Dan Smith Documents “How to Catch Any Fish”

All photos courtesy of Dan Smith

As Hanna and I embarked on this travel blogging effort in early 2020, I figured that the virtual landscape would be littered with similar efforts from other adventurous anglers. I was surprised to find out that there were relatively few of them outside of the fly fishing space, and many of the ones that I could find had been discontinued after only token contributions. 

The one exception that stood out was Dan Smith’s “How to Catch Any Fish.” Not only had be been consistently adding lengthy trip reports to the site for well over a decade, but his encyclopedia of angling experiences truly blew me away. If there was someplace that we’d been or that we were thinking about going, he’d done it before. He’d also likely done it multiple times and with great success. I read his entries with both excitement and envy, as it seemed that there’d be no way we’d ever catch up to all that he’s done. While the usual suspects like Alaska and Brazil were well-documented, he also introduced me to new potential destinations like New Caledonia and Aitutaki. Moreover, he was completely independent from any tackle companies or lodges, and was objective about what made a particular trip good or bad. 

With all of that established, it provided our site with a bit of validation when Dan recently reached out to tell us that he’d enjoyed our effort. “The more I read, the more I found we have in common,” he wrote. We’re about the same age, have many of the same goals, don’t come from fishing families, and we even both started reading Field & Stream as 9 year-olds.  

This presented the perfect opportunity to pick Dan’s brain a little bit. Selfishly, I wanted to find out where we need to go and get some scoop on underrated and overrated fish and trips. More globally, though, it’s a huge opportunity to broaden our globetrotting fishing network with someone who’s in it for all of the right reasons.

Here’s Dan in his own words: 

HPFC: No one in my immediate family fished, and I understand you came out of the same situation. What do you think it was that drew you so strongly to the sport early on?

SMITH: I have really no idea. We lived in Hawaii when I was a small child and my dad saw an advertisement for a kids’ tilapia fishing tournament and decided to try that. He took me and we did not hook any fish or, as far as I can tell, come close to hooking any fish, but I did see the people next to us catch some fish and I got pretty fired up about that. I really wanted to see what that would be like, but my dad really had no idea how to fish, so it was actually a while before I was able to catch anything. It was pretty much me researching it on my own in elementary school. We later moved to Blaine, Washington. They had a little dock there, it’s on the ocean, and was able to catch a few small bullheads and things like that. That was kind of how I got started.

HPFC: Fast-forwarding a little, you write on your site about fishing off the dock and then through college, but now you’re a world traveler. What was the gateway experience or first exotic trip that lit that fire under you?

SMITH: I actually grew up overseas, so by high school any fishing I did was kind of an exotic trip. I went to high school in Venezuela and also lived in Costa Rica. In Costa Rica my dad took me for my 12th birthday on a shared deep sea charter. We caught a bunch of mahi mahi and some other things. That was the first time I really went fishing in a boat. We moved to Venezuela when I was in 7th grade. I lived in Caracas, which is the capital, and it’s such a polluted area that unfortunately there’s no bodies of water with anything alive in it for probably at least an hour’s range of the city. Once you got out of there, there were some lakes that had peacock bass and piranhas, things like that. I did a little bit of that. It was a little hard to do with a family that wasn’t into it. I came to the U.S. for college and did a ton of fishing then because I had a car there were a lot of places you could go and fish pretty close to my school and so I probably fished at least three times a week for most of college, just trout and bass and that kind of thing. Then I started doing some of the party boats down in Southern California, which are a relatively inexpensive way, probably the most accessible way, to go deep sea fishing. I did a lot of that after college when I had a job and had a little more money.

As far as wanting to travel other places, I think that came from growing up reading about fishing in other places. I still have quite a few species on the list that I haven’t gotten to, but I’ve been able to knock off quite a few as well.

HPFC: I remember getting Field & Stream as a kid and looking at the ads for lodges in the back of the magazine and thinking that was the most unattainable thing in life. What would 9 year-old Dan think of 2021 Dan and all that you’ve done and all that you’ve accomplished? Did you ever conceive of that as being possible?

SMITH: No, not at all. I did the same thing. I remember looking at those ads and it never occurred to me that could ever happen. I used to go through Cabela’s catalogs and make long lists of tackle I would buy when I someday had a job. I think 9 year-old me wouldn’t be able to conceive of what 44 year-old me has had the opportunity to do fishing-wise.

HPFC: We’ve run into so many people who would love traveling if they experienced it, but won’t take that leap. Either they’re afraid of going overseas, or they’re budget-conscious. What’s a gateway trip that you’d recommend to someone who loves to fish but wants to take their first more “exotic” trip?

SMITH: I think all-around Mexico is a really good option for that. That was one of my early trips. Especially on the Sea of Cortez side, you can fish from a pretty small boat with a high degree of safety because the Sea of Cortez is protected and doesn’t have the big swells of the Pacific. You can get a marlin from a small panga. That’s how I got my first marlin for relatively cheap, especially compared to what that type of trip would cost most other places. Baja Mexico in general, outside of maybe Tijuana, is quite safe. I’ve taken over 20 trips there and never felt the least bit unsafe except for the one time I got lost in Tijuana at night.

Costa Rica is a good option as well. It’s very friendly to tourism. You really don’t need to speak Spanish to get around. Lots of options as far as getting out fishing. Obviously Canada for some people—they can drive there, English-speaking, that’s pretty easy, too.

HPFC: What about people who want to remain within the United States, whether that means the Lower 48 or all 50 states?

SMITH: There’s a lot of great fishing in the United States. Alaska is fantastic, I just got back from there a couple of weeks ago. Summertime in Alaska means as many fish as you can reel in. Louisiana has some really good inshore fishing that’s not super-heavily pressured. You can rack up some really big days on redfish and trout and maybe only see one other boat all day, all on artificials. That’s great fishing anywhere you go in the world. The California party boat fishing scene can be really good. I kind of grew up on that and always enjoyed that. It was pretty rare that I’d go and not catch something. You can always catch something even on slow days. It’s a really good introduction to fishing in the ocean that’s relatively inexpensive. They do a lot of chumming to get the fish up by the boat so you have a really good shot. Those would be some of my picks for U.S. fishing.

HPFC: When I’m going to a new place it’s always hard to temper my expectations. Magazine and web articles may build up a picture of a fishery that’s hard to match. Are there places that have exceeded your expectations?

SMITH: I was very impressed with Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, I guess partially because there wasn’t much to read about. It was an anniversary trip with my wife and also a fishing trip so I went fishing from about 6am to noon and then I’d spend the rest of the day with her. Even in that time I was able to get a nice variety of fish—some nice GTs on poppers, the big Napoleon Wrasse, which is a tough thing to get no matter where you are.

HPFC: If you had to narrow it down to one style of fishing or one group of fish, could you do it? Or do you need that variety to stay satisfied?

SMITH: I’m a big fan of variety, for sure. If I could only do one style of fishing it would be casting artificials to inshore saltwater fish. Second would be the peacock bass. I really love peacock bass and I’ve caught them in most of the countries where you can catch them. If I could only do two trips the rest of my life, casting to GTs and different reef fish on the Great Barrier Reef and peacock bass fishing in the Amazon region would be it. I could do those two trips over and over again and I’d never get bored.

HPFC: How do you accumulate all of the gear that you need for all of these different trips and different species?

SMITH: I do a lot of research online. For the GT stuff, you really need good, specialized gear that will hold up—not only hold up to the fish but also not be too tiring to use all day. That style of fishing is pretty taxing on your body. You want the lightest, strongest stuff that you can use that you can easily throw all day. I’ve tried a lot of different types of tackle on these trips. I generally try to go with three-piece rods because I don’t like taking a rod tube. On a lot of these trips you’ve got a couple of connections and if your big rod tube doesn’t show up that can really put a dent in your trip. In some of these locations they don’t have tackle for that type of thing so it’s really important that your luggage get there. That’s why I like travel rods. For the GTs and those heavy-duty species like that—cuberas, roosterfish, that type of thing—I have the Zenaq Expedition Series. I have multiple models of some of those, including the GT Rod. I have two of those that I bring, just in case one breaks. I haven’t had one break but you never know. On one GT trip I had a rod snap because I didn’t insert one of the connections far enough. You just never know. I had one Amazon trip where I had three rods break and I’d only brought four. The three broke in the first two days and I had four more days of fishing. I was really counting on that last rod to hold up, which thankfully it did.

HPFC: One other thing that impresses me about you and your site is that you’re still going on crappie trips and catfish trips. I would think that after all of your amazing experiences it would be easy to get jaded about more run-of-the-mill fishing. Do you still get excited about those more typical species, or are they just time-fillers?

SMITH: I love it all. I caught a pound and a half bluegill the other day and I was really happy about that. If I catch a 2-pound crappie I’m stoked. I may be a little jaded in that the 6-inch crappie that would have excited me when I was 10 doesn’t really get me going. I like to fish. I like to catch fish. I catch it all. I don’t discriminate.

HPFC: I read that you just came back from Alaska. What’s the next trip on your list this fall or winter?

SMITH: There are some family trips I’m trying to do. I’m trying to line up a safari in Africa for the whole family next summer, so that will probably not involve any fish. In the near term, nothing too exotic, I’m afraid. I think the next trip I have is two days on Lake Texoma for striped bass. That’s probably the best numbers lake for striped bass on artificials in Texas.

HPFC: What are the short- and long-term bucket list places and species that you haven’t been to or caught?

SMITH: I’ve been communicating with an operation in Oman and hoping to get out there late next year or early in the following year. Hopefully COVID doesn’t throw another wrench in that. I should also mention that I have a trip next summer with my daughter to Canada for lake trout which has been postponed two times due to COVID. It was originally supposed to be summer of 2020. Then it was supposed to be summer of 2021, but Canada wasn’t open, so now it’s summer of 2022. As an aside, the first Amazon trip I went on I booked in 2003 and didn’t actually go until 2008 because water levels kept being off and when water levels were good I couldn’t go. Sometimes it takes a while for these things to actually come together.

I could go on and on with the bucket list. I’m also talking with someone in Tanzania and I’d love to do a joint freshwater/saltwater tigerfish and dogtooth tuna trip there. That’s something I’m trying to line up eventually, but it probably won’t happen tomorrow. Again, for these things to work out, you usually have to get a pretty big jump on the planning. Madagascar is another place I want to go for popping and jigging for a range of reef species. Papua, New Guinea, that’s another one that’s high on my bucket list—mostly for the reef stuff, but also potentially for the New Guinea Bass they have there. I’ve always wanted to go to the far, far north for the big char and that kind of thing—not so much for a specific species, but just to kind of see that environment. Those are the immediate ones I’m hoping to get to while I’m still relatively young and don’t have any health issues and can still throw big poppers for eight hours a day. When and if I’m not able to do that kind of trip I’ll go back to the closer-to-home, less physically-taxing kind of stuff.

HPFC: Beyond the places you want to go and the species you want to catch, do you have any other fishing-related goals or goals related to your website?

SMITH: I want to just keep adding to the different species profiles on there. I don’t typically put a species on there until I’ve done a fair amount of research and caught a good number of them. The one exception is the Napoleon Wrasse—I’ve only caught one but I still put a page up because I have put a lot of research into that. I’ve actually hooked quite a few but I’ve only landed the one, although the one I landed was actually the biggest. That was like the 12th or 13th one I hooked.

HPFC: What else do people need to know about you?

SMITH: I like sharing information. I like collaborating with other people. Hopefully they get something out of my experiences and hopefully they avoid my mistakes by reading something that I put up there and vice versa. There are some folks out there on the internet that are always posting pictures of fish but they don’t give you any information or anything that will help you do something similar. I’ve tried as much as I can with my website to give people things they can use to catch more fish where they’re at or think about going someplace that I’ve been and avoid mistakes I’ve made. I want to help people get up to speed more quickly. That’s kind of the point of the site. It was never intended as a commercial site. There was a small local Southern California website when I was around when I was in college. I used to go on there a lot and that kind of got me thinking back then in the 90s that I’d someday love to have something like that, something bigger that people in a lot of places could look at and use as a reference.

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Now that we’ve touched base with Dan and realized how much we have in common, the next step will be finding an opportunity to fish together. The hard part will be finding a destination that he has yet to visit.