Keen to catch at least one new species during the holiday, I’d been discussing opportunities with local angler Jesús on Instagram prior to the trip and had arranged to meet up with him to try and locate and then hopefully catch a sailfin blenny. Arriving in Punta de Gáldar in the morning, we met up with Jesús and the three of us made our way along a cliff top path before carefully making our way down a narrow winding path to some rockpools at the bottom of them. While I started fishing away, catching rockpool blenny, Molly Miller and a bright red Madeira rockfish, Jesús focused on looking for the target species. Being almost certainly the first person in the world to catch one on hook and line, I was happy to let him do so. A very small species, growing to a maximum length of only 5.5cm, and just a recent arrival to Gran Canaria, Jesús knew where to look and called me over when he spotted some in a very small rockpool.
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| I tried to spot a sailfin blenny around the edges of large rockpools, but there were lots of other species around, and I didn’t spot any. |
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This bright red Madeira rockfish wasn't exactly well camoflagued, so I quickly caught it.
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Clambering over some rocks to where Jesús was croutching, I slowly got into position beside him, and he pointed out a male sailfin blenny sitting on the bottom of a small rockpool. It was tiny! Possibly not even 3cm long! Dropping a tanago hook baiting with a miniscule piece of prawn in front of the fish, it didn't show that much interest, but eventually had a couple of half-hearted nibbles. After maybe twenty minutes of hunching over, twitching my tiny bait trying to entice it, and then trying to hook it when it did have a go, I was unsuccessful. At that point, I decided to try a different bait. Using my scissors, I removed a barnacle from the rocks and pulled my hook through its insides. Being very soft, it didn't stay on the hook very well, but it proved to be a good desicion as the tiny fish immediately started attacking it eagerly. Hooking the tiny fish still proved very difficult despite the increased intertest, but eventually I managed to do it somehow and quickly lifted it out, closing my fist around it before carefully unhooking it away from any rockpools and popping it into my acrylic viewing tank.
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| This tiny fish is a male sailfin blenny, named due to its tall dorsal fin. My first new species of the trip and possibly only the second ever to be caught on hook and line! |
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Here he is on my finger. So cute! Probably the smallest blenny I've ever caught!
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Whilst I was taking photos of the male I'd caught, Jesús had spotted a female and caught it by hand so that I could get a photo of one too! Note the much smaller first dorsal fin and paler, less colourful colouration.
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By this point, the tide was beginning to flood over the rocky platform we were on, so we headed back up the cliffs and along the top of them back to where I'd parked the hire car. On the way, we had a really enjoyable discussion about our shared passion for fishing. I always enjoy meeting up with fellow species hunters and thanked Jesús prefusely for generously giving up his time and knowledge to help me catch a really special little fish. Before we parted company, he gave me some information on the location of guppy in the village of Cruz de Pineda, so Lillian and I headed there next. Sadly, at the spots he told us to check, there were no fish present. We did see another nice butterfly whilst we we were searching though.
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This is a Canary speckled wood. It's endemic to the western Canary Islands of La Gomera, La Palma, Tenerife and Gran Canaria. The cousin of the speckled wood we have in the UK, it looks very similar but has a darker upperside mainly due to the spots being a red/brown colour.
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On the way back to Castillo del Romeral, we visited El Bufadero. The sea had calmed down considerably, so I fished from the rocks for a while. The fishing was, yet again, very slow sadly. All I caught from the deep water out directly in front of the platform were Guinean puffer, Canary damselfish and a couple of bogue. Dropping straight down the side, all I caught were a few ornate wrasse. Before we left I spent a bit of time fishing in a fairly large, deep rockpool. To be honest, I had quite a lot of fun trying to single out a large Madeira rockfish that had some beautiful bright blue markings on it's fins. I didn't manage to get through all of the other fish though, they were much more aggressive, and always got to my bait before the target fish did.
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| Lillian and I weren't alone on the rocks. We had plenty of company. |
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| Ornate wrasse are just total pests normally, but I was grateful something was biting! |
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I caught lots of these rockpool blenny,..
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...and plenty of Madeira goby too.
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The following day, we went back to Puerto de Mogan and I spent a few hours fishing from rocky breakwater that protects the town's small beach. It was quite overcast when we arrived and the beach was quite quiet. Unfortunately, the fishing was very quiet too. I fished bigger hooks and baits than I normally would, but this didn't pay off. The only real highlight was a nice male parrotfish that tried its best to break me off in the submerged boulders, but I managed to bully it out again a couple of times, and Lillian was ready with my net when it appeared on the surface.
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My only Mediterranean parrotfish of the trip. On my last trip to Gran Canaria I caught loads of them!
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The sun then came out for a little while, so despite the fishing being a real struggle, I stubbornly fished on until I ran out of bait, which didn't actually take that long due to it being stripped by small Guinean puffer, a few of which I caught despite my hook being too big for their little mouths!
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Waiting for the action to really kick off...
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In the afternoon, we went for a long drive right up into the island's interior. Despite the clouds rolling over again, some of the scenic views were amazing.
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| Rugged volcanic landscapes as far as the eye can see,.. |
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...and small villages in fertile green valleys.
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The last day of our holiday had arrived. Having struggled most of the time to find good fishing, we decided to head up to the capital La Palma for the day. On the way, we visited the mountain town of Agüimes, where we went for a stroll and visited several bronze statues that are located around the centre of the town.
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| No idea what the book is. Must have been a good read though. |
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Another painted tile mosaic artwork, this time depicting life in the village many years ago.
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Heading to La Palma, we found a place to park the hire car and headed to the Poema del Mar Aquarium. Lillian hadn't seen enough fish during the trip, so I was keen to rectify that. The aquarium was very impressive, well laid out and the interactive screens next to the tanks were excellent, offering detailed information on all the species that were present. It was a relaxing way to spend a few hours, they had some interesting fish on display, and I even managed to take a few nice photos.
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Mudskippers are so cool! One of my favourite families of fish.
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The Golden Dorado in a tank full of South American species looked amazing.
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This electric eel was pretty shocking!
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Afterwards, I grabbed my fishing tackle from the car and we went for a walk through the city. It didn't take us long to arrive at Playa de las Canteras, the golden sandy beach on the western side. At the northern end there were many of the local fisherman's colourful boats.
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A beautiful beach on a not so beautiful day.
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Heading further north along the coast, we stopped for some lunch and then carried on until I found a spot to do some fishing. There was a bit of a swell running and waves were breaking onto the rocks, so I found an elevated position and cast out a two hook rig baited up with raw prawn. I was hoping to perhaps add something new to my tally, but that didn't happen sadly. I did catch plenty of fish though, almost one every cast.
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| What would I catch? |
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Lots of Canary damselfish,..
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...a few Macaronesian sharpnose puffer,..
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...and my third hairy blenny of the trip.
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Before too long I had run out of bait, so we headed back to the hire car. On the way I spotted another angler fishing, so we went over to find out what he had been catching. He didn't want to speak to us, so we left him to it.
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Using bread this local had filled a bucket with what looked like axillary seabream.
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In the evening after dinner, we did the majority of our packing in preperation for our flight home the following morning and then headed down to the harbour for one last short fishing session after dark. With no bait left, I fished small soft plastic lures on jigheads. My main target was a bright glasseye, but before I spotted any of those, I caught a few bastard grunt, Madeira rockfish, island grouper and cardinalfish from the bottom of the harbour and in and around the rocks.
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I search for bright glasseye with my headtorch. Their eyes are huge and reflect back the beam making them stand out like a sore thumb.
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Cardinalfish on ajing tactics.
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Once it got very dark, I spotted a few bright glasseye emerging from their daytime hiding places. They were being very lazy though, not actively hunting, just milling around close to the rocks. Changing lures to see if I could tempt one, I switched from a clear straight lure to a small bright pink ribbed paddletail. Casting that out past two bright glasseye and working it back between the pair resulted in one of them swimming away, but luckily the other one lurched forward and engulfed it. Again, Lillian was ready with the net, and just as well too, because as soon as the fish in it the lure came out of its mouth!
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The last species I added to the trip tally was a very cool one indeed. I love bright glasseye! Having tried several times throughout the trip to catch them, I was relieved to finally get one.
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So, another trip to the Canary Islands had come to an end, and the fishing on this one had been pretty tough. Possibly the least productive trip fishing wise that I've had down there. The number of fish I caught was pretty low and some species that are normally common, like lizardfish and comber, seemed to be totally absent. I'm not sure what the cause was, but if I had to speculate, I'd probably attribute it to Storm Therese, which battered the islands with enournmous amounts of rain and very strong winds just a few weeks before we visited. I think things were still settling down again, evidenced by the relatively poor water clarity. Despite the challenging fishing, I'd somehow managed to catch twenty six species in total including one new one. There's no way I would have caught the sailfin blenny without the help of Jesús, so again I'd like to thank him for meeting up with me. Check out his instagram acount here.
Here's a summary of species I caught with the new one in bold...
- Bastard Grunt
- Bogue
- Bright Glasseye
- Canary Damselfish
- Cardinalfish
- Cleaver Wrasse/Pearly Razorfish
- Common Two Banded Seabream
- Dusky Grouper
- Golden Grey Mullet
- Guinean Puffer
- Hairy Blenny
- Island Grouper
- Macaronesian Sharpnose Puffer
- Madeira Goby
- Madeira Rockfish
- Molly Millar
- Mozambique Tilapia
- Ornate Wrasse
- Parrotfish
- Redlip Blenny
- Rockpool Blenny
- Sailfin Blenny
- Salema
- Striped Seabream
- Thick Lipped Mullet
- Wide Eyed Flounder
Fishing aside, and despite the lack of sun due to the overcast conditions and the dust storm, Lillian and I enjoyed our trip to Gran Canaria. It's always nice to get away together, just the two of us. With what's going on in the world at the moment, we currently don't have any more trips booked. This doesn't mean we don't have a long list of places that we'd like to visit and hopefully we'll get another holiday organised soon.
Tight lines, Scott.
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