Even more species hunting adventures on Crete: Part 2.

As the second half of our holiday progressed, we continued to make the most of the hire car. On another day trip, we drove up through the mountains in the island's interior and back down from them again to the south coast's picturesque town of Agia Galini. I did a fair bit of fishing in the harbour there and added a few more species to my tally. I also had a lot of fun freelining bread for some pretty large salema that were coming up tight into the side before smashing my bait. I didn't manage to land any of them however, after stripping line off my reel as they bolted back down the harbour wall they all somehow managed to throw the hook sadly.

Perched on a bollard with my net at the ready, just in case a hook actually stayed in a salema's bony mouth.

Switching to raw prawn fished close to the bottom produced some small Couch's seabream...

...a few East Atlantic peacock wrasse....

...and this nice little goldblotch grouper.

A day or two later I fished a deep water rock mark near Boufos Cave, but the fishing was surprisingly poor. In fact other than some ornate wrasse and yellow spotted puffers closer in, I caught nothing else. Despite this, I think I'd try there again at dawn or dusk if I return to the area in the future. The spot just looked so fishy!

Fishing in the shade of the cliffs at my back, I enjoyed the view towards the uninhabited island of Dia, off in the distance.

On the recommendation of my mate Nick who had also been on Crete earlier in the year, we spent a morning exploring Sisi, a lovely village with a small harbour that cuts inland and is surrounded by cliffs. An onshore wind made fishing in the open sea with my ultralight tackle difficult, so after a stroll around the village, I had a short session fishing on the inside of the harbour's rocky breakwater.

Fishing was tough, but I eventually caught some ornate wrasse and some yellow spotted puffer. The number of puffers had definitely increased since my last holiday on Crete. They're a total pain as they bite your line and damage it.

Whilst I was fishing away, Lillian spotted a moray eel swimming close in amongst the rocks right at my feet and christened it Bill. I think Bill was drawn out by the smell of the scraps of raw prawn that I had been dropping there. I quickly tied on a heavier leader and a chinu hook. Dropping a chunk of prawn down, Bill took it straight away, and before I could fully load my rod and apply pressure, he had quickly swam backwards into a hole. I couldn't get him out again, and trying to bully him saw me eventually being broken off. Bill would have been my first new species of the trip, so I was gutted.

Here are some of Bill's relatives in CRETAquarium.

On the penultimate day of our stay, we headed east to Agios Nikolaos to spend a day there. In the morning we went out on the glass bottomed boat. While you're down below, the crew are up on deck, throwing in a steady supply of fish scraps to attract various species of fish to the boat. As well as spotting some of the more common ones, we also saw a couple of silver cheeked toadfish, and they weren't half greedy buggers. They've got a serious set of teeth and were devouring entire carcasses in seconds.

A silver cheeked toadfish chomping away.

On the way back to port, we went up onto the deck as the boat followed the coastline back. As well as enjoying some of the views, we were also lucky to see shoals of flying fish swimming/flying/gliding up out of the water, into and through the air as they got out of the way of the boat.

Flying fish. How cool. I'd love to catch one!

Back on dry land, we took a walk around Lake Voulismeni, stopping for lunch before I got the green light to grab my tackle from the car to do a bit of fishing.

"The Lake".

After a quick trip to a supermarket and fishmongers to grab some bait, I was soon catching lots of thick lipped mullet on freelined bread and some Bucchich's goby on small chunks of raw prawn on a split shot rig. As well as those two species, I also added another three additional species to my trip tally.

This small blue runner grabbed a chunk of prawn and powered off, almost making it under some boats and their mooring ropes. Great fun on my HTO Rock Rover.

As was this small, aggressive bluefish.

A small shoal of these Yellowtail barracuda, a migrant from the Red Sea, swam past the spot I was fishing and this one also took a chunk of raw prawn.

On the way back to Koutouloufari we took a detour and went to Plaka, grabbing some more bread and some tins of sardine from a supermarket on the way. After making up some ground bait, I started tossing in a small amount regularly.  This soon had some bream up in the water feeding on it, including some reasonably sized salema. Again, I managed to hook a few of them, but every single one managed to throw the hook after a brief tussle. I then switched over to a Gulp! Angleworm on a drop shot rig and cast out fishing close to the bottom.

From the rocks at the end of Plaka's small harbour, I caught...

...lots of painted combers...

... a few common two banded seabream...

...some Mediterranean rainbow wrasse...

...and a reticulated filefish.

I'd forgotten how good Plaka was for catching a wide variety of species. A fact that was demonstrated when we finally spotted our first lionfish in the open sea. It came up out of the submerged boulders in front of where I was fishing, probably drawn out by the groundbait. It lazily floated around for a while and then swam slowly around the area before vanishing again. I tried a few things to try and catch it, but it wasn't remotely interested in anything I put in front of it. Before we left, we also witnessed another angler catching a silver cheeked toadfish. If we return to Crete, I think we'll stay in Elounda again, so I can spend a bit of time fishing around Plaka again.

So, the end of the trip had arrived, and we'd had a great time. I didn't do any fishing on the last day, but I'd managed to catch thirty-six species over the two weeks, which I think is a fairly respectable effort. The only disappointment being I'd failed to catch any new species.

Here's a summary of the species I caught.

1. Annular Seabream
2. Atlantic Lizardfish
3. Axillary Seabream
4. Black Scorpionfish
5. Bluefish
6. Blue Runner
7. Bucchich’s Goby
8. Cardinalfish
9. Common Comber
10. Common Two Banded Seabream 
11. Couch’s Seabream
12. Damselfish
13. Derbio
14. East Atlantic Peacock Wrasse 
15. Giant Goby
16. Goldblotch Grouper
17. Golden Grey Mullet
18. Goldfish
19. Grey Wrasse
20. Madeira Rockfish
21. Marbled Rabbitfish
22. Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse 
23. Ornate Wrasse
24. Painted Comber
25. Pearly Razorfish
26. Reticulated Filefish
27. Rock Goby
28. Rusty Blenny
29. Salema
30. Slender Goby
31. Striped Seabream
32. Thick Lipped Mullet
33. White Seabream
34. Wide Eyed Flounder
35. Yellow Spotted Puffer
36. Yellowtail Barracuda

Lillian and I both love visiting Crete, and I dare say this won't be my last set of catch reports from there. I might however set out to deliberately focus my efforts on targetting new species if we do return, or perhaps do a spot of boat fishing. Lionfish, silvercheeked toadfish and Bill better look out!

Tight lines, Scott.