Sixth sense.

Following on from my last post, I've had another session down at the incredibly glamorous sounding Marine Esplanade. I can assure you it is anything but. Flanked by a very large sewerage treatment plant, derelict waste ground and Leith docks, it's far from picturesque. There's also an abandoned Audi there at the moment, probably stolen, but the bright yellow police sticker on the driver window means they're already aware of its presence. I think it was -1°C on Wednesday night, it felt even colder thanks to a brisk wind. I was hoping to catch viviparous blenny, long spined sea scorpion or coalfish to add to my 2023 species hunt tally, but I only caught one fish during the short, two hour session. Another five bearded rockling.

Small one inch sections of frozen black lug soaked in squid oil were presented on a #10 Owner pin hook. A perfect little smelly package for a scavenging mini species' mouth.

Five beards on display and also its first dorsal fin. All six appendages are used to detect potential meals!

Having visited Marine Esplanade a few times now, I think a trip down the A1 to Dunbar Harbour is on the cards. I've got some new 1.5g micro metals that I want to try out, and the resident coalfish are the perfect target. Furthermore, I have a dedicated setup for targeting horse mackerel that I bought before the pandemic started, that I really need to put to more use.

Major Craft Nano Aji Metals. How cute!?

Dunbar Harbour is also a venue that can produce the odd viviparous blenny, if you can get through all the coalfish that is! I'll probably mix things up when I head there and fish with the micro metals and also do some more ultra light bait fishing too.

Tight lines, Scott.

The hunt begins! Again!

The temperature isn't the only thing that's hit zero recently. My annual species hunt tally has also been reset. Last year I caught almost one hundred species. Looking back over my records to before the Covid pandemic started, that's about average for me as a species hunter. This year I've decided to set, what I think at least, are some ambitious targets. I'll be fishing in three countries in Asia this year, visiting South Korea and Japan for three weeks in March and then Singapore for a week in June. I'll also be having a holiday on Crete at the end of September too. So the potential is certainly there to rack up a lot of different species in 2023. As a result, I'm going to try to catch two hundred by the end of this year, including one hundred new ones!

To get started, I've been braving some strong, icy cold winds locally over the last week. Marine Esplanade near the Seafield waste water treatment works was the venue I picked. It's only a five minute drive from my flat, so it's perfect to fish for a couple of hours in the evenings after work.  Five bearded rockling were my first target species of the year, and fishing scaled down two hook flapper rigs at close range on ultra light tackle was my chosen approach. Over three short sessions, things were pretty slow, but I managed to catch a few juvenile cod on small sections of black lug and also a couple of five bearded rockling from the rocky ground at the bottom of the sea defences.

No chips required.

Disliked by winter cod anglers, who see them as a nuisance, I think rockling are cool fish in their own right. Adept scavengers, not only do they have a face full of sensitive barbules to detect food, they can even taste using their adapted first dorsal fin!

So, the ball is rolling and 2023 should be an exciting and hopefully a very productive year of species hunting. I'm obviously very excited about visiting several new places in Asia and think the fishing there will be great. When I return to Crete in September, I'll be trying to catch lots of species there too, including new ones like lionfish and silver cheeked toadfish. In the UK I may make short trips to England and Wales to target new species as well, and finally I'm also going to carry on trying to catch new Scottish species during the rest of the year to edge me closer to my goal of catch one hundred of them. A three bearded rockling is at the top of my target list for that challenge, and I've got a trip to the west coast of Scotland planned to target them at the end of February. In the meantime, I'll continue fishing locally to add more species to my 2023 tally. Only one hundred and ninety eight to go!

Tight lines, Scott.

Even more species hunting adventures on Lanzarote: Part 2.

As the second half of our holiday began we were all feeling a little bit rough, so we got up later in the morning and headed to Costa Teguise, where we would spend most of the day fishing comfortably from its pier. Fishing squid strips and chunks of raw prawn close to the bottom on our ultralight tackle produced a few fish.

Ryan had a look at the area on the outside of the breakwater, but as it was relatively shallow and rocky, we opted to fish on the inside instead where it was deeper and cleaner on the bottom.

As well as puffer and ornate wrasse, a few nice white seabream were caught.

We also caught a few hairy blenny.

I caught this black scorpionfish. Scorpionfish are one of my favourite groups of fish. Punks of the ocean.

After a few hours, we had a break, grabbing a bite to eat and a couple of loaves of bread from the supermarket, so we could see if there were any mullet around. A few slices were ripped into small chunks and thrown in, and freelining bread flake soon produced some interest from salema. I hooked a few, but they all successfully shook the hook before I finally got a better hook set and landed one. I also lost a nice saddled seabream that thrashed on the surface and got free. We did have a net with us, but it was in the boot of the car. I'll never learn!

Salema love freelined bread. I find they’re also pretty hard to hook well.

As the sun went down some thick lipped mullet did turn up, but they were very skittish, only swiping at the free offerings before swimming back down away from the surface again. None of us managed to get any of them to take our hooked pieces. After dark, I also caught what I thought at first might be a small red scorpionfish which would have been a new species for me. A bit of research back at the apartment confirmed that it wasn't however, it had simply been a very red Madeira rockfish.

Scorpionfish identification can be tricky. This is the reddest Madeira rockfish I've ever seen.

The next day we decided to return to the pier in Costa Teguise. It was comfortable fishing and out of the wind, which had picked up again. After visiting the town’s aquarium for an hour or so, we popped to the supermarket and armed ourselves with half a dozen loaves of bread. Using a collapsible groundbaiting bucket and a ladle I’d packed in my suitcase for the purpose, I made up a large supply of mashed up soggy bread to try and attract some mullet again. None showed up unfortunately, but my efforts weren’t totally wasted as I did catch a few salema and also landed a saddled seabream.

Saddled seabream are also partial to a bit of bread flake.

After the bread ran out we switched to fishing strips of squid and small chunks of prawn again. Nick fished further out and further up in the water and caught a few bogue that we kept to use as bait later in the evening. I focused my efforts on fishing straight down the side of the harbour walls. This saw me catching a few more hairy blenny, ornate wrasse, a black scorpionfish and some Madeira rockfish. The scorpionfish gave me a chance to check out sone of their less than obvious distinguishing features.

We caught our first painted comber of the trip. Their blue markings were all oddly a little washed out.

I also caught a few black scorpionfish and played with the appendages above this ones eyes for the camera. They're a key distinguishing feature.

A Madeira rockfish. Note the branched first few upper rays on the pectoral fin and the barbule on the lower jaw. Small red scorpionfish do not have these two features.

In the evening, after dinner in the apartment and watching some of a World Cup game, we headed north to Playa de la Garita for another stingray session over high water. Armed with the fresh bogue Nick had caught earlier in the day we were fairly optimistic, but after three hours and several bait changes, none of our rods had registered any interest, so we called it a night and headed back to Puerto del Carmen.

The next day we decided to head north to check out a couple of new spots. On the way, we drove up through the island's expansive lava fields and stopped to have a walk around the remnants of the volcano where the eruptions that formed them started, Caldera de Los Cuervos.

It took an hour or so to walk out to the crater and explore inside it.

It's a pretty alien landscape. This is a photo of the crater's rim taken from the inside. At one point, it would have been full of molten lava!

Jumping back in the car and continuing north, the first place we fished was a large man made basin to the south west of La Isleta. We weren't sure if fishing was permitted but didn't see any signs, so we gave it a go for an hour or so. Casting out into deeper water, all we caught was a solitary Couch's seabream. We did see some surface activity though, and as we still had some bread in the boot of the car we threw in a few small pieces to see if we could attract some fish closer to us. Large shoals of small thick lipped mullet soon appeared, and tiny flakes of bread on tiny hooks eventually saw us catch a few. Ryan had never caught a mullet before, so the ones he caught were his first. We also caught some small seabream and I caught a small bass. Our thirty sixth species of the trip. Yes, I was still keeping track, despite personally not catching anything I hadn't caught before.

One of the bigger ones I caught. Most of them were much smaller. Still frustratingly good fun trying to catch though!

A little spiky silver nugget.

Next we headed to Caleta de Famara to try fishing from its small harbour. This was also another spot that we'd never visited before. After catching a few painted comber we spotted a few groups of bigger mullet cruising around, coming into and leaving the harbour. We were out of bread so Ryan walked into town and got us some more. These mullet proved a little easier to catch, and we'd soon caught over a dozen. Great fun on our ultralight tackle. We even needed the net for some of the bigger ones.

Most of them were rather plump thick lipped mullet.

There were also a few golden grey mullet in amongst them too.

As the sun set the sky gave an indication that the weather was going to improve. Pity we were leaving the following day!

That evening, after dark, we headed to the pier in Punta Mujeres to fish for stingrays again. The sea was still pretty rough though, with water coming up over the end of the pier occasionally. We'd got some blue jack mackerel from a large supermarket on the way but decided to fish only one beachcaster for the stingrays while we messed around with small fish baits on our ultralight rods. Things were very slow but I did get smashed up again by something big. Same issue with my rig going at the loop knot when I tried to bully whatever it was away from some rocks. I think I'm going to be trying to find an alternative knot or make some kind of modification to make it stronger. Anyway no sign of any stingrays again and I only caught one cardinalfish all night. Ryan did get a nice bastard grunt though, adding another species to our tally. I told the lads I felt we could hit forty if we got lucky on the final day.

The biggest bastard grunt I've seen caught.

The final day had arrived, but as our flight didn't leave until the evening, we squeezed in one final session. After visiting a couple of marks fairly near the airport that were unfishable due to the swell, we decided to head back to Caleta de Famara harbour, reasoning that we could park the car nearby, and also we'd fished it over low water the day before, and I thought it might produce fish over high water. It fished very well and even produced a few species we hadn't caught yet!

We caught lots of ornate wrasse in Caleta de Famara harbour. Nick really loves ornate wrasse.

I caught a solitary zebra seabream. These seem to be quite rare, so I was over the moon to catch one.

We all caught some nice striped seabream fishing over the sand well inside the harbour.

We also caught our last few canary damsel. One of Ryan's favourite fish of the trip due to their bright purple markings.

Nick took a break from catching endless ornate wrasse and caught a common two banded seabream. This seemed to cheer him up slightly.

I then caught a couple of juvenile bluefish, taking our "let's forget targets and just have fun" species hunting tally to a nice round forty for the trip.

It was a nice session to end on but before long it was time to pack up our gear and head off to the airport. Forty species between us over the duration of the week, despite some difficult conditions, a night on the town and the subsequent hangovers, wasn't too bad.

No new species at all for me, and this was the only disappointing aspect of the trip for me personally. That and the lack of action whilst we were targeting stingrays after dark, but that was more down to the conditions I think. Here's a summary of what I caught...

1. Annular Seabream
2. Atlantic Lizardfish
3. Axillary Seabream
4. Bass
5. Black Goby
6. Black Scorpionfish
7. Black Seabream
8. Bluefish
9. Blue Jack Mackerel
10. Bogue
11. Canary Damsel
12. Cardinalfish
13. Common Comber
14. Common Two Banded Seabream
15. Couch's Seabream
16. Diamond Lizardfish
17. Emerald Wrasse
18. Golden Grey Mullet
19. Guinean Puffer
20. Hairy Blenny
21. Macronesian Sharpnose Puffer
22. Madeira Goby
23. Madeira Rockfish
24. Ornate Wrasse
25. Painted Comber
26. Pandora Seabream
27. Planehead Filefish
28. Ringneck Blenny
29. Rockpool Blenny
30. Saddled Seabream
31. Salema
32. Striped Seabream
33. Thick Lipped Mullet
34. White Seabream
35. Zebra Seabream

Species caught by the lads that I didn't catch myself...

36. Azores Damsel
37. Bastard Grunt
38. Blacktail Comber
39. Greater Weever
40. Wide Eyed Flounder

I've been to Lanzarote three times now and if I'm honest I'm not sure I'll return in the near future. If I do, I'll be focusing on catching new species. I'd also like to revisit Tenerife and catch the ferry over to La Gomera while there to do some game fishing. It's safe to say I've got my passion for travel back though. I'm off to Asia again soon, in March I'll be going for three weeks, visiting Seoul, Busan and Jeju Island in South Korea and also the Japanese island of Okinawa with Lillian. Of course, some fishing tackle will be going in my case.

Tight lines, Scott.