The Promised Land

     About a year and a half ago, I was riding in the truck with my boss traveling to a field site to sample some fish or another. During our conversations, the fact came up that the 2017 AFS (American Fisheries Society) Annual Meeting was going to be held in Tampa Florida. Florida is right up there near the top of my wish list of places to fish, so I calmly and casually volunteered (half as a joke, not really expecting to go) to attend the conference and present our research there. Editor's note - I believe what was actually said, was something to the effect of my being willing to give my left arm in exchange for going. We usually go to conferences every year, and I've been to several other AFS meetings in the past, but I'd never gone to one quite that far away before. I wasn't really expecting to go, but I put that wish on the back burner for the time being.
     Several months later, while reviewing our project budgets, I noticed that my boss had added the conference attendance to our planned budget for the year (best boss ever!). I calmly didn't freak out, and tried to play it cool. Anyway, long story short, I submitted an abstract so I could give a talk at the conference, and as the time drew nearer, and hotels were booked, and plane tickets were purchased, I finally allowed myself to accept that it was going to happen!
     So it was that in the latter half of August 2017, I found myself stepping off of an airplane in Florida! I of course immediately began sweating. It's hot there. More on this in a bit.
     I've always enjoyed attending AFS meetings. It's one of the ways that biologists from across the country connect with one another, and learn of the fisheries research being conducted all over the world. Basically it's like the world championships of fish nerdiness. For four straight days. Plus it was air conditioned inside the conference center which I appreciated. I won't bore you with more details about the conference, since this is a blog about fishing after all, but if you want to learn more about AFS (and I encourage you to do so), you can visit their website: https://fisheries.org/. I've written similar blog posts about my trips to AFS conferences in Seattle WA, St. Paul MN, and Little Rock AR as well if you're really bored.
    As for the fishing portion of the trip, my days were tied up in the conference, but I would have the evenings free to explore and catch as many new species as I could. For somebody like me who has never fished in Florida before, I fully expected those few hours per day to be like drinking from a fire hose.
     The view from my hotel did not help to calm me down when I got there.

Things looked promising! Water everywhere!

     So I grabbed my poles and hurried down to the nearest pier-shaped thing I could find, cast out my hooks, positively quivering with anticipation, and proceeded to catch.... nothing. The fish gods do not like it when you get cocky. So all I caught at the first spot I tried was a piece of humble pie. I regrouped, and found a Publix grocery store a short hike away, so I went and stocked up on shrimp. Also, if you're wondering, yes people do look at you funny if you're a sweaty out-of-towner walking around a grocery store with all your fishing poles and tackle boxes.
     One helpful fellow at the grocery store pointed me toward a nearby bridge, where I was greeted by my first manatee sighting of the trip. The shrimp was a good call, and shortly after arriving, my pole nearly got pulled into the water. It is very satisfying to hook a fish knowing that no matter what it was, it would be a new species; that does not happen very often. The first fish to kick things off was the hardhead catfish.

First Florida Fish, and first new species of the trip!

    I found plenty more catfish that evening, but no other species were added despite rumors of sheepshead and redfish being there also. Interestingly enough though, I'm considering filing a complaint with the Old Spice Deodorant people. Knowing how hot and humid it was likely to be in Florida in August, I planned ahead and bought deodorant that was clearly labeled "Sweat Defense" right on the front. Surely that would defend against the sweat right?

This'll keep the sweat away for sure.

LIES! That was clearly false advertising. Florida is still a sweaty, damp place! Don't worry, I promise this is the only bathroom selfie I'll ever post.

      The next evening, my buddy Zach (who was also attending the conference) and I arranged to meet up with my new buddy Ryan, a local Tampa Bay resident species hunter. Ryan, who also has a fishing blog (see http://fishihavecaught.com/ for details), was the perfect guy for the job. Most people just don't get the same thrill of catching new stuff that we do. It's always refreshing to fish with like-minded people. We met at one of his go-to spots for people who want to add species, and it was an instant success. He had caught it all before of course, but it was all new to me. We began casting sabikis tipped with shrimp and my first bite came within about 10 seconds. This was the Florida I was hoping for! The first fish I pulled up was a mangrove snapper.

That's 2 new ones!

      Then I did something I've never done before. I pulled up two fish at once and they were both new species!

How's that for efficiency!

The pinfish was the first out of the water.

Followed 0.1 seconds later by this pigfish

      I rounded out the evening by adding two more to the list: the white grunt and the lane snapper:

I liked how almost everything down there was colorful. This one had a bright orange mouth also

These obviously get bigger than this, but the small ones count just as much as the big ones on the list!

      That was it for my species that night before we got rained out by one of the frequent thunderstorms that rolled through the area; but we saw a few other species caught including spottail pinfish, a sea-robin of some sort, puffers, porgies, and even a baby gag grouper. Seriously, Florida is the promised land for species hunters, especially ones from the other side of the country that haven't been there before...
      The next couple evenings, Ryan was busy, so I was on my own. I tried a couple different piers and caught some more stuff. The hardhead catfish were ever-present, and these would become the resident pest of the trip. 

     I've caught many catfish before, and I've handled many thousands of fish in my life, so I assumed I knew what I was doing while handling the catfish down there too. However, as I mentioned earlier, the fish gods do not like it when you get cocky, and they're quick to call you on it.
     As I was unhooking one particularly feisty hardhead catfish, I zigged when I should have zagged, and ended up with his pectoral spine firmly lodged deep in the middle of my palm.

The wound might not look like much, but what it lacks in excess bloodiness, it makes up for in deepness and sheer enthusiasm. To this day it still hurts if I push on it just right. Was it worth it, for a pile of new species? You bet your Band-Aids it was!

      One local onlooker suggested that I sleep that night with my hand firmly pressed on a nice juicy steak. It hurt, but there was no need for quite such drastic measures. Apparently I was lucky I didn't stab myself with the other common catfish species (which I finally caught shortly thereafter), since the gafftopsail catfish are not only every bit as sharp and poky, but they're venomous as well.

Species seven of the trip. And this one is venomous just to make it interesting! Gaftopsail catfish. Say that five times fast.

     Other exciting list additions included the Atlantic spadefish, not to be confused with the Pacific spadefish which is found in the Pacific; and the southern puffer, not to be confused with the northern puffer, which is found more to the north.

Atlantic spadefish. That's Eight!

Southern Puffer. Nine!

      I was chased off the water yet again, but some ominous looking thunderstorms.

Daily thunderstorms, just part of life in the promised land.

     That brings us to the last fishing opportunity of the trip. Ryan had another promising spot to try but the thunderstorms were rolling through more frequently that afternoon, and we weren't sure if we'd be able to fish safely, you know without getting struck by lightning and all that. We decided to risk it and see if we could get on the other side of the storms. 
     We pulled up to his spot, and there was a small break in the clouds, but the there were still ominous rumblings from some uncomfortably nearby thunderheads. We weren't sure how long we'd last, but we had to give it a try. We were greeted at the dock by a variety of bait thieves:

I'm not exactly sure what Flipper was doing but he hung out in this same spot for about an hour.

Sure the egrets and herons are pretty, but turn your back for one second and they'll steal any unused bait left lying around!

     I had been fishing with two rods all week. One rod had a sabiki rig on it to catch the smaller species, and the other was a bigger rod that I had been baiting with whole frozen squid or small fish in the hopes of a tussle with something bigger. There are several species of shark commonly caught there, and I wanted one! The smaller rod had done a fair bit of work all week, but the big rod seemed to be on strike. In fact, it had refused to get any bites at all. But you can't catch them if you don't try, so I kept on trying. 
     In no time at all we both began bringing in fish on our sabikis, including a new species, the tomtate grunt:

Yep it's tiny, but it's species 10 for the trip and that's huge!

This one also had a bright orange mouth.

     The pinfish were ever present as usual. Not being one to miss an opportunity, when I pulled up a particularly tiny (bite size) one, I swapped out the old bait on my bigger rod for this more lively offering:

Yep we're going to say it... Shark Bait! Ooh Ha Ha!

     Another group of species very high on my wish list were the filefish. I thought I spotted some poking around the pylons underneath the dock, and was desperately trying to get them to come back so I could get a closer look. I was so into this that I almost didn't notice the tip of my big rod twitching a bit. I tried to play it cool as the twitches got more enthusiastic, and even managed not to jerk the circle-hook out of its mouth! I didn't know what I had, but it was obviously bigger than anything else I had caught. It felt heavy but sort of sluggish. Maybe a ray of some sort? We threw out guesses but we were both surprised to see a perfectly sized baby nurse shark pop up to the surface! I say perfectly sized, because my "big" rod was one of my salmon fishing rods (i.e., not really all that big... but the biggest I could get on the airplane), so a full grown nurse shark would have spooled me without hesitation, not to mention getting it up on the dock; but we could handle this little guy just fine!

A wiser man may not have put the fingers quite so close to the business end, but these don't have quite the same dental weaponry as other sharks so it was ok. All the fingers are still intact.

Species 11 for the trip, and by far my favorite one of the bunch!

Its skin felt like tiny pebbles. And check out the weird eyeballs!

     I was sure glad we decided to brave the threat of nearby thunderstorms. We stuck it out for a bit longer there, but nothing else new was caught. With about an hour left, we decided to try one last spot. We didn't catch anything new there either, but the sunset, complete with more dolphins and a manatee sighting, made for a perfect ending to the trip.

     The good news is 11 new species were caught, making it my most species rich trip ever; pretty darn good for only having evenings to fish! But the bad news is; now I've seen Florida, and I know what fishing is like there. Now I'm going to need to spend about a month there getting all the species that I missed out on, no matter how sweaty it gets. I don't know when that'll happen but maybe someday.

It's fair to say I'm just as hooked as the fish were.

I Smell a Rat

     Hello my name is Bryan and I am a fish nerd. 
     I have put in a fair bit of thought as to what makes me so fascinated with fishing and fish in general. It's honestly a hard thing to put my finger on. To that end, I have decided that there are several types of fishermen. When most people go fishing, it's just a form of release, or recreation, or even an odd form of grocery shopping for those that are just out there to fill a cooler. Then there are the serious fishermen who go all out and often dive head first into one or more of the subgenres of fishing, eg. fly fishing, salmon fishing, bass fishing etc.. Joining one of these subcultures can certainly be rewarding, and many people can and do spend their lifetimes exploring and learning the ins and outs of each genre. I've met people, for example, who focused all their efforts strictly on fishing dry flies on spring creeks for trout. And if that's what turns your crank, I say go for it. The point of getting out fishing is to have fun after all, do it in a way that's enjoyable to you. 
     But to me, being pigeon-holed into one style of fishing would leave me wondering what I was missing out on elsewhere. In my opinion, there is an untapped wealth of fishing adventures off the proverbial beaten path. This often requires some outside-the-box thinking, and these types of fishing perhaps may not be as popular in the mainstream (no pun intended...) fishing media, but they are every bit as rewarding, once the stereotypes are laid aside. I haven't found one single mainstream subgenre that quite does it for me. I enjoy fly fishing, salmon fishing, and bass fishing, and I want to be good at all of them! This desire to be good at all of them, coupled with the fascination that I've always had for the diversity of fishes that exist in the world, eventually lead me to a little known corner of the fishing world called species fishing, or life-listing. Whatever you want to call it, adding new species to my list has become my favorite thing to do. I still enjoy fishing for the same old species. It's still fishing after all. But I find it fascinating to pick a species, do my homework and learn enough about it to figure out where, when, and how to catch it. Then when it actually all comes together and I catch the fish; that's the icing on the cake. 
     For example, one species that I have ogled for years was the spotted ratfish or chimaera. Now if you're a purist-type salmon fishermen anywhere on the pacific coast, I probably just lost you there. And that's OK, I won't judge. They are considered a nuisance fish in some places, particularly in Puget Sound, where they actually make up a large portion of the biomass and are sometimes incidentally caught by people fishing for other things. But they're one of the most unique fish I've encountered anywhere. They're in the same taxonomic class as sharks and rays, but pretty much they're just way out in left field taxonomically speaking. They've got a lateral line that branches and extends through the side of their face, giant reflective eyes, and pectoral fins that they flap like butterfly wings. Long story short, I wanted one. 
     Ratfish often inhabit very deep water (up to 3,000 feet!) but I learned that they can be caught fairly easily at night as they swim into much shallower waters then to feed. Somewhere in my wanderings on the internet, I heard that somebody had caught one on Pier 86 in Puget Sound. So, when I was recently sent to Seattle for a week on a business trip, it didn't take too long to connect the dots. It was pretty obvious what I would be doing in the evenings after work.

The Elliot Bay (Pier 86) fishing pier. There are worse places to spend an evening.

Seattle is a funny place. This is what passes for graffiti there.

     The fishing was pretty slow while the sun was still up, but I caught several brown and quillback rockfish.

Brown Rockfish

The tiniest quillback rockfish I've ever seen.

     But I wasn't really expecting anything till after dark anyway. Martini lives not too far away, so he met me there once he finished with school and work for the day. He also needed a rat for his list. As it got darker, we wondered if we were crazy or if we actually had a chance at the chimaera. I missed a pretty good bite, and we joked that it was probably my one shot at it. But really I was assuming it was just a big staghorn sculpin or maybe a dogfish, both common nighttime catches. 
     Pretty soon though I got another good bite and didn't miss this time. Whatever it was got closer to the surface and I began to see a glowing green ball shining up at us. We soon realized that it was a ratfish eye reflecting back at us! As I swung the fish over the rail, I was glad that Martini was the one there since he's one of the few people who would be as excited as I was about seeing such a crazy fish. We high-fived and celebrated the catch, taking in it's other-worldly features. I knew beforehand about the butterfly-wing fins, and the big eyes, but I didn't know about the crazy teeth or the huge (mildly venomous...) dorsal spine! The males also have claspers (to aid in mating) in the middle of their freaking foreheads! I've geeked-out a few times while fishing, but this definitely took the cake.

They can be caught! Weirdest fish I've ever seen. Ever.

     We released the little guy and kept on fishing. It didn't take long before we had both caught several more.

Martini with one of his several ratfish of the night. This one's a female - no clasper in the forehead...

Another female. The fish I mean.

Did I mention the dorsal spine? And it's venomous too!

Tell me that's not the weirdest critter you've seen.

Adorable. And I almost stuck my finger in there to get my hook out. In the words of the great Steve Wozniak, "Do not put that in your pants."

     That was pretty much the extent of the excitement for that trip. Though I did add another species the next evening at a different pier. In an unprecedented display of shamefully-tiny-hook fishing, I pulled up a cast with not only a new species on the end, but three examples of said species at once!

Can't say I've ever added a new species by catching three of them at once before. Till now!

The mighty pacific sanddab! Incidentally, this is not the first time I've been photobombed by a wasp while photographing a new species (see this post for details).

     So while I didn't catch any species of fish that the mainstream fishing media would call exciting or noteworthy, to me and my fish-nerd ways, the ratfish will be a serious contender for fish of the year this year. Homework was done, target fish were caught, pictures were taken, the catch was celebrated with somebody just as excited as I was. That's what it's all about if you ask me.

Bunch of Tinies and a Biggie.... Almost

     My annual trip to the American Fisheries Society meeting took me to Little Rock Arkansas this year. Now I don't know about you, but the first thing I do when I find out I'm going on a business trip is to look and see how close my hotel is to a river or lake. When I checked this time, I was pleased to discover that my hotel was just a stone's throw away from the Arkansas River, which just had to be full of new species waiting to be caught! 
     I'm a creature of habit, but I'd also like to think that I learn from my mistakes. At previous conferences I've wasted valuable fishing time by walking around trying to find somewhere to buy bait and licenses (see my post about Seattle WA and St. Paul MN). So in order to maximize valuable fishing time while in Little Rock, I came equipped this time with two fishing poles, an already-purchased fishing license, and even live bait! The airline people gave me quite the look when I told them there were live worms in my suitcase, but we made it! Now that I think about it, you could probably make a movie out of that - "Worms on a Plane" sounds like a promising title, or maybe "Wormnado"! ....no, you're right, that's too far.

     I wasn't quite sure exactly what sort of fishing to expect when I got there since I wasn't able to find any fishing reports for the Arkansas River right in downtown Little Rock. So I brought a bunch of generic baits and an assortment of hooks ranging from large to REALLY tiny. It didn't take long before the new species started coming in!

Green Sunfish - Species #91. I caught another one of these that was about 9 inches long - pretty big for this species - but of course that one flopped out of my hand before I could get a picture.

This massive specimen is a blacktail shiner - species #92! Also of note: I'm pretty sure this is the smallest fish I've ever caught!

      Sunfish are some of my favorite critters. There are quite a few species of them, though a lot of them are too small to be noticed by most anglers; I however, am not most anglers! They can be very colorful and beautiful - in their own tiny way - and I've wanted to add some new ones to my list for a while. I was pleasantly surprised that the Arkansas River is full of them! For the first two days, I stayed entertained catching gobs of tiny sunfish and enjoying their colors.

This colorful little gem is a longear sunfish - species #93

If you're wondering why they're called longear sunfish, it's because because they have long ears...

This red colored one was my favorite one.

I think this one's a longear too though the coloration is quite different.

Note the long ear...

This one is called an orangespotted sunfish - species #94! And before you ask - it's because they have orange spots...

I know what you're thinking... this is obviously just a bluegill right? Nope.  If you look at the "ear" you'll notice a tiny speck of red. So of course, this beast is called a... say it with me... redear sunfish. Creative eh? Species #95!

    On the last morning, I got to my spot bright and early only to realize that my worms were safe and sound inside my hotel-room fridge. I cursed and stomped for a while then weighed my options. I decided the best thing to do was to put some of my tiny fish to good use and use them for cut bait.  As it turns out, I should have done this all along! I wrangled in a few tasty looking micro-fish - including a new species - and sent them out on a big circle hook under a bobber.

Species #96, the blackspotted topminnow. There were lots of these little guys cruising around just under the surface of the water. Their shape reminded me of little miniature pike - sans teeth of course.

Just another extreme closeup of a two inch fish!

     Since I was using pretty fair size bait on a decent size hook, I was hoping for a catfish or two, or if I really hit the lottery, maybe even a bowfin or a gar. So I got really excited when my bobber went down and I came tight on a fish! I was a little surprised though that it was just a little guy. I quickly brought it in and held up what looked like a white bass (not a new species) to my untrained eye, but I took pictures just in case. Later that day I went back and looked at the pictures and realized that it was a bass all right, but I had the color all wrong! It wasn't a white bass, but a yellow - definitely a new species!

Not the caliber of fish I was expecting on my big circle hook, but I'm not complaining! Yellow bass species #97!

      I couldn't get any more bites on the big bait, so I put on a small hook and a little dime-size piece of minnow to try for some smaller species.  It wasn't long until I caught several channel catfish. I examined them very closely to make sure they weren't little blue cats - but they weren't.
     I have the curse and blessing of catching things I don't intend to catch when I'm trying to catch something else and catching things I intend to catch when I'm not fishing for them. If you understood that last sentence, you're way ahead of me... Anyway just before it was time for me to leave I was entertaining myself by trying to get some mystery species of fish swimming near the shore to bite, but unfortunately they were entertaining themselves by fastidiously ignoring every bait I had! After finally deciding it was a lost cause, I looked up at my other rod and tried to find my bobber. But there was no bobber! It was gone, and all the slack in my line was quickly leaving! I ran over and set the hook into what felt like a really solid fish - especially on such a tiny bait!  The fish made a couple little runs and some powerful head-shakes, then started coming my way. My bobber finally surfaced about 30 feet from me so I knew the fish was close to the surface. I was excited to see what I had tied in to! However, I was not expecting what happened next.  I thought it was maybe a big catfish or something, but instead, a big long beak full of teeth came out of the water followed by the body of a 4 foot jumping longnose gar! This was my dream fish for Arkansas! If I could have chosen one species to catch, this would be it!
     Unfortunately though, that's where the story ends because as he jumped, my hook came flying out of his mouth. I was left on the shore crying and needing to change my shorts.  Now that I think about it though, I was lucky to even have hooked him at all on such a tiny hook (definitely not typical gar tackle), let alone to have been able to fight him and see him jump right in front of me! 
     I realize that some of you may not know what a longnose gar is, so to give you an idea, here is a picture of the business end of one of these prehistoric fish:

Now do you see why I needed to change my shorts? Photo credit www.fishing-headquarters.com

 
     One of these days maybe I'll learn to catch what I'm fishing for, and fish for what I catch; maybe not though, sometimes the surprises make it more fun!