Världens bästa fiskeblogg?
För ungefär ett år sen nådde han målet, med en liten gråsej från Norge som art nr 1000. Så här beskriver han det på sin blogg:
When we last left our heroes, Steve was battling something that could turn out to be his 1000th species, before an unfortunate group of Jehovah’s Witnesses interrupted blogging for the night. Suffice to say they won’t be coming back for a while – Steve showed them fish pictures for 6 hours and fifteen minutes before they cracked and ran. They were spotted drinking and cursing in a local bar later the same evening. We return you now to your regularly scheduled fish …
Ahem. Where were we? Right …
The fish was now about 8 feet deep, and with silvery sides refracting through the water, it was likely a coalfish or pollock. I remember I said a quick prayer for a coalie, made a last couple of pumps, and I swung it up over the rail onto the deck. He was definitely not a pollock. No underslung jaw, no green color – this fish was dark, with a light, straight lateral line – this was a coalfish sitting on the deck, Pollachius virens, and it was the 1000th different species of fish I had caught in my lifetime. I stared at it dumbly.
It wasn’t epic, it wasn’t a long fight – it wasn’t even a particularly big coalfish. We imagine the big moments in our lives, and they never seem to go exactly how we envision them. I think I had sort of imagined it as being some massive fish in some tropical location, but here I was, an hour or so below the arctic circle, on July 21, 2010, at about 10 in the morning, and this accomplishment that had once seemed so far over the horizon had happened.
What was I supposed to do? Jumping naked into the fjord seemed like an idea, but with the threat of YouTube and bitter memories of Brazil, I decided better of it. I looked up at Kevin. He asked me – “Is that it?” I said “I think so.” I fumbled to get out my camera and we took a few shots. I released the fish, and he kicked off, happy to be alive and completely bewildered – just like me. I sat there with my mouth ajar but no words coming out – highly unusual for me - then leaned back and just looked around at the misty fjord. What a long journey it had been – over a million air miles, thousands of hours on the water, thousands more planning, researching, and figuring out whether I had caught a wedge-toed sculpin or a three-eared goby. All those nights up until 3am dropping small cut baits and sabikis under the boat while the crew was sleeping, all that sorting through a hundred sardines to catch the one horse mackerel. The bewildered looks from guides when I asked about a variegated emperor. The endless reading to figure out exactly where the rubberlip surfperch lives, which, by the way, remains a mystery.
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Hans nya mål är nu att fånga 2000 arter, vilket han redan tycks ha kommit en bra bit närmre. Andra mål är t.ex. att slå hundra världsrekord, en rejäl utökning från hans nuvarande 15. 'Världsrekordet i världsrekord' är dock på över 300, så han har en bit kvar. Tyvärr har han inte bloggat sen mars i år, så man får hoppas att det inte hänt något med honom eller någon närstående.
Här en TV-intervju med honom:
Del 1
Del 2
