Even More Species Hunting Adventures On Gran Canaria: Part 1.

Only five weeks after visiting the Canary Islands, I flew back down there again for another fishing trip. Returning to Gran Canaria for a week, this time I was accompanied by my mate Ed, who also enjoys a spot of species hunting. He brought with him a handwritten list of thirty-five species that he’d never caught before that he was keen catch. His target for the trip was to catch ten new species, which I was very confident he'd achieve. As I've fished in the Canary Islands a lot over the years, I’ve caught many of the species found there already, but was still hopeful that I’d perhaps catch some new ones myself, so set myself a target of three, with a bright glasseye being my number one target new species for the trip. Perhaps that doesn’t sound very ambitious, but I felt it was important to be realistic. No point setting unachievable goals after all. As an additional challenge, we also decided to set an objective of catching forty species between the two of us over the duration of our trip. 

After arriving in the evening, and dropping off our luggage at our apartment in Arinaga, we headed down to the town’s pier for our first after dark session. This was the exact same spot I’d fished at the beginning of my trip last month with my mate Gordon, so a feeling of déjà vu quickly kicked in. Fishing small pieces of prawn down the side, we quickly caught four of the species I had caught the last time I fished there. We caught a few Canary damselfish close to the pier, as well as lots of Madeira rockfish from the rocky bottom. The two main targets for the session were bastard grunt and cardinalfish, as Ed had never caught either before. Before too long, he'd caught them both.

There were plenty of aggressive Madeira rockfish hard on the bottom.

We both caught plenty of cardinalfish.

The following morning, checking the weather forecast for the rest of our trip, strong winds from the north were predicted, so we decided to head south. Stopping in Maspalomas, we quickly visited a small pond and caught a few Mozambique tilapia, Ed's third new species of the trip. Walking around the venue before we left, I thought I spotted some very small convict cichlids, so we decided to return later in the trip to find out if I was correct.

We quickly got a few dozen of these Mozambique tilapia before leaving. Strictly speaking, I don't think fishing for the invasive species is allowed, although the signs around the venue aren't exactly clear.

Drivingfurther west to Puerto de Mogan, we headed to the rocks that make up its beach's breakwater and fished from them into the deep water out in front of it. Last month, my mate Gordon caught a red banded seabream there, so I was hoping to catch one of those myself. The action wasn't great, with some quiet spells, but we caught a few fish and in amongst them Ed caught his first ever derbio. I didn't get what I was after, but my morning efforts were rewarded with a lovely parrotfish.

I'm not a massive fan of brown damselfish generally. They can be a real pain to identify, but that can't be said about the Canary damselfish, with its intense violet accents.

It had been a while since I caught a female parrotfish. It would end up being the only one of the trip.

In the afternoon, we visited the eastern breakwater of Playa de Amadores. Again, the fishing wasn't anything spectacular, and the action was sporadic, but we ticked off a few more species before we moved on again.

There were plenty of rockpool blenny in the rockpools. Another new species for Ed.

Casting out into the deep water on the outside of the breakwater, I caught quite a few Azores damselfish.

Our final stop for the day was the small harbour that has the resident bright glasseye population. Fishing isn't technically allowed, but when Gordon and I visited last month, the security on site saw us entering with our tackle and let us fish anyway. This time however, the guard on duty immediately approached and bluntly told us that fishing was not permitted. This was a bit of a blow. I really wanted to catch a bright glasseye. Their presence was sort of the inspiration for my return to the island! Heading to a small beach nearby, we had a few casts over the sandy bottom. I pulled out a few Atlantic lizardfish, a species Ed had never caught before, but he didn't manage to get one, sadly.

The Atlantic lizardfish prefers a sandy environment. It's cousin the diamond lizardfish is usually found over rocky ground.

In the evening, at exactly 18:00, the security guard left the site. We waited a while, to see if they would return, then entered once it began to get dark to see if we could see any bright glasseye. Due to the windy conditions, the water was slightly coloured up, and the surface had a lot of ripples on it. I shone my head torch around, trying to catch the reflection of the bright glasseye's huge eyes, but we didn't see any. Given the forecast for the rest of the trip was to get slightly worse, I was concerned we wouldn't get an opportunity to fish for them.

The next day, we decided to head all the way up to Sardina and Puerto de las Nieves located on the northwest coast of the island. With the wind coming from the northeast, I thought they might be slightly sheltered. Arriving in Sardina, a slow constant swell was rolling in, and making our way out onto the pier, a strong wind was howling through, so we headed to the small harbour further along the base of the cliffs. Fishing there provided us with a bit of shelter, but the action wasn't great, with ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish out in force. I did manage a nice parrotfish and a Moroccan white seabream.

In calmer conditions, the pier is a great spot that throws up lots of different species.

This male parrotfish almost broke me off when my line came into contact with the corner of one of the concrete cubes we were fishing from. I've started fishing with 11lb braid, previously I used 6lb, and this probably made a difference. My line was damaged, but it didn't fail.

This nice Moroccan white seabream also went straight for the refuge of the concrete blocks, but I managed to bully it away from them. 

Late in the afternoon, we headed further south to fish from the end of Puerto de las Nieves' ferry terminal. It was quite an effort to reach it, traversing rocks and concrete block for hundreds of yards. To be honest, other than getting a workout getting along there and enjoying the views of the cliffs to the south once we did, it was a very disappointing end to a pretty poor day's fishing. All we caught were ornate wrasse, Canary damselfish and Madera rockfish!

The impressive cliffs to the south of Puerto de las Nieves.

So, one evening session and two full days into our holiday, we had enjoyed some mixed results. Species wise we were into double figures and Ed had caught a few new ones, so that was promising. It was obvious that unless the weather forecast improved, our choice of venues would be restricted to those on the south coast, so that's exactly where we opted to fish the following day.

Tight lines, Scott.

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More Species Hunting Adventues On Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 1.

Winter sucks. There's no getting away from the fact that the fishing locally is pretty hard going this time of year. It’s not that there aren’t any fish around, it’s just not much fun catching what is available in very cold, wet and also often windy conditions. Only dedicated cod anglers enjoy going out in such miserable conditions! Having only managed three fishing sessions since I returned from Asia in November, I decided I needed to get some winter sun, and after speaking to my mate Gordon, we decided to head down to the Canary Islands. I thought it would be interesting to split our trip across two islands, and after checking out ferry and flight options between the various constituents of the archipelago, we settled for Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura.

Minimal fishing tackle, at the ultra light end of the spectrum, was packed into my suitcase, and after arriving in Gran Canaria in the evening, we visited a supermarket to get some food for later on, as well as some bait in the form of a packet of frozen raw prawns. After reaching our accommodation and removing the required fishing gear from my suitcase, we jumped back into our hire car and headed to a spot nearby to open our account. We set ourselves what we felt was a fairly ambitious target of forty species for the week, and dropping small pieces of prawns on split shot rigs down the side at the end of Arinaga’s pier, we quickly caught our first few species of the trip.

There were lots of these Madeira rockfish out hunting after dark. Gordon also caught a solitary black scorpionfish. 

Gordon caught a nice dusky grouper that swam straight into a snag, but being patient and applying just the right amount of pressure, he managed to coax it out again.

Casting further out onto cleaner ground, we both caught a few bastard grunt.

Before we knew it a couple of hours had passed, it was quite late, and we were feeling quite hungry, so we called it a night and headed back to our accommodation for some tasty Spanish tapas, sliced meats, hard cheese, olives and tortilla all washed down with some red wine and few beers. A most pleasant end to our first few hours on holiday. 

The following day, we headed to the southern side of the island. At our first stop, the main target was a Mozambique tilapia. There are lots of them in the coastal nature reserve in Maspalomas, in a body of water next to the sand dunes called La Charca. No fishing is allowed in there though, with lots of signs along the esplanade running alongside it making sure this is abundantly clear. Instead, we went to check out another body of water further inland, away from the coast. At this venue, there were also a few signs around the pond, but they didn't mention fishing!

Feeding the animals is not permitted. Not a problem. I brought some Gulp Angleworm!

There were hundreds of Mozambique tilapia swimming around, so I knew straight away that catching them would be very easy. Using only a piece of line, a single split shot and the heavily scented worm like lure on a small hook, I quickly caught a couple of them, and then we headed off, just in case anything had been lost in my translation of the signs!

Rules circumvented with the aid of an artificial bait, I’d caught my first Mozambique tilapia and also my first new species of the trip!

We then drove further west along the southern side of the island until we reached the village of Puerto de Mogan, where we made our way out onto the rocky breakwater of its golden sandy beach.  

The busy resort of Puerto de Mogan. Fishing is permitted from the seaward side of Playa Mogan's relatively short rocky breakwater. 

The steep cliffs of the south coast of Gran Canaria are home to a few small villages and also large holiday resorts. 

There was a good depth of water in front of us, but our prawn chunks were being quickly stripped from our hooks. Often without any bites registering. This could mean only one thing. That there were lots of pufferfish around. Mainly Guinean puffer, with the odd Macaronesian sharpnose puffer in amongst them. Canary damsel fish were also abundant. These three species are super aggressive and are also adept at rapidly nibbling small pieces of prawn from a hook, meaning that other species which may be present in the area get caught much less often.

A Guinean puffer, by far the most common pufferfish we caught, and we caught lots of them!

The prettier Macaronesian sharpnose puffer with its nice blue spots. An equally annoying bait stealer!

Canary damselfish were also around in plentiful numbers. Their indigo markings are quite incredible, making them instantly recognisable.

After a while, Gordon hooked into something that definitely wasn’t any of the three species above. I got the net ready and hopped down the rocks into a position to land whatever it was that had put a better bend in his rod. I had my suspicions about what it could be, but got a huge surprise when a red banded seabream appeared from the depths.  

Gordon's red banded seabream. Such a cool looking fish! I was very jealous of this capture and wanted one myself badly! It's a species I’ve wanted to catch for over a decade but have never been lucky enough to over numerous trips to that part of the world.

Hoping there were more around, we carried on fishing for a couple more hours, pulling in more of the other, less desirable species. After that we decided to head off to try another spot, but I knew before we left Gran Canaria that we’d have to return to have another session on Playa Mogan’s breakwater so I could try to catch a red banded seabream myself!

Tight lines, Scott.

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Not more species hunting adventures on Crete?!: Part 3.

For the majority of the third night and well into the following morning it rained heavily. When it finally stopped, we decided to head out, despite the fact that it was pretty windy and even more rain was forecast. I had a deep water fishing spot that I wanted to check out, so we drove to that. Upon arrival though, the terrain looked ever so slightly more difficult than I had imagined it would be. As I told Lillian, it’s something that can be hard to gauge when you're looking at new fishing spots on Google Maps!

The spot I wanted to get to. The rocks on the far side of this peninsula at the left hand side of Istron Bay.

Given it could be difficult to access, and more rain was probably on the way, we opted instead to take the elevator of the Istron Bay Hotel down to the lower levels of the resort and then make our way down through those to the beach. Once on that we headed along to the small harbour at its eastern end.

The Istron Bay Hotel from the end of the small harbour where I would fish and Lillian would read a book. The whole time both of us keeping one eye on the heavens, looking for signs they were about to open!

It didn’t look particularly promising to start with, being very shallow and without too many obvious features, but the little harbour actually turned out to hold a variety of species. To begin with I tossed in some bread and freelined small pieces of it in amongst the fish that arrived to feed. Doing this I managed to catch some small derbio and, after much frustration, a solitary boxlip mullet.

They are great fun to catch, and I was hoping some derbio bigger than the palm of my hand would show up, but sadly none did.

It took me a while to catch this boxlip mullet. Like all mullet species, they seem to be experts at nibbling bread from your hook without getting hooked themselves somehow. One for my tally was all I needed!

I then turned my attention to fishing pieces of prawn close to the bottom around the edges of a large submerged rock on the seabed. After a few rabbitfish and puffer were caught, I caught a few Atlantic lizardfish and some small goldblotch grouper. Then a few scorpionfish came out from beneath the big rock and sat motionless to see what all the fuss was about. Dropping a bait near them saw them pausing briefly before lurching forward and gobbling it up. I caught two different species of the aggressive little predators.

As well as a couple of Madeira rockfish,..

…I also caught several black scorpionfish too.

Then Lillian pointed out a small red fish tentatively poking its head out from beneath the rock a little bit before it turned and darted back under it again. Catching a glimpse of it I knew straight away what it was, and a bait was dropped as close I could get it to the curious fish. After having a couple of swipes at the prawn, the fish was hooked and quickly swung up to hand.

Eventually this bright red cardinalfish got brave enough to dart out and swallow my bait. Normally a species you catch after dark, they hide in dark places during the day.

Just after I had returned the cardinalfish, the rain started. Slowly at first, but knowing it could quickly start pouring down, I quickly packed up, and we began heading back through the resort to find the lift. We got a bit lost though, and by the time we figured out where we needed to go, it was raining torrentially, and we got a bit of a soaking. After seeking shelter, it didn’t look like it was going to let up, so we decided just to bite the bullet and dash back to the lift and then to the car. Drying off back at the apartment, the rain persisted, so we chilled out for a while and went out for dinner in the evening. By that point the rain had stopped and looking at the forecast for the rest of the holiday it was staying dry for the remainder of our trip.

The following day we checked out of our accommodation and drove west to the small coastal village of Georgioupolis. It’s a lovely place, and it’s also a great spot for a bit of species hunting, throwing up many different types of fish. Giant goby are present in large numbers and were the first fish I targeted, sight fishing for them in shallow areas up next to the bridge over the town’s river.

There are lots of these super aggressive giant goby around.

Casting out into the deeper water to see what else was around, I immediately caught a few yellow spotted puffer. I think that’s the first time I’ve caught them there, so they’re obviously also tolerant of brackish environments too. The Red Sea is a harsher environment than the Mediterranean Sea in that respect.

Cute? They are a total pest!

After a while, we crossed over the bridge and wandered down towards the mouth of the river. Fishing from the rocky boulders there, I spent a bit of time fishing with various lures in an attempt to catch a bass, bluefish or barracuda. This didn't produce much. I hooked a small bluefish, but it thrashed around in the current and threw my lure. Lillian then spotted a parrotfish, moving around on the rocks directly below us, so I tried to tempt it using a chunk of prawn. It really wasn’t interested at all, so I decided to see if I could find some small crabs I could use as bait. Parrotfish love crabs. After turning over some rocks at the edge of a nearby shallow area I did manage to find a few. Using these as bait proved to be a great decision. As soon as the first half crab was dropped in, the parrotfish quickly ripped it off of the hook. Before too long a few more parrotfish appeared, obviously drawn in by the scent of fresh crab. Eventually, I managed to hook one, but as it charged down the rocks and I put a bit of pressure on it, the fish threw the hook. The commotion spooked all the other fish too, so before we left I decided to ledger my last small piece of crab out on the sandy bottom away from the rocks at the river’s edge. This turned out to be a good choice and my rod tip was soon pulled round by a red mullet that had found my bait on the bottom with its long feelers.

This is a plain red mullet, cousin of the striped red mullet. It’s not as colourful and its fins lack any markings. It's plain!

We had another long drive to do, to get to Agia Galini, so I packed up after that, and we headed back towards the car. On the way I spotted a small fish that I was sure was a peacock blenny. Lillian gave me the green light to try and catch it, so a tanago hook baited with a tiny piece of prawn was dropped down next the crack at the bottom of the harbour wall that it had disappeared into. It was reluctant to come out, and every time it slowly poked its head out a small goby would steal the bait. Some much bigger rusty blenny and giant goby were also occasionally crashing around on the bottom and this spooked the fish a few times too. In the end I spent a fair amount of time trying to catch the little shy fish. Lillian’s usually incredibly patient with my fishing antics, but even she was getting annoyed! Eventually, it did come out, grabbing the tiny bait and I waited a second before lifting to make sure it was hooked. Thankfully it was, and was quickly swung up to hand before being popped into my tank for a quick photo.

The smallest peacock blenny I've ever caught.

Fishing over for the day, we made the drive from the north coast all the way through the island's mountainous interior to the south coast, passing through the breathtaking Kourtaliotiko Gorge on the way. Arriving just after dark, we checked in to our room and popped out into the town for a stroll. After exploring for a while we had a generous plateful of tasty gyros and washed it down with several large and ice cold beers before calling it a night.

The following day it may have been dry, but the wind was battering the shoreline where we were, so we headed to the coastal town of Matala to see the caves carved into the cliffs there.

These caves were carved thousands of years ago. No one's sure by who or for what purpose. Much more recently, they were inhabited by hippies. Now they are fenced off in a protected area, but you can still go inside and clamber around on the sandstone rocks for the sum of four euros.

After wandering around the town and having some lunch, we jumped back in the car and drove to Plakias. The passenger sitting next to Lillian on the flight to Crete had told her that he had been visiting the town every year for the last thirty five years, so we wanted to see what the fuss was all about! It looked nice enough from the end of its harbour, although it was very windy!. Rather predictably a large population of yellow spotted puffer were resident, but in amongst them, I also caught a few Atlantic lizardfish and my first parrotfish of the trip.

No crabs were harmed in the capture and release of this fish!

After being battered by the wind at the end of the pier for a couple of hours, we visited a marina nearby, but that turned out to be another pufferfest, so we decided to head back to Agia Galini. Arriving just as the sun was setting, I was given permission to have a few casts at the back of the harbour over a shallow area with some large partially submerged boulders. It only took a few casts to get a take, and it definitely wasn't anything inflatable that had munched my piece of Angleworm. After a short but dirty fight, a nice goldblotch grouper was hoisted up, photographed and put back to carry on its own species hunting.

One last cast before dinner...

...was well worth it.

So, my species hunting was going very well indeed. Despite some horrible weather at times, I'd managed to catch thirty species in five days which was a great result, even if the majority of fish I had been catching had all belonged to only one species! Anyway, we only had two days left of our trip and adding more species was going to be tricky. The wind was forecast to drop off though, and I had short list of species that I hadn't caught during the trip that I thought could be targeted. I was also hopeful that I'd get lucky and catch something new!

Tight lines, Scott.

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More species hunting adventures on Crete : Part 4.

Midway through the second half of our holiday we headed through the mountains to the south coast again, this time to spend an afternoon in the remote village of Loutro. It really is remote and can only be reached by foot from a village up above it in the mountains or by boat. We decided to take easy option, taking a ferry from Hora Sfakion and after no time at all we arrived.

Loutro is very picturesque with all its buildings painted in the traditional Greek island style, white with blue doors and windows.

The small street that runs along the front of the village is full of restaurants so we had a wander all the way along through them before picking one to have lunch in. Most of them had someone trying to tempt you to eat in their establishment but one restaurant took a rather different, feathered approach to its promotion.

This is Coco the parrot. He talks to potential customers. Really they should teach him to say "Try our moussaka!".

After lunch I got the green light to fish from the end of the village's small pier. Around it were large submerged concrete blocks so I fished in the gaps between them. This was productive and after catching a few ornate wrasse I added a couple of species to my tally.

My first scorpionfish of the trip was this Madeira rockfish.

There were also a few parrotfish in amongst the ornate wrasse.

The water out in front of the pier looked pretty deep so after a while I switched my attention to fishing that. The bottom further out was sandy and from it I caught a few common combers, a goldblotch grouper, some Atlantic lizardfish and a couple of wide eyed flounders on various soft plastics fished on a drop shot rig.

A local who saw me catching the wide eyed flounders informed me the Greeks refer to them as "tongues".

I then tried fishing lures further up in the water column too but apart from the numerous small garfish hitting my paddletails I didn't get any interest so I tied on a tiny metal and caught a few of them before packing up so we could sit in a bar in the shade enjoying a cold drink and an ice cream while we waited for our ferry back to Hora Sfakion to arrive.

The next day I decided to get up early and made my way to the rock mark I'd seen from Nikos' boat. Access was relatively easy with goats having made several fairly well worn paths most of the way round the headland and just a little bit of straight forward rockhopping at the end had me in position ready to fish as the sun appeared over the horizon.

The sun rises.

It was quite deep but the bottom was fairly rough close in so after losing a few leads and catching nothing but rainbow wrasse I began exploring the sea bed a bit further out. After casting around in a few different directions and catching a few more rainbow wrasse I then found an area that held some couch's seabream and caught half a dozen of them before things went quiet.

Also known as the red porgy, Couch's seabream was my fortieth species of the trip.

Heading back to the car there was nobody on the beach yet so I had a few casts from it. Slowly working my way along it I caught some Atlantic lizardfish, striped seabream, plain red mullet, black goby and lesser weever.

Later that morning we drove into Rethymno and this time had no trouble parking the hire car down near the harbour. After wandering along the front of the harbour for a while we doubled back and headed up to explore the Fortezza, a large Venetian fortress build upon Paleokastro Hill in the town.

The Fortezza from the road below. There are only a few buildings left inside its walls.

Lillian likes old buildings and castles so she loved it. Not really my thing if I'm honest and walking around in the afternoon heat the non stop noise of the female cicadas was driving me mad. There were so many of them I even managed to catch one from a tree.

What a racket these bugs make!

Wandering back down into the shade of Rethymno's old town's narrow streets was nice and it was quite relaxing just rambling around. Eventually we stumbled upon a lovely little restaurant where we had some lunch.

The old town in rethymno was lovely.

This is the restaurant we found by accident. It's called To Pigadi. "The Well" in English.

A tasty selection of appetisers to tide us over.

For some strange reason after lunch Lillian was desperate to spend an hour or so throwing small chunks of bread into Rethymno harbour. Pretty strange I thought but I went along and threw some in myself, with a hook stuck in each piece of course. Lillian did a great job of attracting some fish and it didn't take long at all for a few mullet to arrive. The usual frustration soon ensued but after a while I managed to get my presentation right and caught three of them before the loaf was all used up.

I was hoping for a flat headed grey mullet which would have been a new species for me but I happily settled for it's thin lipped cousin as it was still another species added to my tally.

The next day we headed to the south coast yet again. I had booked us on a day trip on a boat to a private beach that included a spot of fishing on the way to catch our lunch. I couldn't wait though and before we even left the harbour I had caught some fish in the shape of some annular seabream and a plain red mullet.

Plain red mullet have no markings on their fins and have much shorter feelers under their chin than their striped cousins.

Cruising west along the coast we stopped briefly to visit a cave before headed to the fishing area. The boat was small enough to go right inside but having been on boat trips before whilst on holiday on Greek islands I'd seen my share of "blue caves" before and wasn't that impressed.

Greek island boat trips to see "blue caves" are pretty common and if you've seen one blue cave you've seen them all really. 

After headed further along the coastline we eventually stopped to catch lunch. Whilst everyone else was given a hand line to fish with I used my own tackle and this undoubtedly helped me catch more fish. Everybody caught fish though, mostly common combers but some Couch's seabream, rainbow wrasse and the odd painted comber got caught too.

I caught a solitary painted comber which would be my only one of the trip.

As we fished it became apparent that there were some larger fish around as well. Reeling up a fish my rod bent over briefly before straightening out again after a few seconds. Something had grabbed my common comber and bitten its body off leaving me just the head to wind up. This happened to another angler too so there was obviously a shoal of predators around. after stopping at a few different spots we'd soon caught enough fish to eat so the boat then took us to a small secluded beach where we all got off and relaxed. The crew then set to work preparing our lunch and we enjoyed it under the shade of a small wooden shack built at the top of the beach with wooden benches inside it.

 Delicious freshly caught fish and Greek salad was washed down with some wine.

After driving back to Georgioupolis in the evening I had an hour at dusk down at the river. I focused on fishing soft plastics on jigheads and had fun catching barracuda and bluefish. The odd bass also showed an interest, following before turning away as I worked the lure back closer to me. I was beginning to give up on catching a bass when one appeared from nowhere deep down right in front of me, charging up and swallowed my lure before turning and heading out into the current. It put up a reasonable scrap but with no snags in my vicinity I just took my time and let it take line when it wanted to run. When it tired I quickly landed it and took a photo before returning the fish, much to the disgust of a couple of locals who were fishing further along the rocks.

Released to fight another day. Someone has to release some fish as the locals almost always don't.

The combo the bass took. I'd forgotten how good these particular jigheads and soft plastics were.

Shortly afterwards I headed further upstream to fish just down from the bridge. Sticking with soft plastics mounted on a jighead I caught some yellowtail barracuda and bluefish before switching to a split shot rig baited with ragworm to sight fish for smaller species. This saw me catching blennies, gobies, bogue and I added another species to my tally when I caught a few small axillary seabream.

Rusty blennies have reddish brown tips to their pectoral and tail fins which I'd guess is where they get their name.

The end of our holiday was approaching fast and on our last full day on Crete we drove east along to Hersonissos to visit Aquaworld Aquarium. We love it there and visit every time we are on the island. As we reached Hersonissos however we began passing loads of roadside signs for Dinosauria. Quite by accident we then drove right past the dinosaur theme park. I loved dinosaurs when I was a kid so after asking Lillian if she fancied going for a look we turned the car around and went in.

With lots of large animated models roaring loudly I'd have loved to have visited a park like Dinosauria when I was a kid.

Some of us don't really grow up though.

After finding somewhere to park and quickly grabbing some lunch we headed in to see Aquaworld Aquarium's fish and reptiles. Obviously I enjoy looking at the fish but for me the highlight of our visits is always handling the reptiles. First off we spent a bit of time having a look at the fish though. The majority of the tanks contained local species, most of which I have now caught, but one fish in particular still caught my eye. It was a rather plump red scorpionfish, a species I'd love to catch.

We were informed that this handsome chap had recently devoured two of his tank mates and was relaxing behind this rock digesting them.

In the area of the venue dedicated to reptiles we spent a lot of time looking at the various creeatures on display. The opportunity to handle many of them is what I like most and I happily took anything that was thrust in my direction.

A bearded dragon.

A blue tongued skink.

A small Burmese python.

Lillian, whilst quite happy handling various lizards, wasn't overly keen on the snakes. With a bit of coaxing by the time we left she gotten right into the swing of things.

Lillian worked on her fear by holding this small rather docile royal python which seemed to like her as well.

She was soon confident enough to be cuddled by this large Burmese python.

Before we left we got to see one of the latest additions to the reptile collection, a pair of young basilisk lizards. These are also known as Jesus lizards as they can run very quickly along the surface of water.

This handsome male is called Basil.

Having travelled over 100km to get to Hersonissos it seemed stupid not to wet a line whilst there so I had a hour or so fishing in the town's harbour. It was pretty slow going but after catching a few rainbow wrasse I got a nice surprise when I caught a fish and didn't have any idea what it was. My knowledge of the fish species found in the Mediterranean is pretty good now so this was very exciting! I took a few photos before releasing it and would do some research later on to try and identify it.

The mystery fish. My money was on a wrasse of some kind.

As we were walking back to the car Lillian spotted what she thought was a fish sitting between two rocks on the bottom in a shallow corner. I quickly put my rod back together and as I still had a drop shot rig on I tapped my lead on what we thought was the fish several times. It didn't move to begin with but eventually it must have been sufficiently annoyed by my lead landing on it repeatedly and suddenly came to life. It was a rather big black scorpionfish and after a short swim it took up a new position and sat motionless again so I tried to get my lead in position so that my lure would fall in front of its mouth and be twitched around. The fish just didn't look interested in the slightest however. Perhaps it was already digesting something like the red scorpionfish we'd seen in the aquarium. I was about to give up when it lurched forward, grabbing my lead then quickly spat it out again before swimming off under a large rock out of sight. I tried to tempt it out from its new hiding hole but had no luck. I was kicking myself for not changing from my drop shot rig to a more suitable presentation but luckliy as we were about to leave I spotted another much smaller black scorpionfish sitting on the bottom. Lillian kept an eye on it while I tied on a hook and squeezed on a piece of split shot just above it. A bit of ragworm was slowly dropped down in front of it and the fish gobbled it up straight away.

Dynabait dehydrated ragworm. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively gotta' catch a black scorpionfish from a harbour, accept no substitutes.

On the way back to Georgioupolis I had a think about what else I could possible add to my tally before the holiday was over. A dusky grouper was probably the most obvious target so I sent my mate Andy a message asking him for more info on where he'd caught them when he last fished Geogioupolis. We arrived back just as light was fading and having had a reply from Andy I had a quick go for a dusky grouper. I lost two drop shot rigs in two casts though and as we were hungry I put the rod back in the car and we went for a meal in the excellent Arkadi fish taverna.

Back in our apartment later that night I spent some time online slowly trawling through fishbase on my phone and looking at the wrasse species of the Mediterranean. I eventually found a photo of the species that I had caught earlier in the day. Only first recorded in 2013, Pteragogus Trispilus didn't even have a common name and was yet another species that has found its way into the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal.

In the morning I got up early and headed back to the shallow rocky area to try and catch a dusky grouper again. This time I fished a paddletail on a weedless hook attached to a 3g cheburashka lead,  a much better presentation for the ground I was fishing over. Retrieving this slowly close to the bottom and lifting my rod tip a little when it hit rocks the results were a stark contrast to my lazy, ill thought out approach the previous evening. My first cast produced a common comber and my second a dusky grouper. These were followed by three more dusky groupers before the final morning session of the trip was over.

The right tool for the job...

...yields the right result!

Dusky groupers are great fun on light game tackle, even small ones, so I headed back to spend the next hour or so packing our suitcases with a big smile on my face. Checking out just before noon we didn't have to be at the airport until 19:00 so we drove into Chania to spend a few hours. I couldn't believe my luck when we parked the car and walked around the corner to find a fishing tackle shop! What are the odds? After stocking up on hooks and some soft plastics that I probably don't need we had a walk through town looking around the main market before heading down to the harbour for lunch.

After lunch we still had a couple of hours left before we had to head to the airport so I drove us to Marathi. Its a beautiful little place and I had one last fish from the rocks on the outside of its harbour. The water was fairly deep, the bottom was sandy and after catching some wide eyed flounder, common two banded seabream and Couch's seabream I got a nice surprise in the shape of one final new species when I caught some yellow spotted puffers.

Yet another invader from the Red Sea was my last fish of the holiday.

Before leaving we witnessed some bait fish getting hammered off in the distance around a nearby island. As the area evidently has the potential for targeting larger species and I'd like to revisit it next time I'm on Crete if possible for a session at dawn or dusk.

Predators were feeding hard over by this island. If only we didn't have to leave we could have hired a pedalo.

Sadly the time had come to head to the airport and fly home. Another holiday had come to an end and my Mediterranean species hunt with it. As ever Lillian had been incredibly understanding of my obsessive behaviour and as result my fishing had been very fruitful. Over the two weeks I had caught forty seven species including nine new ones which was a most unexpected bonus. I'd like to thank my mate Andy who offered me some superb information and advice on the fishing around the areas where we were staying as I couldn't have achieved my impressive species tally without his assistance. It would be cool if we could fish over there together in the future.

Here's the final summary of what I caught with the new ones in bold.

1. Annular Seabream
2. Atlantic Lizardfish
3. Atlantic Stargazer
4. Axillary Seabream
5. Bass
6. Black Goby
7. Black Scorpionfish
8. Bluefish
9. Bogue
10. Bucchich's Goby
11. Cardinalfish
12. Common Comber
13. Common Dolphinfish
14. Common Pandora
15. Common Two Banded Seabream
16. Couch's Seabream
17. Damselfish
18. Dusky Grouper
19. Garfish
20. Giant Goby
21. Goldblotch Grouper
22. Greater Weever
23. Lesser Weever
24. Madeira Rockfish
25. Marbled Rabbitfish
26. Ornate Wrasse
27. Painted Comber
28. Parrotfish
29. Peacock Wrasse
30. Pearly Razorfish
31. Plain Red Mullet
32. Threespot Wrasse*
33. Rainbow Wrasse
34. Reticulated Filefish
35. Rock Goby
36. Rusty Blenny
37. Saddled Seabream
38. Sand Smelt
39. Salema
40. Striped Seabream
41. Swallowtail Seaperch
42. Thin Lipped Mullet
43. White Seabream
44. Wide Eyed Flounder 
45. Yellowstripe Barracuda
46. Yellowtail Barracuda
47. Yellow Spotted Puffer

*Since returning home I have contacted the marine biologist who first recorded Pteragogus Trispilus to ask him about how fish species get their common names. He replied and told me that for newly recorded species the person discovering them usually suggests a suitable name which is often related to their scientific name, I this case he has suggested a common name of the threespot wrasse.

One of the many highlights of the trip was catching the threespot wrasse and not knowing what it was. It's a feeling I've not had for a while and as I'm now starting to think about next year's holidays maybe heading further afield would let me catch more weird and wonderful species that I'm not familiar with. I've got one last trip in 2017 to look forward to first though as I'm off  to Gran Canaria with two of my mates at the beginning of December for a week's fishing. Nine weeks to go until we fly out and I can't wait!

Tight lines, Scott.