me that doesn’t look full of fish.

I tied on a classic Panther Martin and cast into the edges of the white water, just as Uncle Jim taught me all those years ago.

Bang. Instant, big hit. I knew it was a smallie without seeing it, and it battled me in and out of the current until I beached it. It was a beautiful, strong two-pound fish. I released it, and cast again. Bang. I caught fish on my first five casts, all around two pounds.

This is what it’s all about.

They were everywhere.

I was in an isolated section of the New River, catching nice smallmouth. I was back at my roots, and loving it every bit as much as I love catching anything. I ended up with 14 smallies, ranging up to three and a half pounds. It was truly one of the golden moments of this or any other trip.

The beast of the group.

My day was complete.

Then it happened. “Hi Steve.” followed by “Aaaaaaaagh! You scared the $#!& out of me!” Pat has somehow walked all the way up the river without me noticing. Luckily, my pants were already wet.

We checked into some local motel that evening, and had a nice conversation with the night clerk. She noticed we were fishermen, and, unsolicited, she mentioned that she had done quite a bit of fishing in the Clinch. “Oh yes,” she said. “We used to get a lot of bass, and catfish, and that other thing … redhorse! We caught a lot of redhorse.” Pat tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back laughter and ended up making cough-up-the-hairball noises. I know the lady didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, but I hated her nonetheless.

The next morning, we continued our way through the western part of the state.

And it was all scenic.

I added one species early in the morning – the mountain redbelly dace. This is another one I missed in North Carolina last year, so I was thrilled.

Species 1871.

Our next move was a long one, down what felt like a hundred miles of country road to a beautiful creek near a small church. When we got there, there was no parking to be found. The church lot was plainly marked as church parking only, and I tend not to do anything to mess with churches, as I am always worried I will cause them to burst into flame. Some local guys were volunteering their time to shore up the rockwall next to the building, and as soon as they saw we were fishermen, they invited us to park there. The kindness of strangers had saved us again. Pat and I got into the water and fished most of the afternoon – it was gorgeous. There were darters all over the place, although when I finally caught one, it turned out to be a fantail, a species I seem to get in every state.

Why is it always a fantail? Anybody have data on the Chesapeake split of the fantail?

I did get a crescent shiner moments later, species eight of the trip and 1872 lifetime.

The crescent shiner.

After that, it was mostly darter hunting, and just enjoying whatever wanted to bite in a small creek. Pat was off doing his own thing, spotting and catching stuff I didn’t even know was there. As we closed out the day, I had one lucky catch – it didn’t give me a new species, but it did give me a photo I’ll never forget.

A spawning crescent shiner. I think this was the only thing I caught all trip that Pat didn’t.

It was getting late and was time to leave, but of course I was still locked in on another darter than turned out to be a fantail. Pat walked down the stream and gently said “Steve?” I responded “Aaaaaaagh!” You scared the $#!& out of me!”

The following day would be our last one on the road. Pat had to go back to work at the Library of Congress, and I had to face my sister. We hit a number of attractive spots on the way back up the DC area, and one of these, a spillway on the Roanoke River, produced a wonderful surprise. At first, I thought I had gotten a juvenile logperch, but when I showed the photo to Pat, he immediately recognized it as a chainback darter. This was my 9th and last species of the road trip, and my 20th overall darter species.

My first darter was in 2015, a rainbow with Martini and Ben. 

I also caught a large cutlip minnow, which I thought was worth sharing.

This is a behemoth of a cutlip.

Adorable. 

Our last spot was a creek known to host longfin darter. The results were a microcosm of the whole trip – Pat got the longfin; I got fantails.

No missing this ID. Pat’s photo of course.

As we were getting past time to leave, Pat kindly walked in my field of view for at least 20 feet and called out “Steve?” But I was focused on another fantail, so naturally … “Aaaaaaagh!” You scared the $#!& out of me!” The Phantom of the River had struck for the final time. Or had he?

The ride home featured dinner at Zaxby’s, a regional fast food place that everyone should eat at before they die. Preferably just before, if you have the gravy.

Best fried chicken this side of Chick-fil-A, and no protesters!

Once I was back in DC, Pat had a couple of local trip ideas, allowing me to get out of the house and avoid my sister. The first species should have been easy – it was a sculpin that Pat had found in a particular set of rocks below a particular bridge in a particular stream.

The particular stream.

Unfortunately, I don’t always read instructions. I bashed around the creek for a couple of hours with no success, and finally, in desperation, I reread the email and noticed I had gotten it exactly backwards. I waded to the correct spot and caught the fish in 30 seconds. I had just finished taking photos and was quietly enjoying the scenery when Pat called. I had accidentally taken my phone off silent mode, so “Aaaaaaagh!” You scared the $#!& out of me!” The River Phantom had struck – remotely.

The Blue Ridge Sculpin.

The following day, I gave it one more try. This spot took me all the way to the backwaters of Chesapeake Bay, through some gorgeous hiking trails and into a wadeable lagoon alleged to contain a population of naked gobies.

The ledge was crawling with micros.

I set forth with light gear and had a ball. There were lots of micros, like killifish and sheepshead minnows, but the naked gobies were especially abundant.

Sheepshead minnow. They’re cute.

A naked goby. They do not wear pants like other gobies.

I then went after some interesting-looking killifish, one of which turned out to be a rainwater killifish – species 12 of the week and 1876 overall.

1876 was the year Custer screwed up. (But he still got a monument. Sometimes I think this could confuse our children.)

Speaking of confused children, this trip was also to recognize my niece Elizabeth, who quietly managed to graduate high school with all kinds of honors and to do so without catching any species that I have not.

Roughly 17 years ago, I was the only family member to witness her first steps.

That’s Elizabeth on the left, and some vagrant photobombing us.

Steve

 

SPECIAL BONUS SECTION – WORLD RECORD 199

After substantial confusion, mostly caused by me, we have a good count on my IGFA records. It stands at 199, and it stands there instead of 198 because of an almost unknown California native fish – the hardhead. It started with a road trip. Marta is always game for a weekend road trip, especially someplace with steep hills and a yoga retreat. This time, we drove five hours to get to Alturas, a charming mountain town in remote Northeastern California. The hailstorm that broke my windshield was not as charming.

Also dented my hood and roof.

The aftermath. That’s a pile of hail on the shoulder.

Rumor had it that there were big hardhead and a few other species in a nearby river, so I gave it a shot.

The Pit River, central Alturas.

Luke Ovgard, he of blue chub fame, joined us. I trusted his guidance, as he happened to hold the world record on hardhead. Unfortunately, the river was completely blown out, but luckily, this did not stop the hardhead from biting. We had great action through the evening, interrupted only for an excellent Italian meal. The next morning, while Marta hiked a local mountain, I unintentionally but gleefully shattered Luke’s record.

Luke, and his record fish from 2018. It was one pound.

Mine was two. So that’s like catching a 3100 pound black marlin, although I suspect I won’t get as much press.

Enjoying the scenery. In the Bay Area, that barn would cost $3,000,000, more if you’re a Republican.

 

 

 

Dateline: May 12, 2019 – Boca Raton, Florida

This episode should really be three separate South Florida blogs, but the complaints would be overwhelming. Miami is always a great place to visit, but, like any spot I have fished frequently, the opportunities get more and more specific over time. This trip was not just about species, however – it was also about seeing some friends and keeping some promises.

My first fishing trip to South Florida was on August 9, 1999 – the day I caught my 100th species – with legendary guide Vinnie Biondoletti. (So you older species hunters can take some solace in this late start, and yes I mean you, Gerry Hansell.) In the 20 years since, the area has always produced, and when I had a business trip to Miami come up, I had a few targets to get after – notably the brown hoplo and the dreaded Caesar grunt – fish that everyone but me seems to have caught.

Even Jamie has caught a Caesar Grunt. Boo.

But first, I needed to get there. United Airlines, who should adopt the slogan “We Make Things Unnecessarily Difficult,” undercut even their low standard. I was flying to Miami through Houston. There was a huge storm heading to Houston.

It didn’t take a degree to figure this out.

There was an alternate flight through Chicago with plenty of seats available, so I asked United to move me. The agent, apparently a meteorology minor at Ohio State, spent 15 minutes insisting that the weather in Houston was fine, and refused to switch me. Of course, Ohio State’s meteorology program is only there for the football team, and Houston was chaos.

But United just couldn’t see this coming.

United was completely unprepared for an airport full of stranded passengers – there were three customer service reps and thousands of people waiting in line, so I just got my own hotel room, at, dare I say, the vilest crackhouse of a Motel Fungus I have ever stayed.

My motel’s soda machine. I think this says it all.

And the frequent flier miles I earned for the trip are worth about half of what they were when I earned them, because United keeps “enhancing” and “evolving” their mileage program. (Which means “making the program even more inconvenient.”) I know air travel is going to have occasional difficulties, but I’ve flown over 2 million miles with United. Silly me for expecting more.

My late arrival into Florida meant that I could not roam north Miami hunting bluefin killifish and sailfin molly, which, in hindsight, was probably for the best. I picked up my intended schedule with an evening venture into the Everglades, where old friend Pat Kerwin had given me one of his inexplicable, “How-the-hell-did-he-find-that” spots for brown hoplo. (My first attempt at a brown hoplo cost me an impressive piece of jewelry for Marta.) There was also supposed to be an oddball South American catfish in the area, so that would be a great bonus if it happened. After covering myself with a mayonnaise-like coating of bug repellent, I hopped in the rental car and headed west, to a dreadful-looking ditch that was already hazy with mosquitoes.

Lovely sunset, but the place was full of insects.

I met another buddy there – Dom Porcelli, a local species hunter and kindred spirit. We instantly saw hoplos jumping, or at least that’s what I believe was jumping – other, more experienced anglers have suggested these were walking catfish, which would have made my optimism unfounded, but in my ignorance, I took it as a good sign. We tried a few different rigs – floats, unweighted, ledgers, but the bluegill were vicious. I finally got a leadhead rig to settle in some of the deeper water, and continued playing with a float. (I even caught a small jaguar guapote, a fish that had caused me to humiliate myself in front of Marty Arostegui a few years ago.)

The savage jaguar guapote.

Moments later, my other rod slammed down and headed for the water. I grabbed it and set the hook, and the fish responded with a surprisingly strong fight. I said hoplo prayers, and as a dark form surfaced, I swung it up onto the bank. It was a hoplo, it had taken less than 10 minutes, and I didn’t have to buy Marta any jewelry.

The hoplo and Dom.

Solid armor. It was only nine inches long, but it weighed almost a pound. Almost.

I expected that I would get dozens of the little beasts, but they seemed to disappear after that one fish, which didn’t please Dom. (He did finally get one about an hour later.) We stayed for about two hours, until the mosquitoes learned to ignore the repellent. In that time, I got a bunch of Mayan cichlids, which are fun but not a new species, and one South American catfish, Rhamdia quelen, which was not fun (four ounces of listlessness) but definitely a new species.

Hey, it counts.

Dom and I had a pleasant conversation about upcoming fishing adventures, including one planned in just a couple of days, and then I headed back to the Hilton and a few hours of sleep.

The next day was about keeping a promise. Of course, you all remember Cris, the Brazilian co-worker with the impossibly good-looking family.

Cris and his impossibly good-looking family. I have trouble figuring out who is the wife and who is the daughter, so use your judgment. There is a son, who is also good-looking, but he is a teenage boy, so he is always out of the house doing homework or helping the community or whatever it is that teenage boys are doing nowadays.

It had been years since Cris and I had gotten out onto the water together – every time I was in Miami, I seemed to end up with something else urgent to do, which, to my lasting resentment, often was not fishing. This is not how we should treat friends. Cris is a dedicated fisherman who has done a great job of learning the local waters, and is always sending me photos of everything from snook to tuna.

Cris’ personal best snook. I think he used my personal best snook for bait.

I was looking very forward to getting out and doing some offshore kite fishing. When we got going early the next day, everything looked perfect. It was warm, it was spring, and it was Florida. We were joined by Cris’ good friend Ricardo, the owner of the Brazilian pond where I caught a 19-pound tiger suribi on trout gear last year. But the Fish Gods rarely put everything in your favor, and when we got outside the protected backwaters, it became clear that we were going to have some wind. The nasty, all-day kind of wind that makes drifting offshore unpleasant. Cris and Ricardo were game and didn’t complain a bit, but it was sloppy out there.

The guys, right before we got into the wind.

We got some bites and landed a tuna or two, and I kept busy fishing the bottom. I got a couple of truly weird catches, like a flying gurnard, but alas, none of them were new.

Despite the name, it doesn’t fly. Sort of like United in Houston.

This happens when you have been fishing an area as often as I have, and truthfully, a good day fishing with an old friend beats a new species. (Mostly. If there had been a spearfish at stake, I might not have been so philosophical.)

When we got back inshore, fishing actually got good.

Tell me that doesn’t look full of fish.

Cris had scoped out the local mangroves for ladyfish, and we spent about an hour casting lures and getting constant strikes. Ladyfish hit hard, jump all over the place, and hunt in packs.

What’s not to love?

When we finally docked and cleaned the boat, the best part of the day was still ahead of us – a home-cooked meal. Remember, these are Brazilians, and all Brazilian food, with the exception of capybara, is really, really good. We ate and talked well into the evening, when it occurred to me that I had another predawn wakeup call coming the next day.

That next day, the plan was to fish the reefs north of Miami with Dom Porcelli. Even though I have explored this area many times, there is always something new to try for, and in my case, the Caesar grunt loomed large. This modest grunt has caused me endless pain, because everyone I have been fishing with in Florida has caught one, generally right in front of me. We’re talking Jamie Hamamoto here. Scott Perry I can forgive, because he rarely fishes and didn’t mean to catch it. Martini, I can forgive, because he is a frighteningly awesome angler and couldn’t help himself. But Jamie?

The weather had not improved, and when we motored out of the intracoastal waterway, it was sloppy. The anchor would hold, as long as we didn’t want to stand up, and as always, there were plenty of fish down there. Dom had caught plenty of Caesar grunts, generally on the Ides of March, and we had the right bait in the right areas. Naturally, I caught everything but a Caesar.

Not a grass porgy. It’s never a grass porgy.

And everything is attractive.

A puddingwife wrasse.

A normal person would be thrilled to be catching reef fish after reef fish on light tackle. Dom knew the areas rock by rock and reef by reef, but to ask for a particular grunt in an area swarming with hungry fish is more luck than skill. At least that’s what I tell myself late at night when I am justifying why I haven’t caught one.

Dozens of fish into the morning, just long enough after my Red Bull where I was getting a little fuzzy, I pulled a smallish grunt on board and was in the process of unhooking it when Dom’s eyes popped out like I had turned into Kate Upton and my top had fallen off. With great relief, I realized Dom was not staring at me – he was staring at the fish. It was a Caesar Grunt, and I might have thrown it back if he hadn’t noticed what it was. It was eight ounces of scaly joy, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who I texted first.

“Hello, Jamie. Guess what I caught?” “Hello Steve, Mine was bigger.”

The day was complete – I had gotten my 1862nd species, and an emotionally important one. Indeed, if I ever start bringing an emotional support animal on airplanes with me, it would be Jamie.

The day wasn’t complete. We were on the water, we weren’t throwing up, and there was plenty of shrimp left. So we just fished, for whatever happened to be down there, no worries about anything exotic. And usually, when you are being pure to the sport, something unexpected happens. This unexpected thing happened about an hour later, in an oddly familiar location – the end of Anglin’s Pier. (The very same place Scott Perry got his Caesar.) I had just released two nice juvenile rainbow parrotfish, and as my bait settled out of sight, I got hammered. It was an above-average reef fish, and it took a minute or two to get it near the boat. It was a relatively plain parrotfish, but I know these are often odd species, so I photographed the heck out of it. (Val Kells’ book would later show it to be a queen parrotfish, another new species, putting me at 1863.)

The day was officially epic, partly because I knew Skyline Chili awaited me for dinner.

Skyline Chili. It’s a food group.

I couldn’t thank Dom enough for taking the day out with me. The species hunting community is very closely related, and all of us have shared our secret spots with a stranger – I wouldn’t be nearly as far along on my list without a whole lot of help like this. Even from Jamie.

Steve

 

SPECIAL BONUS SECTION – THERE’S A NEW DOCTOR IN THE FAMILY

As a group with a dearth of meaningful accomplishments, my family will take any excuse to celebrate – whether it’s passing junior high school, a birthday, probation, or toilet training. (In Cousin Chuck’s case, all four happened on one magical evening in the early 90’s.) But shortly before the Florida trip, I was invited to share a truly special moment for Martini and the Arosteguis. In what had seemed like only a few months, Martini, Stanford grad and general fishing wizard, had transformed himself into Martini Arostegui, PhD. That’s Dr. Martini Arostegui, with yet another degree, this time from the University of Washington in Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. I was invited to watch him present his dissertation and then to celebrate with the family.

Let’s see … I know what a “trout” is, but the trail goes cold from there.

You have to be good to defend a PhD. But you have to be VERY good to do it in that shirt.

When you figure this guy isn’t close to 30 yet, it’s pretty amazing, and I was humbled to be there. People ask me – “What’s this guy going to do next?” I answer “Anything he decides to.” Congratulations Martini.

How does Roberta keep getting younger?

 

 

 

Dateline: April 15, 2019 – Paducah, Kentucky

Is one day of excellent fishing enough to make up for three days of miserable fishing? Of course it is. If I could hit .250 consistently, I’d have played a lot more baseball.

My average on paddlefish is well below .250, and perhaps even lower that Dave Hogan’s career mark. (Dave used to get thank you cards from Mario Mendoza after every season.) I have been trying – and failing – for Paddlefish, off and on, for 33 years. Looking at those first few attempts in 1986, all the way to now, April of 2019, a lot has changed, mainly my hair.

This is not finesse fishing. The paddlefish is a plankton feeder, and hence won’t hit a normal lure or bait. The typical approach is to snag them, which involves casting a weight and treble hooks on big saltwater setup, and ripping these through the water until your arm falls off. Once in a while, you hit a stump and battle it tooth and nail for a few moments until someone quietly tells you it’s a stump.

My first time after Paddlefish, I was a grad student in Columbus, Ohio. I had caught all of 34 species and hadn’t sniffed a world record, but I had lots of hair. (On my head.) I went out armed with a fishing report from the Columbus Dispatch and an 8-12# class Ugly Stick, which I considered my heavy rod. I wore the Red Ball waders that were purchased with my very first tax refund. Oh, how I miss tax refunds. I cast and I cast, but only hooked one thing – a two pound freshwater drum, which I was convinced had to be a paddlefish, until I saw it was a two pound drum.

The drum. I tried to serve it for dinner. We ended up at Denny’s.

With a two-pound fish giving me quite a fight, I did the math and realized that my heavy rod wasn’t so heavy.

That’s the very rod I used to chase paddlefish. Is that me with actual abs? Marta asked where I have been hiding them.

I gave it another try or two over the next few years, but I never even saw a paddlefish, and to be honest, the project didn’t have my full attention, because I was single. Still, that was over 30 years ago, and hopefully, I learned a thing or two in the decades since.

After Ohio, the creature slipped my mind for a few years. I moved to California in 1990, and I never seemed to be back in the midwest at the right time and with the right connections. The paddlefish stayed in magazines and on my bucket list, and then, in 2009, by which time I had stopped being a grad student and somehow become a corporate executive, I got sent to Iowa for a business trip and figured out there were paddlefish nearby. I had learned a lot more about fishing in the interim, and most importantly, I wasn’t single, so Marta wanted me out of the house whenever a bathroom didn’t need painting. My magnificent hair had begun migrating from my head to my back and ears. I had over 800 species at that stage, and had started my world record quest. But I hadn’t owned a blow dryer in at least 20 years.

Despite what they tell you in “The Music Man,” Iowa is a perfectly nice place to visit. Part of the game is that you need to be there when the fish are, and the fish move according to rain and water temperature and similar dark magic, and I didn’t end up getting one. (As memorialized in “Creel of Dreams.”) I did catch some nice fish while I was there, but the checklist remained unchecked.

A beast of an Iowa silver carp. I had high hopes that this was going to be a paddlefish, but it wasn’t.

Five years later, as I was approaching the IGFA lifetime achievement award, I ended up in Texas with Martini and Kyle. Before I had a chance to let Kirk Kirkland yell at me about smallmouth buffalo or spotted gar, we saw a few paddles. I didn’t get one, and Kirk made sure that I understood this was a personal failure. I was well over 1400 species at this stage, so one would think I was a competent fisherman, but fishing, like hockey, has a way of humbling participants. I missed and I missed, and my hair wasn’t getting any better.

I then moved into the Poplar Bluff phase of my life. This small town in southeastern Missouri, “the gateway to the Ozarks,” has plenty of paddlefish at the right time of year, and with the help of ace local guide Tyler Goodale, I finally managed to hook one. Actually, two. But it ended better for them than me, and by this stage, I was taking it pretty personally. I had the right gear – a travel surf rod and Shimano Stella 8000 that cost more than my first car – and I still messed it up. What was it going to take? And during the five years I have been going there, my hair has pretty much abandoned my scalp. Baseball caps have gone from outdoor wear to all-occasion.

This spring, I decided, against all species-hunting math logic, to devote a trip solely to catching paddlefish. One of the great centers of this universe is Southwestern Missouri/Northeastern Oklahoma, and after a bunch of research, I found guide Tracy Frenzel on Table Rock Lake and booked a day with him in the height of the paddlefish run. It had to work.

United Airlines, however, tried to rain on my parade. Because United sells tickets for 9 zillion flights a day from San Francisco, and does not have enough gates to support these flights, things often go wrong. My St. Louis flight was badly delayed, and I took a flyer, pun intended, on changing to a Chicago flight connecting to Springfield, with a quick drive to Branson. It worked, but just barely. I met Tracy in town the next morning – I may be the only person who has stayed in Branson and not seen a show, but as awesome as Neil Sedaka might be, there were fish to catch. Remember, I caught a fish in Paris before I saw the inside of the Louvre.

Guide Tracy Frenzel. You can reach him on Fishingbranson.com or at 417-699-2277.

We headed off into a crisp spring morning, and I must say the whole area is beautiful.

Table Rock scenery.

We set up shop, rigging my popping rod with a big lead and some intimidating trebles, and setting up his rods with a mix of casting leads and Dipsy-diver trolling disks. I helped Tracy put out a Dipsy rod, and after I set it in the holder but before I could pick up my rod, it absolutely slammed down. We’re talking 60 pound-class saltwater stuff bent over double, screaming 80 pound braid off the drag. I wrestled it out of the holder and started reeling, and as the boat slowed, I started gaining line. Whatever it was, it was not a two pound drum, and I played it as delicately as I could because I was terrified that I would lose it. I had been trying to catch a spoonbill for 33 years, and I was closer than I ever had been. But things can go terribly wrong when your goal is so close you can taste it – just ask Cousin Chuck about his junior prom. The fight went on for 10 more hard-pulling minutes, and then the fish surfaced, paddle first. This is when I really started sweating, but Tracy handled it calmly and professionally, and moments later, he netted my first paddlefish. It weighed just under 40 pounds.

Finally.

I didn’t know Tracy that well, so I kept my clothing on, but it was still time to celebrate. Having never seen a spoonbill up close, I took a few minutes to marvel at the creature, as improbable as it is ancient. (Like sharks, rays, and sturgeon, paddlefish have a cartilaginous skeleton.)

The bill is speckled with electro-receptors that detect plankton.

The maw – they gulp in plankton-filled water, then strain out lunch in the gill rakers you see here.

The pattern of rosettes is unique in each fish.

We set up another pass, and just a few minutes later, I hooked into another fish. This one was a reel screamer – it took a much longer initial run and stayed tighter to the bottom than the first fish. When we landed it, we could see why. It was over 60 pounds.

I was ecstatic, and we weren’t done.

We drifted the lake for another couple of hours, and got two more – a full limit – before we called it a morning.

One of the others – around 50 pounds. I reeled in just under 200 pounds of fish before 11am. If you find yourself in the area in springtime, I can’t recommend Tracy highly enough.

I was beside myself with joy – a 33 year quest had come to successful end. And all it had cost was endless air miles, lots of sore shoulders, constant failure, and my hair.

Before anyone goes all PETA on me, these things are very good to eat and were on the grill that evening.

The fishing day wasn’t over. (Five words that Marta hates.) The Paddle was the 1855th species on my list, but I had my eyes on 1856 as well. Old friends Ben and Patrick had steered me toward a stream not too far away that held a population of Ozark darters. It was just warm enough for wet wading, and I rushed over to a small Missouri town and set to it.

I never get tired of wading creeks like this.

The darters were everywhere, but as often happens, they wouldn’t bite. It took an hour or two to get one, but once I landed that one, the rest all seemed to get going. I caught about 10 more, just for the fun of it.

The Ozark darter.

To give you some idea of how massive it is.

I was up two species for the day, a good haul by my standards, but it was getting late, and I needed to drive across most of the state to Van Buren. I knew there was a big storm coming the next afternoon, and I was hoping to get in a few hours in the Current River, chasing the dreaded black redhorse before it started pouring.

A country road heading across the state.

The next day, I awoke to ominous clouds and a cold wind. Time would be limited. I had a few darters in mind, but the moment I got down to the river, I saw a pod of black redhorse just a few feet off shore and I wasted the rest of the day being ignored by them.

I did catch a gorgeous stoneroller in spawning colors, but this was scant consolation for not getting a redhorse again. Black redhorse swim by and laugh at you. It’s obnoxious.

Stonerollers are slippery.

When the rain arrived, it was biblical – the weather stations were warning about floods, so I headed into Poplar Bluff. Some of the big roads were already awash by the time I checked into the Holiday Inn, and I grumbled at the fact that I had been here four times and had heavy rain all four times. I got a decent meal and some sleep, hoping that ace guide Tyler Goodale could pull off some sort of miracle in the morning.

The storm that had come through was exactly what I had come to expect every time I come to Poplar Bluff. It blew out EVERYTHING, and the shots at exotic springtime darters were out the window. But I was in Poplar Bluff, and that means that old friend Tyler Goodale is on the case. (As immortalized in “The Thing in Ben’s Leg“) Tyler was not going to let a torrential downpour ruin things, and he had one idea, albeit a longshot. We would go to Kentucky, a few hours away, and try for skipjack herring, a relatively common river fish that had thus far eluded me.

The drive was grim – dark skies and pouring rain most of the way – but Tyler’s enthusiasm (and three Red Bulls) kept me focused. He bemoaned the weather, knowing that if conditions were better, we could get all kinds of stuff. When we got to the dam, I was impressed by the sheer scale of the thing, more impressed by Tyler’s knowledge of every nook and cranny at every water level, but less impressed by the freezing rain. When we got to the water, people above and below us both caught skipjack, so I was relatively confident. The Fish Gods sensed this and punished me. Every jig I cast got bashed by a white bass. Every spinner I threw got hit by a silver carp. And I’m talking chased down and hit – by silver carp. This is not how they used to act when they first came here. I was witnessing evolution, and of all the places, I was witnessing it in Kentucky.

Tyler battles a silver carp on four-pound line.

Oh yes he did.

Hours passed, and I still had no skipjack, even though I saw several dozen caught. I was frustrated and cold, but determined not to leave. I finally tried a medium-sized sabiki, and to no one’s surprise, the white bass loved it. I caught about a dozen of them before I got a bigger hit that broke the rig off – likely a silver carp. But I tied on another one, and on the first cast, I got a hard bite and saw a silvery, slender fish jump out of the water. I held my breath and reeled. Tyler saw it was a skipjack before I did, and he moved in quickly with the net. Against all common sense, I had knocked off a species.

Mild hypothermia is no concern when it comes to fishing.

The triumphant anglers. Tyler’s thumb may have been frozen in that position.

Encouraged, I started casting again right away, but no more skipjack would hit for me. Just as I was with the Twaite shad in Wales, I am likely the only person to catch exactly one skipjack in a day.

The drive home from Kentucky was gorgeous. The storm was moving past, and long, yellow rays of sunshine cut under the cloud bank and lit up the countryside. I had to be happy with the new species, but yes, I always do wonder if I will EVER get to Poplar Bluff when water levels are reasonable.

The next morning, we gave the Wappapello spillway an honest effort, but the water was roaring out so fast it was like fishing in a blender. We gave up and poked around a few smaller streams, looking for black redhorse, which has now become just as vile as a dogtooth tuna or a spearfish. We saw a few, I spent hours casting to them, and, of course, they wouldn’t bite. But that’s the game. As I packed up to drive to St. Louis and fly home, I wasn’t thinking about the redhorse. I was smiling about those paddlefish, and how much time had passed since my first try at them, and how much I had learned in those 33 years, and also how much I had likely forgotten. The redhorse would have its time.

Steve

 

 

 

Dateline: March 2, 2019 – Mar del Plata, Argentina

When you fly 7000 miles to go fishing, you aren’t going to let a little wind and rain keep you off the water. Gale-force winds and torrential rain, however, are a different story. I always figure if the crew will chance it, I’ll go, but as I watched a deckhand get profoundly seasick off the Argentinean coast, I knew I was pushing my luck. My bucket list is very important to me, but I don’t want to be the one with my head in the bucket.

Well up on that bucket list is a small town on the central Argentinean coast – Mar del Plata. It’s a quick flight from Buenos Aires and is said to have outstanding saltwater fishing. Among other desirable targets, there are supposed to be a lot of wreckfish and loads of giant sand perch – think 20 pounds or more. I would sell my aunt to catch either of these, but honestly, I would trade her for a decent-sized bat ray.

These are Argentinean sandperch. They are bigger than other sandperch. Other sandperch are too small to use as bait for these.

When I was summoned to Argentina for meetings in March, I decided it was time. Through the IGFA and some local connections, I found THE boat in the area, captained by Mariano de la Rua of Aquafish.com.ar. This guy was rumored to be good, and he was.

Mariano’s business card. If you make it to Buenos Aires, it’s a nearby option.

Now all I needed was reasonable weather, which was not too tall of an order in the late austral summer. Previous March data showed reasonably calm conditions, the medium-range weather reports looked good, and I figured I would give it a four-day shot. My Spanish is as good as Mariano’s English, but the magic of Google translate got us through the logistics. (Note – don’t trust Google translate when ordering at a restaurant. You’ll end up with llama testicles in your soup.)

As we got closer to the target weekend, the weather started slipping. I learned the Spanish phrase for “Small Craft Advisory.” Then I learned the words for “Small Craft Warning.” A couple of days later, I picked up sentences like “The Navy is missing a destroyer.” It looked bad – wind creeping over 35, and the area isn’t all that deep, so the swells get impressive quickly. But I was already in Buenos Aires, enjoying all those steak dinners I missed when I had food poisoning last year.

A steak dinner with buddies in Buenos Aires. It doesn’t get much better than this.

A painting on the wall at that same restaurant. The soccer fans among you will get this immediately. The rest of you, look up “Hand of God.” Depending on who you root for, it’s either hilarious or awful.

Another painting. If this doesn’t choke you up, you’re weird.

The next morning, still digesting four pounds of dinner, I headed off to the airport and a 40-minute flight south. I caught a quick shuttle over to the Sheraton, and started setting up my gear. The Sheraton was everything I wanted, in other words, a Sheraton, and I had a bonus view of the harbor.

Mar del Plata – fishing hub and navy base.

Once I had all my rigs checked and re-checked, I wandered into the local shopping district. Mar del Plata is a lovely little seaside resort town, a popular vacation spot for Argentinians, and it had a fabulous array of restaurants. Yes, I had another steak. Note for Argentina travelers – if you are going to need a fair amount of Pesos, get them in the US, at your bank if possible. ATMs here have a ridiculously small limit, and then charge you a service fee for every transaction. So if you can only get 40 bucks at a time, and you need 400, you’ll pay $50 in service fees. Not cool.

Morning broke with scattered clouds – and whitecaps.

At least the sky wasn’t red.

Captain Mariano picked me up at the appointed hour, and through Franco, the deckhand, he communicated that going offshore wasn’t going to work. We would take their big boat to give us the smoothest ride possible, and spend the day fishing inshore for what they hoped would be a variety of species, including the possibility of some big sharks (catch and release of course.)

The Sina Puro.

I’m not going to try to put lipstick on a seasick pig. It was rough out there – a sloppy, three-dimensional ride that could summon breakfast from the most experienced sailor. Still, I knew there were new fish out there that needed catching. A few miles north, we anchored in 20 feet of water. The wind and tide were both behind us, so it was stable enough to fish. The crew put out some big shark baits, and then I went to work with smaller setups. I started by bouncing cut shrimp along the bottom, and got hit immediately. After a short battle, I boated a small sea-trout-looking thing, which turned out to be a new species – the striped weakfish.

Interestingly, it is listed in Fishbase.org as Stripped weakfish. This might be accurate – the fish was not wearing any clothes.

The next hit was much bigger – a very nice fight on my eight-pound spinning rod. It turned out to be an old favorite, the whitemouth croaker – a beast I had caught repeatedly up near Rio de Janeiro. The ones here were big – the three-pounder pictured below would have been in my top five ever in Guanabara. This was promising.

No, Charlie. That is not an Atlantic croaker.

Franco the deckhand informed me that there were some pejerrey in the area – silversides that are quite similar to the jacksmelt we catch in California. They require the same type of awkward, long float rig, but they bit quickly and I was up two species for the day.

Jacksmelt with a Spanish accent.

As the morning went on, the weakfish and whitemouth kept biting. The croakers kept getting bigger – topping out at around six pounds. Great sport on bass tackle.

Steve and Mariano with a brace of solid croakers.

One by one, a few other critters started coming over the rail. The first was an Argentina conger. This relatively small eel is common in the area, and was a nice surprise to tack a third fish onto the species list.

I don’t know why I was yelling at the photographer.

Speaking of congers, Jamie Hamamoto has set yet another record on the Hawaiian version.

Sigh.

The big croakers kept hitting, which kept my mind off the swells. By early afternoon, the already-stiff wind had grown into powerful gusts that swung us back and forth on the anchor. I could only fish one rig at a time, but the fish were there, and there were a couple more catches of note in the afternoon. The first – which might be significant to perhaps me, Martini, and a few assorted species hunters – was a small shark. Most fishermen would say “That’s a small shark alright” and toss it back. But I would say “THAT … is a narrowsnout smooth hound, (note the white spots and narrow snout,) and as such, is not only a new species but is also a world record. Yay!”

This typically evokes sad, polite glances from the crew.

I also got a couple of catfish later in the day. I presumed they had to be a new species, but they turned out to be White Sea Catfish, a species I had caught up in Brazil. The good news – at 3.25 pounds, it beat my old record on the species. That was two for the day, and 195 for my career.

Photos of vomerine patch available on request.

I was just resetting a rod when Mariano pointed south. There was a storm coming, a line of solid black aimed right at us. Time to go.

If you are on a boat and see something like this, leave. Immediately. I christened the area “La Costa Dramamina,” which is bad Spanish for “The Dramamine Coast.”

We were finished, and I was grateful to have snuck out on a plan B trip and added four species and two records. We got into the harbor before the worst of it hit, and I enjoyed a quiet evening in the Sheraton, having a steak and some Argentinean red wine and texting back and forth with Marta, who is getting serious about adopting a cat. (Have I mentioned I am allergic to cats?)

Thursday broke clear and sunny, but even from my hotel, I could see rough water outside the breakwater. It was going to be a pretty day, but the water was going to be lumpy with a very fast drift. It wasn’t ideal, but I was here and we were going to make the best of it. Captain Mariano thought we could give it a shot out in the deep water, but also mentioned the fast drift. I had unpleasant visions of trying to manage hundreds of yards of line – flashbacks from many deepwater rock cod trips here in California where even a 16-ounce jig might be in the strike zone for only a few seconds before it has to be reset. I mentally prepared myself for a lot of reeling.

We got a couple of hours offshore, and it was indeed rough. Bottom fish can be on very small, specific pieces of structure, and when you’re whipping by them, it can be hard to get bites. I baited up a double hook rig with mackerel slabs and waited for Mariano to shout “Go!” Twenty seconds later, I got a nice surprise – I hit bottom. It couldn’t have been 90 feet deep. I asked Franco when we would get to the deep water, and he told me “We ARE in the deep water.” I heaved a giant sigh of relief. It wasn’t perfect, but it was manageable.

We got hookups immediately, but not the kind we wanted. I reeled up a pair of red porgies – one of the more widespread fish on earth. I have caught these in Argentina, Brazil, the US, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, Turkey, and Morocco. Enough already – I again advocate a law that no species be allowed to inhabit more than five countries. The porgies were relentless. For three hours, they played the role of dominant pest, interrupted only by the occasional bluefish, which provided great sport on bait or jigs. But there were no big bottomfish of any kind. Mariano did not panic – he kept motoring from reef to reef and trying an assortment of baits, including porgy fillets.

Mariano bemoaned the weather – he would have preferred to fish a bit further out, but the water was just too rough. He drove us to dozens of rockpiles, each one was jammed with porgies, but he never lost his infectious optimism. It was mid-afternoon when we dropped on some structure in about 100 feet. Again, the bites were immediate, but this time, I had a lot more trouble moving the fish away from the bottom. It didn’t have the hard-swimming fight of a bluefish, so I crossed my fingers, which made it much harder to reel. Moments later, we swung an Argentine Seabass aboard – one of my big targets for the trip, and world record 196.

The Argentinean Seabass.

A larger version, caught on a jig.

Once we found them, they hit consistently – we ended up with at least ten, and it was a welcome relief to get something that wasn’t a porgy. I was ecstatic, but the crew was even happier.

Celebrating with the crew – that’s Franco on the left and Felipe in the middle. Sorry, girls – they’re both married.

We moved to another reef only a mile or so away, and dropped down more big slab baits. I had bounced the bottom once or twice, and … boom. My biggest bite of the trip – a grouper-type slam that had me struggling to keep the fish out of the rocks. I said wreckfish prayers as I fought it all the way up, and as it surfaced, I could see it was not a wreckfish.

It was two wreckfish.

They weren’t huge, but they were wreckfish, and I had finally added the species. The day had gone from lousy to epic in just under an hour, and I had Captain Mariano and crew to thank. We stayed on the spot for about an hour and got eight more. I can only imagine how hard a 200-pounder pulls.

They lose the pattern when they get to adult size.

Steve and Mariano with the beasts.

We made the sloppy ride back in worsening conditions, but I didn’t care. Two of the big targets for the trip had happened. I celebrated that night with another steak, and had a look at Weather.com. Things seemed to be getting worse for Friday and Saturday. Weather.com is not generally reliable, except when the forecast is bad.

I had a different boat set up for Friday, with guide Cris Prado. We spoke the night before, and it was going to be an iffy call – no chance of offshore, and the inshore ride was going to be nasty. When Cris got me at 5:30am, even the harbor was sloppy.

Old Polish saying – “Red sky at morn, you’re screwed.” (It rhymes in Polish.)

We gave it a game try, running south a few miles with the weather. Once we tried to anchor, though, it was unworkable. The boat pitched so hard it kept ripping the anchor out, and the deckhand threw up like a Polish bridesmaid. I caught one fish – a particularly large “stripped” weakfish – and when I weighed it in the harbor, it turned out to be a record. It may not have been the best charter I have even been on, but in terms of catch-to-record ratio, I’ve never had better.

Record # 197. This was getting interesting.

Cris wasn’t happy with our result, and before I could even think about going back to the Sheraton, he suggested that we go fish the shore for a few hours. He picked up his rods and some bait, and we set up in a protected spot inside the harbor. Cris has gotten some beastly flounder in this area, so a bit of my optimism had returned. I could only hope the deckhand was eating solid food again.

That’s a big flatfish.

We got instant bites from whitemouth croakers, which was more fun than doing email at the hotel. Toward the end of the session, I pulled up a smaller croaker that looked a bit different.

After a few exchanges with Dr. Alfredo Carvalho, the fish was determined to be an Argentinean Croaker – the seventh species of the day, and 1848 overall.

Just as we were high-fiving about this, my phone rang. It was Franco from the Sina Pura, and he explained that if I could get to the harbor in 30 minutes, we could give it a quick shot offshore. I left skid marks. (Just for clarity – the kind the Roadrunner leaves, not the kind identified with Cousin Chuck.) Cris raced me back over to the dock and even helped me load my gear on Mariano’s boat.

We headed out. It looked nice enough for a few miles, but we were going out 20, and it was at least at bumpy as it had been the day before. We did get in to some nice bluefish, but the bottom fish were not cooperating, and the wind, which was already brisk, began picking up.

A typical Mar del Plata bluefish.

The big croakers also made another appearance.

We moved from reef to reef, and the porgies were out in force. The wind kept getting stronger, and we could see rain moving in behind it. Just before we needed to leave, I got one solid bite and hooked up something heavier than a porgy. I said prayers for a small sand perch the whole way up, but the crew was skeptical and thought it was a big porgy. We were both wrong. It was a Brazilian codling, an oddball bottom dweller that they catch on rare occasions. It was both a new species – #1853, and a world record – #198.

I was two records away from territory uncharted by non-Arosteguis.

And then the rain hit. We were done for the day, and looking at the weather, I knew we were done for the trip. Eight species and five records was a huge haul for three days, but of course, I was thinking about the day we would miss, and especially about the sand perch, but I had gotten in some great fishing and made some lifetime friends. Mariano had a local restaurant prepare the codling for dinner, and it was outstanding.

My only non-steak dinner of the trip.

I headed back to Buenos Aires a day early, and enjoyed even more steaks and a bit of tourism. Best of all, I got to catch up with old friend Oscar Ferreira, who has helped me with so many species over the years.  We fished a couple of hours in the Rio de la Plata, and then I was off to the airport, heading for a few weeks at home, most of which would be spent planning my return trip to get that sand perch.

Steve

One of my catches with Oscar. Sharp-eyed reader Thorke Oostergaard of Norway, passionate species hunter and vowel collector, spotted that this is actually An Aramburui rutilus, so this adds one more species to the trip and adds Thorke to the free dinner list.

Dateline: February 23, 2019 – Bertioga, Brazil

No matter which one of my three steady readers is looking at this, you well know that I have had some brilliant days fishing the central coast of Brazil, but that most of these happened before the 1000fish blog era. What you all remember about Brazil are some terrible fails, including an inexplicable cold front in mid-summer, and me somehow catching a world record stingray while I wasn’t wearing any clothes. Still, I couldn’t stand the idea of going there and not fishing.

I would be in Sao Paulo on business, and over a weekend, there is not much for a foreigner to do there, unless they are single and/or attractive, fill in your own punchline here. I have explored most of the freshwater options in the area, but the Atlantic is only an hour away from downtown, in perfect traffic conditions, which happened once in 1958. I called old friend Ian-Arthur Sulocki, and through his complex net of contacts, I ended up finding Thomas Schmidt, who guides snook trips in Bertioga. He has helped pioneer the use of plastic baits in the area, and his photo album speaks for itself.

The first photo I saw of Thomas. This got my attention.

I stayed up well past my bedtime going through his website – www.pescarobalo.com.br

I was hoping this was his deckhand. (Note from Marta – Go for it. I’m sure she’ll be impressed by your Honda Pilot.)

I have caught all the snook species in the area, but no trophies, and the idea of flipping swimbaits for a day in beautiful scenery was definitely appealing. Of course, my unique fishing needs took quite a bit of explaining, especially considering that I speak no Portuguese, but Ian jumped in and helped Thomas understand that there really are people who want to catch blennies. (It’s never easy to explain that size doesn’t matter.)

In the days before I would be heading out with Thomas, old friend Cris Bernarde texted me some photos from South Florida. I’ve never caught a snook close to this big. My time had to be coming.

And on a fly rod.

This is practically in his front yard.

Saturday morning broke clear and beautiful, although far too early. Math was never my strong suit, and it hadn’t occurred to me that staying up until 3am with buddies was a really bad idea when I had a 4:30am wakeup call. On the drive to the coast, I blearily enjoyed a bit of scenery, mostly involving pre-carnival walks of shame, but I pretty much slept the entire way. We got to Bertioga at 6:30, and Thomas was ready and waiting for me.

The central coast of Brazil has a unique beauty – forest right down to the water’s edge on endless rock dome islands. Every one of them looks full of fish.

I love it here.

We motored a few miles and started throwing plastics at a likely shoreline. I got a few taps, which of course exhausted my patience, so I switched over to shrimp just to see what was down there. I got the usual suspects – croakers, catfish, and blennies. I smiled as I remembered getting all of these for the first time, almost 20 years ago, just a few hours to the north. Brazil was the sixth country where I caught a fish, and even with 88 more since then, the place has never lost its wonder for me.

The blennies are remarkably savage for their size.

I went back the plastics intermittently, and we cast our way through the morning, moving from reef to reef and island to island. We had a few strikes, but nothing to write home about. Around 11, I got my first and only snook of the day – a fish about which I am justifiably modest.

This did not bode well for my trophy hunt.

I went back to live bait on the reefs and caught a dozen nice black margate on an ultralight.

These things fight hard.

Now and then, I recharged my confidence by looking at Thomas’ photos.

From the week before I was there. The fish just had to be there.

Then I would throw plastics for an hour and not get a big snook. Thomas worked hard, moving from spot to spot, but I would eventually regress into bait fishing for the small stuff that was running around in the shallows. There was plenty of action – the area is loaded with puffers and the occasional blenny.

I caught dozens of these. Note that Thomas is almost keeping a straight face.

The same porkfish we get in Florida, but they always make a beautiful picture.

I dutifully photographed everything, but as it turns out, only one of the fish – the very smallest – was a new species – the aptly-named Brazilian blenny.

Thanks to Dr. Alfredo Carvalho for the ID.

Thomas would have fished into the evening, but I needed to be back in Sao Paulo for a business dinner, so we had to wrap it up around four. With about an hour to go, he found a likely-looking reef about a mile offshore, and, optimism intact, we set to it. The snook just weren’t going to cooperate. But I had a light rod and a lot of shrimp, so I decided to enjoy myself. I got another mixed bag of margates and croakers.

Good fishing is good fishing. I’ll get the snook next time.

Thomas pulled up a beautiful Lane snapper.

Steve and Thomas. Go fishing with this guy if you’re in the area – he was great.

As if I wasn’t irritated enough by Cris’ photos, in the weeks before I published this missive, I got another reminder that other people were catching large snook. Randomly, Adrian Gray from the IGFA, who you all remember from “The Editor-in-Chief,” proudly and innocently sent me shots of what looked like an epic snook trip for him and his girlfriend, Gina.

Adrian’s unsolicited snook.

Yes, hers is bigger. And she’s a lot better-looking than Adrian.

This is the kind of thing I would have done to be mean to someone, usually Jim LaRosa, but Adrian’s intentions were pure. I too would have been proud to catch snook that big, and would have sent photos to everyone I know and shown them to strangers on airplanes. My time will come. (Note – I have been to Florida in the interim, and that trip was also not my time, so by my math, my time should be getting closer.)

So the pessimists among you will remember this post as a bunch of pictures of other people with big snook, but I will remember it as another chance I had to spend a day fishing in a beautiful location that I have loved for years. Sure, I only got one species, but if I happen to finish my career with exactly 2000, this would be a pretty important catch – just like every one of them.

Steve