Wait! Don't Throw Back That Little Fish....

Big news for all the minnow catchers of the world.

In a recent article I read near the end of January, scientists think they have discovered what is the world's smallest fish. The Paedocypris progenetica-a member of the carp family-has been found in a peat swamp in Indonesia.

The little fellar or "lady" as it turns out, is a whopping 7.9 millemeters long and has a complete vertebrae in it's tiny little "micro-carp" body.

This has the boys down at the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research doing handsprings and high fiving each other in what must resemble a Super Bowl like celebration.

If I had known this was going to be such big news, I would have long ago invited the research team on one of my fishing adventures, because surely they would have gone ape every time I hauled in a one inch fingerling on my three inch fly.

Now that is something to get excited about.

The article goes on to state that the new species was found in a highly acidic peat swamp on the island of Sumatra in water that most fishermen will refer to as "frog water". Dark tea colored water that is 100 times more acidic than rainwater. More important than that it states that the male "carplet" evidently has an enlarged pelvic fin and exceptionally large muscles that it uses to grasp the female during fishy copulation.

Outside of the facts that I am extremly uncomfortable knowing that the Bio boys are engaging in fish voyeurism and that the male "mini-carp" is forcing himself on the smaller female of the specie, it is exciting that in this day and age we can still find any new specie of any sort.

Of course the usual doom and gloom comes with the finding, as peat swamps are under threat in Indonesia due to fires lit by plantation owners and unchecked development and farming.

I for one, hope to make it to Sumatra soon- because this may be my only chance to make it into any record book of any kind. I am confident that with my past history of catching small fish, I will soon be the world record holder for smallest fish caught with a fly. Even as we speak I am contacting the folks at Gamakatsu hook manufacturers, trying to get them to make up a bunch of #173 size hooks, so that I can tie the world's smallest fly.

Provided the Paedocypris procrastinaticus will take a fly.

I also am contacting G. Loomis to see if I can get a .005 weight custom "A.J. Klott special" rod manufactured for what surely will become the next craze in the fishing world. You can almost see ESPN hosting the world's first Microfishing Championships of the World where heavily sponsored small fish enthusiasts compete for the BIG Bucks!!

The markrting team down at Intel better take note of this, because they will want to surely get first crack at sponsoring a "micro event " like this.

The weigh in should be an extremely tense moment, when contestants pull their Indo-Pacific Gobys, Paedocypris giganticas, and Schindleria brevipinguis, out from their live wells and leap high into the air as the winning kilograms are announced. Sprinting about fanatically with tweezers aloft, showing the world their impish trophy, and tearfully thanking the folks at Trilby Tropicals for supplying the brine shrimp bait that brought in the "smallie".

Don't laugh-it can happen!

Anyway, next time you are out fishing and feel that frustrating feeling of having another guppy stealing your bait, you might want to just double check that fish that appears to be half the size of your hook. You may have just earned your way into the annals of fishing history or better yet, earned yourself a place at the Royal Society of Londons next big fish fry......