Even More Species Hunting Adventures On Gran Canaria: Part 4.

On our penultimate day on Gran Canaria, we headed back to Puerto de Mogan in the morning, so that Ed could have another go at catching a flathead mullet. I focused my efforts on a few goby that I spotted on the sandy bottom of the channel. They eagerly munched small pieces of dried ragworm and all turned out to be black goby.

Along with a small mackerel I had caught the previos day, but didn't bother to photograph, these were easily the least interesting species of the trip, but both were additions to our tally, so were most welcome.

Sadly, neither of us caught any flathead mullet. There were just too many thick lipped mullet and golden grey mullet around. We did enjoy an hour or so of good sport before they became very wary and pretty much stopped feeding.

We caught some decent sized golden grey mullet.

Jumping back in the car, we drove east to nearby Taurito. There we fished from the rocks at the western end of Playa del Diablito. Clambering around the boulders, there was already a local angler float fishing when we got to the spot, and he caught a nice parrotfish whilst we got set up just along from him.

Older locals usually employ float tactics for seabream and parrotfish.

Ed fished on the bottom with bait to begin with, whilst I fished a metal and then a small plug up near the surface in an attempt to catch a garfish. The ground we were fishing over was not very deep and was littered with large boulders. Ed lost a few rigs as a result, but did manage to catch a few ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish. I had a few bumps on my lures, but after a while decided to switch from a faster horizontal retrieve, to jigging a metal closer to the bottom. This eventually paid off when a nice island grouper came out from it's ambush point and grabbed my jig.

Not massive but good sport on my ultralight setup.

I then switched to a paddletail lure rigged on a 3g cheburashka weight. Bouncing this through the boulders, I was hoping to tempt a dusky grouper, but instead it was an agressive ornate wrasse that decided to attack the small fish imitation!

Sometimes, fish strike to defend their territory.

Ed had switched over to fishing with a metal jig, so I decided to try fishing with bait on the bottom. After losing a few rigs and nothing showing an interest in Ed's efforts however, we decided to head around the rocks towards the beach to try and find a cleaner area to fish over.

Out past a flat rock ledge in front of these boulders was a clean sandy area.

I was hoping to catch a seabream here, perhaps a pandora or a Couch's. After a while, I had an aggressive take and the fish tore off. Lifting into it, my rod was nodding away, and I was confident that I had hooked some kind of seabream because it definitely felt like one. Applying some pressure as it came towards the ledge in front of us to get it up over it though, the fish came off. It had bent out my fine wire hook. Removing this and snelling on a much stronger chinu pattern, I rebaited with a chunk of prawn and recast out to the same area. Shortly afterwards, another fish took my bait and charged off. This time it felt different and swam from side to side, making long runs. When a small shark came to the surface, we were both quite surprised, but Ed quickly got the net ready and the fish was soon drawn over it.

My first shark from the shore on my trusty Rock Rover.

With it's very dark grey/brown colouration, I'm reasonably confident this is my first ever common smoothhound, making it my third new species of the trip. Mission accomplished! They are by far the most common species of houndshark found around Gran Canaria, so the likelihood of this being a spotless starry smoothhound is very low.

We fished on for a while, but didn't catch anything else for a while, so we decided to head to our next spot. The tide was out when we reached the Faro de Maspalomas, and seeing a few exposed shallow rockpools, we set about seeing what mini species were in them.

The exposed rocky shorline near Faro de Maspalomas.

Who lives in a house like this?

To begin with, quite predictably, the only two species we encountered were rockpool blenny and Madeira goby. They can be found in most intertidal pools in large numbers. After a while however, I spotted a different blenny slowly moving around in between the rocks. Dropping my tanago hook baited with a tiny piece of dried ragworm into the gap between three touching rocks, I felt a bite, struck, and hooked the culprit. Swinging it up into my hand and examining it, I was sure I had caught a Molly Miller. Popping it into some water once I had taken an initial photo confirmed it was indeed one. It didn't take Ed long to catch one as well, yet another new species for him.

The Molly Miller blenny. If you know where it's name comes from, let me know!

It's punk like row of short hair-like appendages is a key identifying feature that is only visible when the fish is submerged.

By this point it was early evening, and we decided to have one last attempt at locating and catching bright glasseye. The wind direction remained the same, but the speed had dropped a bit. I was unsure if the conditions would be suitable, but much to our delight, when we arrived at the venue and had a look around, it looked almost perfect. The water was clear and there was virtually no disturbance on the surface. Climbing down the rocks as light began to fade, it took a little while before I spotted one of our targets, emerging slowly from the rocks. A large red adult specimen, sluggishly moving around, it showed no interest in any bait I lowered in front of it. After being frustrated by the fish's complete disinterest for a while, I left it to search for others. As it got darker, more, much smaller specimens, began to appear! They were silver with red markings. Seeing a few of them, I had a good feeling that we'd eventually catch one, even if we had to fish for hours! Eventually they'd switch into feeding mode, or we'd figure out what presentation they'd be unable to resist. Returning to where I'd seen the larger fish, I switched to a straight lure on a 0.9g jighead and dropped it down the back of a submerged rock.  

A Thirty 34 Four 1.8" Octpus lure on an EcoGear Aji Chon jighead. I fish predominatly with bait these days, but I love this killer combo.

Twitching it a couple of times, I felt a sudden thump and lifting into it, all hell broke loose. I'd hooked the large red adult fish. I managed to bully it up over the rock, but it headed off towards some ropes. Whilst trying to stop it, I called over to Ed to bring the net, but then disaster struck! The fish thrashed violently and managed to throw the hook! I was gutted. Had I blown my chance? 

We carried on, patiently fishing away. Locating the fish using our headtorches and casting our lures towards them. As it got darker, the fish got more and more active. Once it was really dark, they suddenly started moving around with much more purpose. Casting my presentation near a group of four juveniles, they began slashing at it, and eventually I'd hooked my second bright glasseye of the night. Much smaller than the first, it was very quickly wound in and swung up into my waiting hand. 

My first bright glasseye! What an awesome little fish!

By this point, Ed had moved around the venue, so I popped the fish into a bucket of water. When he came back around to where I was, I told him I'd caught one, and showed him the fish. Having seen it, he was even more determined to catch one himself. I gave him a jighead and lure and showed him where I'd caught mine. It took him a little while, but he also caught one, which was later followed by a second, and then later on, just before we left he also lost a third much larger specimen that took a white paddletail lure. It had been a great way to end a very good day's fishing. We'd reached thirty nine species between us with the capture of the bright glasseye, and only needed one more to reach our trip target.

We had to be back at the airport to fly home by 16:30 the following day, so we formulated a plan for our last day of fishing that evening when we got back to the apartment. Doing most of our packing that night, we got up early the following morning, loaded everything into the hire car, and drove to Puerto de Mogan again for one last short session to see if Ed could catch his first flathead mullet. Sadly, he didn’t catch one, but a walk to the end of the rocks at the end of the channel, and a coordinated effort between the two of us, did produce Ed's first redlip blenny. Happy enough that he had caught yet another new species, we returned to the car and drove north, up through the mountains, until we reached Sardina.

The mountainous interior of Gran Canaria with the colourfulrock formations of Fuente de los Azulejos off in the distance.

Arriving in Sardina the conditions around the pier looked much better than our first visit, so we grabbed our gear and headed down. Armed with a few loaves of bread and a couple of tins of sardines in oil, I made up a bucket of groundbait and we began spooning it in.

Much better conditions than our first visit!

I had hoped this would draw in some saddled seabream, white trevally or Madeiran sardinella, so we could catch one on freelined bread flake. Any one of these three species would have taken us to forty species for the trip, our target for the week. Very few fish appeared however, so we had to change tactics. Switching to fishing on the bottom with tiny pieces of prawns, our attempt to catch a monkey blenny had predictable results, with lots of ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish instead making up the bulk of the catches. I did pull out a nice parrotfish that was a welcome capture, but not the fortieth species we were after.

I caught quite a few parrotfish throughout the trip.

Tired of catching the usual suspects from the rocks close in, I had a couple of casts out onto a sandy area further out from the pier. This proved to be a great decision when I hooked a fish and wound it in to discover it was a cleaver wrasse. Mission accomplished! Seeing the bizzare fish, Ed really wanted one too, and casting out to the same spot he quickly caught a couple of the colourful fish himself.

It had been a while since I last caught a cleaver wrasse, so it was nice to catch one again.

Also known as the pearly razorfish, the markings on them are beautiful!

Soon it was time to pack up and drive to the airport, but before we left Ed caught his first Guinean puffer of the trip. I've no idea how he managed to avoid catching them up until that point! I'd caught dozens of the pests! Just before we left, he also caught a nice striped seabream from the same sandy area the cleaver wrasse had been coming from. It was a nice fish to end the trip on.

The last fish of the trip was Ed's striped seabream. We'd both caught much smaller specimens from the channel in Puerto de Mogan earlier in the week.

So, another species hunting trip to the Canary Islands had come to an end. The fishing had been a bit of a mixed bag, but despite the conditions limiting our choice of venues, we had achieved all of our pre trip goals. I'd caught four new species and Ed had caught eighteen species for the first time too. We'd managed to catch exactly forty species between the two of us, with Ed catching two that I did not. He’d caught twenty eight species in total. Here's a summary of what I caught with the new species in bold...

1. Atlantic Lizardfish
2. Azores Damselfish
3. Bastard Grunt
4. Black Goby
5. Blacktail Comber
6. Bluefish
7. Bogue
8. Bright Glasseye
9. Butterfly Winged Comber
10. Canary Damsel
11. Cardinalfish
12. Cleaver Wrasse/Pearly Razorfish
13. Comber
14. Common Smoothhound
15. Common Two Banded Seabream
16. Convict Cichlid
17. Diamond Lizardfish
18. Flathead Mullet
19. Golden Grey Mullet
20. Greater Weever
21. Guinean Puffer
22. Hairy Blenny
23. Island grouper
24. Ornate Wrasse
25. Macaronesian Sharpnose Puffer
26. Mackerel
27. Madeira Goby
28. Madeira Rockfish
29. Molly Miller
30. Moroccan White Seabream
31. Mozambique Tilapia
32. Parrotfish
33. Planehead Filefish
34. Red Lip Blenny
35. Rockpool Blenny
36. Striped Seabream
37. Thick Lipped Mullet
38. Wide Eyed Flounder

Ed also caught...

39. Derbio
40. Bermuda Sea Chub

It was nice to fish with Ed and get to know him a bit better. We've been in touch with each other for years, but this was only the second time we've fished together. I'm sure it won't be our last foriegn species hunting adventure I've enjoyed two fishing trips in the last two months, but it won't be long until I'll be heading off abroad again. Later this month, I'm off to somewhere new, the Italian Island of Sardinia. Lillian is coming with me, and we're going with my mate Lee. I'm not sure what we'll be fishing for, and the fishing will be limited, but I'm really looking forward to wetting a line in the sun yet again!

Tight lines, Scott.

Species hunting on Gran Canaria : Part 1.

At the beginning of December I flew out to Gran Canaria with two of my mates. It had been a while since myself, Lee and Ross had fished together so we were all really looking forward to the trip. Arriving at our apartment in the early evening we grabbed our light game gear from our luggage, jumped back into our hire  car and headed to nearby Arinaga to fish on a small pier there. Someone was already fishing on it when we arrived.

As the tide was out it didn't look like a great spot he'd chosen so we fished along from him.

It was good to be fishing together again and as light faded we got our species hunt started with a few greater weevers, Atlantic lizardfish and the odd Madeira rockfish. Once it was dark we began catching lots of bastard grunt and a few cardinalfish. It was a good start to our species hunting but as we were quite tired from the day's travelling we didn't stay out too long and headed back to our apartment, stopping at the supermarket on the way to get some food and the ingredients needed to make a few litres of sangria.

The next morning we headed to Puerto Rico and fished from the rocks on the outside of Playa de Amadores' southern breakwater. This saw us add a few more species to our tally as we caught two species of puffers and the first of many ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish. Fishing over a sandy area further out amongst some greater weevers and Atlantic lizardfish I also caught a solitary cleaver wrasse. It looked like a promising spot for predatory species and there were plenty baitfish around. Ross managed to catch a couple of them and they turned out to be Spanish sardines. As another angler left he told us that he'd caught an Atlantic bonito earlier that morning so we'd found somewhere for sunrise sessions.

Canary damselfish are pretty little things. Aggressive too but usually the ornate wrasse beat them to the angleworm.

This cleaver wrasse made a nice change from the other more prolific sand dwelling species.

Things slowed down a bit so in the afternoon so we decided to check out Puerto de Mogán a little further along the coast. Things were pretty slow there too though and the wind had also picked up restricting where we could fish. We still managed to add a few more species to our tally in the shape of a small bass and a wide eyed flounder.

Wide eyed flounder are such cool little floral patterned flatfish.

On the way back to our apartment we stopped in Maspalomas to check out a lake that supposedly had tilapia in it but as there were no fishing signs every few metres we opted to fish over a shallow reef near the town's imposing lighthouse. We didn't stay too long but we managed to catch some bastard grunt, derbio and gilthead seabream before we called it a day and headed back to the apartment for some food and a few glasses of sangria.

Derbio are pretty cool fish. I'd love to catch some bigger ones.

On day three we got up early and headed to Puerto Rico again before sunrise to have a go for larger species with lure gear on the outside of Playa de Amadores' southern breakwater. We thrashed the water for a few hours but had no luck tempting anything on our metals, plugs and soft plastics. In the afternoon we headed all the way around to the north west of the island and after a spot of lunch fished from the huge concrete blocks at the back of Puerto de las Nieves' harbour. Lee and I weren't as comfortable clambering around on them as Ross was but eventually we found a couple of reasonably flat spots to fish from. I spent a fair bit of time trying to catch a redlip blenny but as usual despite there being a few sitting on the submerged blocks they were not interested in anything I put in front of them. Ross caught his first cleaver wrasse and Lee caught his first black tailed comber before we decided to call it a day.

Lee's first ever blacktail comber took an Ami shrimp lure fished on a drop shot rig.

On day four we headed to Las Palmas to try and sort out freshwater licences so we could fish in the island's dams. We knew the process was going to be time consuming and generally a bit of pain but after visiting the first government building it became a farce when after waiting forty minutes in a bank to pay for our licenses we were then told they could not process our forms due to a problem with their computers. We visited a second bank but it was extremely busy and fearing we'd wait there for ages only to be told they couldn't process the payment either we decided to give up and headed back to the car. After a quick look on Google Maps we headed to some nearby rocks on the coast. We'd taken some bread with us so Ross quickly made up some groundbait and it didn't take long for a shoal of mullet to arrive. We soon established which species they were by catching some of them on freelined bread.

What a fat little thick lipped mullet!

After an hour or so we decided to head west again this time to check out a mark that we could potentially return to and fish with heavy bait gear for shark species. On the way we stopped at a supermarket for some lunch and bought a packet of frozen raw prawns. Down at Puerto de Sardina we fished from a small stone pier and it looked like a promising spot for a night time session. We had some bread left over so Ross quickly added some water to the bag to make up some more groundbait. Several shoals of fish soon arrived and we added a few more species to our tally in the shape of bogue, garfish, salema, white seabream and diamond lizardfish. I also got a nice surprise in the shape of a small white trevally, my first new species of the trip.

I've seen Lee catch one of these when we fished together on Madeira back in 2015.

I then decided to frustrate myself pestering the redlip blennies again. As ever there were loads of them just sitting on submerged rocks but as they graze on algae from the rocks getting them to eat anything else is tough work. I couldn't tempt one but whilst trying I did catch another blenny that I didn't recognise. It had quite distinctive "hair" though so identifying it later was pretty easy. Don't ask me where the name comes form though!

Meet Molly Miller. Yes this species of blenny is simply called Molly Miller. I can't find out why though and if you know I'd be interested to here the origin of this blenny's name.

Before we left we moved and tried fishing into darkness from some rocks on a nearby beach but all this produced after a couple of hours was a endless greater weevers so we packed up and headed back to the apartment. We'd reached the halfway point of our trip and apart from wasting a morning on our failed attempts to obtain a fishing license for the island's dams we were having a good time. Hard not to when you're catching a few fish in the sunshine and ending each day with a homemade sangria or two.

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the second part.

More species hunting adventures on Lanzarote : Part 2.

On day four after my mild hangover had gone, Nick had got some dressings for his badly blistered ankle and we'd had a siesta to avoid the hottest part of the day, we were ready to fish again and headed to the back of the ferry terminal in Playa Blanca for an evening session. When we arrived there were quite a lot of small baitfish around and we spotted a few small barracuda lurking around, picking the odd one off at the margins of the shoals. As I only had my light game setup with me a small 7g metal was quickly clipped on and I tried to tempt one of the streamlined toothy predators. After a while I eventually managed to get a barracuda to follow my metal but unfortunately couldn't induce a take. After a while the bait fish slowly dispersed and the hunters disappeared so I switched to good old angleworm on a dropshot rig. It soon became evident that there were a lot of axillary seabream around and I was catching one almost every cast. Nick, who had been fishing larger metals on his lure rod, switched to similar tactics too and we were soon both catching lots of fish.

Axillary seabream are also known as Spanish seabream. They have a dark spot at the base of their pectoral fin (covered by my fat thumb) and the inside of their mouth is bright red (not photographed).

As well as the steady stream of axillary seabream we also caught a load of puffers and ornate wrasse whenever our rigs got closer in without us getting a bit further out. I also caught a few annular seabream and a cleaver wrasse. Cleaver wrasse are a very cool fish, colourful and quite unusual in appearance being very thin and sporting some weird goofy fangs.

Most of the puffers we caught were the fairly drab brown Guinean variety but occasionally a Macaronesian sharpnose puffer would get caught. They are quite nice to look at with their bright blue spots and yellow eyes. Still quite annoying when they're destroying your lure and line though.

Yet another seabream species was added to our trips tally with the annular seabream.

Cleaver wrasse are a very funky fish. They are also known as pearly razorfish and can bury themselves in sandy sea floors.

For a little while I tried fishing down in amongst the rocks to see if I could catch a hairy blenny. I didn't get one but after a few Madeira rockfish I caught a cardinalfish. Normally these are caught after dark so it was a good opportunity to get a good photo of one.

All head and mouth, Cardinalfish normally hide during the day and usually only come out into open water after dark.

As the sun got low in the sky I decided to clip on a metal jig again and see if I could tempt a barracuda. Having no luck after a while I decided to change to a different metal with a different action and I also added a dressed treble to it. It was a cheap lure but as the weight was distributed towards the back it wiggled nicely even on a slow retrieve. First cast with it and about half way in I felt a solid take. So aggressive that my rod was almost wrenched out of my hand in fact. My drag soon began screaming as something very powerful headed off on the first of many searing runs.

The fish heads towards Fuertaventura.

It was obviously a large fish, much bigger than the small barracuda that we had seen earlier so I was slightly worried that if whatever it was on the end had teeth it might cut through my 6lb leader but I managed to stay calm and resisted the temptation to apply too much pressure. Playing the fish cautiously it eventually began to tire but it was about fifteen minutes before an Atlantic bonito finally came into view. It still wasn't beaten though and it took another five minutes or so to get it in close enough to attempt landing it. Eventually the fish was beaten and I managed to get it in close enough to where Nick, who had scrambled some the slippery rocks into a landing position, did a superb job of grabbing it.

My first Atlantic bonito is a fish I'll never forget! It was 60cm long with an estimated weight of 7lb. What a powerhouse and it gave an absolutely awesome fight on my HTO Rock Rover.

The small metal that the fish took. I'm glad I swapped the treble out. It was stronger than the one it replaced but was still slightly bent out. The fish had been hooked in the upper jaw. Had it taken the lure inside its mouth my 6lb leader would been bitten through by its razor sharp teeth.

I was on quite a high having just caught easily the biggest and most powerful fish I've ever had on light game tackle. Keeping my cool, a huge slice of luck with the hook placement and Nick's fish landing skills had all played a part in successfully landing the fish and the fight it put up was incredibly exhilarating. My heart was still pounding as I sat on a huge volcanic boulder and as I tried to fully process what had just occurred it all felt a bit surreal if I'm honest. Nick fished on for a bit but after a while with no action we decided to head home to talk about what had happened over some food and a few celebratory drinks.

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the final part.

Species hunting adventures on Madeira : Part 1.

On the 28th of February I flew out to Madeira with my mate Lee for a week's fishing. My girlfriend Lillian and my sister Sharon came with us as well to chill out and do a bit of sight seeing and walking on the island. A couple of hours after landing we arrived at our apartment and feeling rather hungry we headed to the local supermarket for supplies. As it was already quite late there would be no fishing that evening but whilst in the supermarket I couldn't help looking at the fishmonger's display to see what was there.

Up above the clouds with the best budget airline ever. Look closer.

An island delicacy, the black scabbardfish isn't the most attractive of fish. Locals fish for them at night attracting them up from deep water using lights on their boats.

Up early in the morning, Lee and I headed off to explore the rocks at either end of Praia Formosa, the black shingle beach in front of our accommodation.

Doca Do Cavacas at the eastern end of Praia Formosa. I thought this spot would be good before we arrived.

The massive 580m cliffs of Cabo Girão can be see here to the west but we would settle for having a scramble around on the rocky outcrop at the end of the beach.

We started our session at Doca Do Cavacas before sunrise but much to our disappointment things were quite slow. I opened my account for the trip by catching a small cardinalfish on Gulp! Angleworm on a drop shot rig.

A colourful little start to my species hunt. 

When the sun rose things remained fairly tough and I managed a single ornate wrasse so whilst Lee remained focused on the open sea I turned my attention to the large rockpools behind us. As the sun got higher in the morning sky the fish in them became more aggressive and were soon being caught on a simple split shot rig.

Despite the crystal clear pools being full of rockpool blennies it was a rock goby that grabbed my tiny piece of Gulp! Angleworm first and got hooked.

Rockpool blennies look very similar to our own common blenny. They have a slightly smaller head though by comparison and some light blue markings around their eyes.

Lee wasn't having any joy in the slightly coloured sea so we decided to move. Heading along to the rocks at the other end of the beach the water there was a little clearer but we found things very tough there as well and I only managed a single small Atlantic lizardfish. The bottom was quite snaggy too and we were losing quite a lot of drop shot leads. Lee was understandably getting quite frustrated so we decided to try in the middle of the beach. My first cast produced a small white seabream but again the bottom was very unforgiving and after losing a few more rigs and catching no more fish we headed back to meet the girls who wanted to have a bumble around the islands capital, Funchal.

The only reward for our efforts from Praia Formosa.

After dropping the girls off and with Lee still to get off the mark we decided to try inside Funchal harbour. After driving along we soon found a spot where we could park the car and stumbled across some locals down at the end of a small lane who were fishing mainly with bread paste under floats. We joined them and were getting a lot of bites at close range but finding it hard to connect with them so I started casting further out. Eventually I caught a fish.

At first glance I thought these were annular seabream due to the yellow tinge to their fins. Later in the day I'd realise they were in fact bastard grunt, my first new species of the trip.

Lee meanwhile was still getting lots of little bites down the side and his determination to find out what was responsible eventually paid off when he connected with one, catching his first fish of the trip, which turned out to be a black goby.

Perhaps not the exotic fish Lee was hoping for but a fish is a fish and he had opened his account. 

After catching a few more bastard grunt and black goby we decided to try another mark to the west of Funchal harbour. The spot I had in mind however was out of bounds due to a new hotel being built so we had a walk along the coastal path and spotted an area we could access not too far away. This proved to be a good move and we were both soon catching a few fish.

Canary damselfish are very pretty and are much easier to catch than their Mediterranean cousin, the damselfish.

Puffers were also present in large numbers.  Their small mouths make them difficult to hook though but they leave distinctive teeth marks on your soft plastics or just bite them clean in half which gives away their presence.

Ornate wrasse however were by far the most common fish and as we would find out they can be caught at most marks around the island. They are most prolific at close range where they hug rocky structures. Using larger hooks reduces catch rates but it also means you miss out on other species.

Another colourful ornate wrasse.

Next I hooked a fish at range. When it came into view I was excited to see it was a cleaver wrasse also known as a pearly razorfish. Another fish with a very small mouth that is a relatively rare catch so I was pleased to get it although it wasn't my first as I caught one two years ago when I visited Crete.

A truly bizarre but beautiful fish.

They have peculiar teeth that they can move like little pincers as I discovered when it tried to bite me.

Continuing to cast out a fair distance the next species I caught was my second new one of the trip and was also one of my "Most Wanted" targets for the trip, a small blacktail comber.

The stamp of fish may have been small but I was having lots of fun anyway.

Lee meanwhile was catching a few Madeira rockfish and then caught his first ever Guinean puffer. He was using AquaWave Ami, a very tough shrimp shaped soft plastic, to great effect.

An ornate wrasse falls to Lee's durable little lure. 

I then scaled up a little bit and switched from a #14 to a #6 hook on my drop shot rig and baited it with a whole Gulp! Sandworm. This almost immediately produced a nice big Atlantic lizardfish that tried its best to get into the submerged rocks below me. I eased off on the pressure a bit when it went behind a boulder to prevent my braid snapping and managed to successfully land it.

Sometimes the larger lizardfish give a good account of themselves. 

What a mouth. A very aggressive predator indeed

After a few more fish we headed back to the apartment only to find that the girls had popped out. While we waited on them returning with the keys we had a quick fish on Praia Formosa again. I managed to catch a few more bastard grunt realising what they were when they started "grunting" and that they were actually not annular seabream at all. Lee was keen to catch one as well but didn't have any luck, losing a few rigs to the rough sea floor. 

Grunts "grunt". Not sure why they are bastards though although Lee maybe thought they were as he couldn't catch one. 

In the evening I made us a tasty meal, Piri Piri chicken which we washed down with a few glasses of Madeira wine. Afterwards Lee and I started to formulate a plan for the following few days' fishing.

Not a bad backdrop for our late night planning session. 

The next day the girls were going to do a walk around the eastern peninsula of the island so we decided we would spend a few hours fishing around Machico in the late morning and early afternoon and then we decided to head to Câmara De Lobos for a few hours in the early evening when we all met up again. My species hunt was off to a good start, twelve species caught including two new ones. Lee was keen to catch some bigger fish that would put more of a bend in his rod though. I wouldn't mind that either and surely exploring more of the island we would eventually find some.

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for Part 2.