Better Out Than In

     Lifelist fishing is an interesting game in that the more you do it, the weirder things get. Well I've been doing it long enough that my options are to either embrace the weird with open arms, or move to a different region of the country entirely. It involves increasingly long drives for often increasingly small and esoteric species. And that is when things go as planned. It's a fun game to play but these are the hoops we jump through to do it. On a recent trip to Washington's Olympic Peninsula, I had a solid week of fishing planned and all of it was weird and none of it went as planned.

     In mid August this past year, my daughter had plans to go to summer camp for a week near Seattle. Not being one to miss an opportunity, I graciously offered to handle both the drop off and pick up for camp. Of course, a byproduct of that would mean I had plausible reason to stay over there and fish until camp was over. This was the closest I've come to a guilt free plan for a week of fishing in my life. I meticulously planned each day out, with potential target species at each location prelocated, numerated, and itinerated. There would be a lot of driving involved but it was going to be fantastic. I had solid leads on at least 3 new ones, and potential for quite a few more if my luck held. This plan was foolproof. 

     I'll spare you the subtle hints and get to the point. The foolproof plan proved itself foolprone before the ship even launched. On a different camping trip with friends just a few days before our departure, some of my daughters friends got sick. Like all the way sick. When I picked her up from that trip, they were laughing about how much some of them had barfed. We tried to remain positive though as she hadn't actually gotten sick. We packed and readied our gear. Then, the literal night before our 4 AM planned departure, there was an oh-so-ominous stomach gurgle heard metaphorically all through the house. At about midnight, the barfing began. We contemplated pushing through as the other girls had recovered fairly quickly, but there was just no way. Camp was officially called off just 4 hours before our planned departure time. 

     Now this left me with a disappointed kid, but also a with a decision to make. By the end of her first sick day the kid was pretty clearly over the worst of it and on the mend. I was down one day so far but not being one to waste the rest of a perfectly good week off of work, I decided to send it. 

     The first stop on my slightly adjusted itinerary was a pier in northern Puget Sound where I hoped to catch a Slender Sculpin on reliable reports from a fellow species hunter. Unfortunately the sculpin in question was a no-show. I should have seen this coming though, as I passed No Frikken Way during my journey there. Sometimes the universe's hints are subtle, sometimes they are not. 

The signs were there, I just refused to listen.

      So it was off to the next nearby spot where someone had posted a Great Sculpin while there was still some sunlight left. I arrived at a beautiful spot and sent out my best guess at what a Great Sculpin would be in the mood for. My only beef with this spot was the amount of seagulls sitting on the roof of the building. When the wind would shift towards me, it definitely burned the lungs and made the eyes water.

Really cool spot, but I can still smell this picture. This roof is not white.

It was fun to see the large schools of Pacific Sand Lance being chased around by the birds.

This one was kind enough to pose for a picture, and the first new species of the trip was on the board!

      With great (sculpin) anticipation I sorted through a few miscellaneous greenlings and flounder, then I got a good bite on half of a shiner perch. Up popped a giant mouth with even bigger pectoral fins! Once I got it up on the deck, it was definitely the target species, but after inspecting the creature, I almost felt bad, as this guy had clearly had a rough go of it. It was covered in parasites, blind in one eye, and its fins were all beat up.

Species 242!

And this was his good eye!

I have to think this fish has a few stories to tell.

Some of the many leaches and copepods living on this poor fellow.

     So, after an ignominious start, the trip was officially a success with two new ones added already. I went back to the first pier and had a really enjoyable evening catching dogfish and Pacific Staghorn Sculpin which are both fun to catch despite what most anglers will tell you. After fishing until about 11:00 PM I settled in for the evening. I remember rolling over and wondering what was up with my stomach, but didn't think too much of it and went back to sleep. 

     Early the next morning my plan was to head up in the mountains to a nearby stream that is home to an isolated population of genetically confirmed Dolly Varden, that is open to fishing. That is not an easily found combination of factors! As a biologist and a species hunter, I feel that some backstory is needed here (trigger warning: soapbox rant incoming). Washington state is home to populations of both Bull Trout (Salvelinus confluentus) and Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma) which are two separate species, note the two different scientific names. I bring this up because if you ask any fisherman in Washington, 99% of them will tell you that Bull Trout and Dolly Varden are either just the same species and the names are interchangeable, or that dollies are just the anadromous version of a Bull Trout; similar to how Rainbow Trout and steelhead are the same species but one is anadromous and one is not. However; regardless of how popular a narrative this may be, it is still not correct. It is not quite out of left field either though as both species are visually virtually identical, and used to be classified as all Dolly Varden, until they were split into two separate species in 1970, so I will acknowledge that it is a complicated one. But long story short, both species have variable life histories and can come in a variety of forms ranging from large migratory individuals (including anadromous ones) down to tiny resident fish that live their entire lives in small isolated streams and never grow longer than 9 or 10 inches. But because they are so visually similar, I was always hesitant to make a definitive call on any char caught in any of Washington's coastal drainages where the two species overlap. These are the things that keep me up at night. 75 bonus points if you just read that whole thing.

     Anyway that brings me to this particular stream, which is only home to dollies, not Bull Trout, and this was confirmed by genetics, and it's an isolated population above a waterfall. That's as definitive of a shot as I know of, outside of going to one of the Alaskan rivers where there are only dollies. I've known about this spot for a few years, but it is a journey and a half from my house, for a 7 inch fish. So this was the trip. I was nearby, with a whole day to dedicate to it. Something about a foolproof plan or whatever. 

     It is at this point in the story that I will draw your attention to my midnight stomach twinge mentioned a few paragraphs ago. I woke up and started the journey to the dolly spot, but things had progressed alarmingly by this point from a twinge to a full blown twang; enough so that I invited my bait bucket to ride shotgun with me just in case of any surprise gastrointestinal pyrotechnics along the way. I will spare you the gory details, but I'll just say that my anticipated 1.5 hour drive that morning took about 3 hours and the bucket served its purpose well. I had officially contracted the mystery camping bug! 

     I parked at the stream, and contemplated my options. It was bad. I just sat in my car for a couple hours waiting for it to pass. It didn't. BUT there was no way I was going to not at least try to catch the tiny fish I had driven 10+ hours for. So I set out down the trail to try and find the closest likely looking pool. The 150 yards through the woods seemed more like 5 miles but I stumbled through it. It seemed like a fly fishing scenario so I drifted small nymphs with my three weight through a decent little pool with some boulders that looked pretty fishy, and promptly caught... nothing. I tried a few different flies to try and figure it out, barfed in the bushes a little, and tried a few other flies. They were having none of it. 

     I journeyed back to the car through the wilderness to get my spinning rod. I tied on my smallest Panther Martin spinner, barfed some, then slowly shuffled back to the stream. This time though, it actually worked! I quickly caught two tiny Rainbow Trout, then the third tiny fish that popped up was clearly a different color!

Yes it's tiny, but in this stream, they likely don't get a whole lot bigger than this, and it's definitely big enough to count!

     I snapped some quick pictures, let the fish swim back home, then after a celebratory barf in the bushes, I called it a day. The box was checked and that was good enough. I was ecstatic to finally add this one to the list (my 19th salmonid species if you're counting along at home), but even more ecstatic that I could head back to the hotel for the rest of the day. 

     I don't remember much from that afternoon after getting back to the hotel, but when I woke up the next morning I was feeling mostly ok, and at least the barfing had stopped, so I decided to attempt the next destination on the itinerary. I had a lead on a Calico Surfperch spot way over in the very corner of Washington State. I headed to Neah Bay to give it a try. Pro-tip: if you're going to try for surfperch in Neah Bay, buy your Gulp sandworms before you go because I looked everywhere within 30 miles and they don't have them. I had plenty of shrimp though and luckily they worked great too. Additional pro-tip: if you fish Hobuck Beach and you're visited by Cookie the beach dog, consider yourself blessed because she is a delight. 

Cookie, my companion for a few hours. If you can't tell, she is wondering why I kept releasing these tasty snacks back into the water to swim away.

This collar made me smile, and relieved that she wasn't a stray, just a pup out there living her best life making friends on the beach.

Side note: the above fish gave birth as I was holding her. I was just as surprised as she was. If you've ever wondered what a 30 second old baby Redtail Surfperch looks like, now you know. To Cookie's dismay, this tiny snack also swam away unchomped.

 

    Cookie and I had a great time sorting through as many Redtail Surfperch as a guy and his impromptu companion could hope for, until one that was distinctively different popped up. I had my Calico!

Species 4 for the trip!

Side note: This catch completed my collection of the three current species described in the Amphistichus genus. I find this satisfying.

     After catching my fill of surfperch including the target species, I contemplated my options. I was functional, but still not completely recovered from the camping bug the day before. I had gotten my three most likely species plus a bonus Sand Lance, so I was happy with the species count. My remaining species prospects were all long shots, and I had clearly not brought my lucky underwear on this trip. This was not the trip to push my luck with the fish gods. Cookie maintained that we should stick it out longer because you never know when something weird could pop up when fishing in the ocean. I acknowledged her good point, but still decided to deem the trip a success, lick my wounds,  and begin the long journey home.

Though it was pretty tough to say goodby to that cute face.

You Can Tuna Piano, But Can you Tune a Guitarfish?

    Sometimes I like to let my blog post list (blog log?) get so far behind that my recollection of events gets a little fuzzy, that way I have plausible deniability if things get embellished, or blown out of proportion. This may or may not be the case with this post. I'll let you be the judge. 

     It was some time in 2023 when my buddy Bret (you probably know him from his YouTube channel Peeling Line) said he was planning a trip to San Diego and graciously invited me to come along. That area has many species that I've long drooled over so I packed up my sabikis and we headed south. I brushed up on my California fish species ID and watched many a YouTube video. Potential targets ranged from tiny gobies to giant sharks and everything in between. I had added 39 new species on a trip to Florida some years before and figured I was unlikely to top that mark on this trip, but it definitely had potential to be up there. 

     On our first night, we had a few hours free in the evening so we headed to the Oceanside Municipal Fishing Pier. I don't often post exact locations on here, but given that there were approximately 9,000 other people fishing there that night, I think the secret is out there. Fishing was crowded and pretty slow, but we both still caught some smaller fish and the first new species of the trip were added.

This Jacksmelt (Jack Silverside) kicked off the new-species-game for the trip and became species 203 for me.

Followed shortly thereafter by this Queenfish

     Bret had arranged rental boats for several days later in the trip, but the first day would be spent exploring some of the shore fishing that San Diego has to offer. Bright and early the next morning we headed out and thankfully the crowds that we encountered were minimal, and the species count started ticking up almost immediately. Soaking baits in the bay might be one of my new favorite things to do. This was one of those magical times where the next bite was almost certain to be a new one, and the list of possible candidates was pretty long. And to make things even more interesting, the first few fish of the day were slightly more dangerous (venomous) than I was used to.

This Round Ray was my first stingray ever. It took some maneuvering, but we both managed to part ways mostly unharmed.

If he looks cranky, that's just because, well he was cranky!

I also caught several of these spiky fellows. Called sculpins by the locals, this California Scorpionfish was added to the list and was kind enough to keep his venomous spines to himself. 

Not the kind of Mohawk you want to run your fingers through.

 

     We continued to soak a variety of sizes of baits and the action was definitely fast enough to keep me very entertained. In the species hunting game, I like the weird looking fish the best and the next few to pop up definitely fell into that category. There are several Guitarfish species down there and I wore my lucky underpants hoping to encounter some of them.  The Thornback Guitarfish was the first to rear its weird-shaped head.

This weirdo became species 208 if you're counting along at home.

While they do sort of look like stingrays and definitely have some spiky bits on their tails, these ones are not likely to result in an ER visit unless you try REALLY hard, which would be weird. Don't do that.

The business end of these critters is the stuff of nightmares though. Imagine meeting this derpy thing in a dark alley sometime.

Spotted Kelpfish. Number 210!

Opaleye, 211!

     That evening I fished off a beach while Bret tried his hand off a small nearby rock jetty. I was hoping to tie into one of the various croaker species that prowl the surf. While I was wholly undisturbed by croakers, I did round out the day with a new surfperch species which are another favorite of mine.

The mighty Barred Surfperch, not to be confused with the nearly identical Redtail, or Calico Surfperch.

     With such success from the shore on the first two days, day three anticipation was at an all-time high. We had a boat ready to go ply the depths with and great weather to boot. We hit the bait barge on the way out of the bay and loaded up on live sardines. The first part of our day was spent attempting to troll up a tuna or some other pelagic creature. 

You can't catch em if your line isn't in the water. We still didn't catch em, but it was fun to try!

     We kept fishing towards groups of birds and what looked to be large swaths of promising animal life. They all turned out to be giant pods of Short Beaked Common Dolphins (I think anyway, I'm a fish guy, not a dolphin guy). While it was really cool to see so many dolphins up close and personal, we never did find the tuna-laden bait ball we were searching for.

     While it would have been cool to tie into some big tuna, that wasn't the only plan for the day. We were out deep, so down deep our baits went, and some fascinating creatures began hitting the deck. Rockfish are a very diverse family of fish, and they're one of my favorite things to fish for, and I added five new ones that morning.

This Greenstripe Rockfish was my first new thing of the day, and definitely a welcome addition to my rockfish collection. It seems more mottled than striped to me, but what do I know?

Greenspotted Rockfish, called that because of the green spots.

Speckled Rockfish, there are little black speckles if you look closely enough.

Swordspine Rockfish because of the large spine.

Chilipepper Rockfish because it's spicy.

     After we thoroughly tired our arms out reeling things up from the deep, we decided to try our luck back inside the bay. This was when the aforementioned live sardines really put in some work. We tried what would become my favorite technique of the trip, to let the boat drift and pull live sardines along the bottom as we went. As it turns out, being a sardine in San Diego Bay is risky since everything wants to eat them. 

The California Halibut was one of our main targets for the trip and we each got several keeper sized fish, and Bret even had a monster on that came off right at the boat. Plus I got to wear my really awesome hat that totally isn't dorky dad-apparel.

 

We both caught some respectably sized and picture worthy Barred Sand Bass

I do believe Bret's was bigger than mine, plus his has that cool orange eye shadow on.

And Spotted Bay Bass

And Kelp Bass

Maybe my favorite fish of the trip though, was this Banded Guitarfish.

The closer you look at it the weirder it gets.

 

And another freaky guitarfish mouth shot. This one is worse than the first one!

     We fished from shore again that evening, which resulted in one additional new one for the day, another weirdo, the California Butterfly Ray. Nine new species in a day is epic in my book!

Much more friendly than the other stingrays.

Just a derpy little guy.

     We got to the boat again bright and early the next morning and we again drifted sardines inside the bay until the morning sun burned off the fog offshore. This again resulted in some fast action and a new species of shark - the Gray Smooth Hound, a particularly harmless creature, but a fun addition nonetheless.

The mighty Gray Smooth Hound. Pretty friendly for a shark.

Though he did look a bit confused.

     Bret also put together a video of our morning in the bay: 

     Once the fog burned off, we headed offshore to fish some kelp beds which had a variety of potential targets I was excited about catching. In a previous trip to these kelp beds, Bret had caught California Sheephead, which come in a couple different color phases depending on age and sex, and Treefish, one of the stranger looking rockfish species. Both of these were very high on my wish list. When we got out to the beds, we picked a likely looking patch, grabbed a couple strands of kelp, and tied our dock line to it so we could stay put.

Kelp Beds off the coast.

     I could not find a Treefish in the forest of kelp, but I did manage two new species. The first was a type of wrasse simply called a Senorita. I also got a female California Sheephead, though I didn't get the big colorful male I was hoping for. Fun fact about the California Sheephead: they are what is called protogynous hermaphrodites, and are all born female, and then morph into males and change colors as they grow older and larger.

The mighty Senorita.

My California Sheephead. This one is a female.

Oh, and they have crazy teeth.

Bret got this nice example of a male on his previous trip.

     After plying the kelp forest for a while, we did some exploring and tried a variety of spots offshore. Bret got a nice guitarfish drifting along a sandy bottom. 

Bret displaying the proper technique to play the guitarfish. And yes his guitarfish was bigger than mine.

 

     We anchored and tried soaking some bigger baits hoping for something large and toothy. We even tried chumming with some fresh caught mackerel. The sharks didn't cooperate but it was fun trying. I did get a screaming run on a smaller bait, but I had my drag a bit too tight for my leader (see also "rookie mistakes") and I promptly broke it off after 10 seconds of sheer panic. I caught my breath and changed my diaper, as Bret continued soaking his baits. He soon got a similarly screaming run and was smart enough to have a more reasonable drag setting and thicker leader, so he managed to hold onto his. The battle that ensued was nothing short of epic, including drag screaming runs, bulldog-like stubbornness by both the fish and fisherman, and a tangle in the anchor rope resulting in me hanging off the bow to untangle it. But after all that, the fish somehow stayed hooked and finally came into view. It was a big bat ray! 

Step 1: hold on. Step 2: Don't get stabbed.

 

     After it surfaced, we contemplated our options as neither of us were too interested in getting stung; fortunately the boat had a swim step on the back that worked nicely for a safe unhooking area. As luck would have it, through ginger inspection, we discovered that this particular individual had somehow lost its stinger, rendering it safe to handle, and resulting in a great photo op.

Bret with our first bat ray of the trip!

     I don't remember just how many rays Bret caught that afternoon. I do however remember that it was more than one, and I also remember that I caught exactly zero. I couldn't buy a bite after that first crazy run. My chance would have to wait for the next day, our last day of fishing. I was very happy with the results so far, having added 22 new species, making this a trip for the record books in my opinion, but man that bat ray looked like a lot of fun. I of course did not panic and maintained a positive attitude.

     We headed out the final morning and were greeting by the patriotic site of a pod of dolphins cruising around the bow of a navy warship exiting the bay.

If you zoom in, that's a dolphin porpoising off the bow. Or maybe a porpoise dolphining? Who's to say. 

     We wasted no time as this was our last day, and headed right for some promising looking bottom contours and dropped our bottomfishing rigs down. The results were fast and furious and the new species just kept on coming.

My first new one of the day was the mighty Longfin Sanddab, which look identical to the Pacific Sanddabs which we also caught, except for... you guessed it, the longer fin.

This Squarespot Rockfish was my first new rockfish of the day!

Followed by a beautiful Ocean Whitefish, which are actually a type of tilefish, for those of you interested in such things.

The tiny but mighty Halfbanded Rockfish. One of the cooler looking rockfish species if you ask me.

Pacific Jack Mackerel

Vermilion Rockfish. I'm pretty sure I caught one of these in Oregon years ago, but I can't prove it with a picture, so this one gets to make it official on the list.

     After that flurry of bottomfish species, I was sitting at 28 new species. This was nothing short of incredible, but the OCD in me likes nice round numbers, so as we anchored up at the bat ray spot one last time, I put the rally cap on, hoping for two and only two more to make it an even 30. 

     Sabikis are a pretty reliable way to pull up something small and interesting, so we both played that game while waiting for bites on the bigger rods. Soon enough, we both pulled up diminutive pencil shaped fish and added California Lizardfish to our lists.

Yes it's tiny and unassuming, but a species is a species! This is actually one of the ones I was hoping for, so I was happy to get one.

      As time was running out, I started to get nervous about getting a ray. We caught some nice bait size Chub Mackerel and sent them down. I had my big rod ready, and even had the right leader and my drag set appropriately. In the interest of not making an already long blog post even longer, I'll get right to the point. It took much longer than wanted it to, but I finally got my bite as I went to check my bait. The battle wasn't quite as exciting as I was using my heaviest rod; nevertheless, I can pretty confidently say that these fish fight harder pound-for-pound than pretty much anything else I've caught. But up it came, and we swung it up onto the step for a quick picture, then I gave it a couple thank you pats as I sent it back flapping into the deep.

My Bat Ray! This individual was in fact still armed and dangerous, so I didn't get the cool shot of me holding it like Bret did, but I'm definitely not going to complain.

 

      And with that, I had 30 species, and my OCD would allow me to sleep at night. I am very grateful that Bret allowed me to tag along on what would be one of my favorite fishing trips ever. I believe he also ended the trip with 19 new ones, which is pretty fantastic considering he had already been there on a previous trip and caught a bunch of them already. I still need a Shovelnose Guitarfish, and a Treefish, and a Pacific Barracuda, not to mention all the croakers, and a.... so I will be back some day, but for now this trip will truly be tough to beat.

And there was even scenery to see too, but I'm terrible at documenting that.