Species Hunting Adventures On Sardinia: Part 1.

A trip to Sardinia had been on my to do list for a few years, so when my mate Lee suggested we go, I obviously said I’d love to. Lillian was also keen to come too, so last month we made the long drive down to Lee’s and then very early the next morning, the three of us flew down there from London Gatwick. Lee organised everything and it was nice not to have all the hassle that goes with booking flights, accommodation and a hire car for a change! After landing in Olbia we drove west to Isola Rossa, where we’d be staying for the duration of our holiday. After unpacking our cases, we went for a walk. A strong wind was blowing onshore from the northwest, and the sea was crashing onto the rocks at the back of the town’s large marina, but inside it was nice and sheltered. 

The red rock a few hundred meters offshore that the town is named after.

We decided the inside of the marina’s breakwater would be our first fishing spot, but we were quite hungry so headed back into town for some pizza and beer. 

After our late lunch, we were all feeling pretty tired, so we headed back to the apartment for a much needed nap. When we got up, we headed down to the marina to see what fish we could catch. We decided not to set any kind of fishing targets for the trip. In fact, neither of us had done any pre trip planning, we were happy just to wing it, do some fishing and target whatever species were present. Trying various spots around the marina, it quickly became apparent that we might actually struggle to catch anything! It strangely seemed to be devoid of fish!

Lee fishing away, waiting for bites. 

Eventually I caught a couple of fish. This being the second of two saddled seabream I caught. 

The next day we drove west to Castelsardo, officially one of the most beautiful villages in Italy. From the end of its port’s outer breakwater we got a great view of the ancient fortifications and the colourful buildings on the steep slopes surrounding them. 

The ancient town of Castelsardo.

To begin with, we fished inside the port and were quickly getting lots of little nibbles. Lee was fishing with soft plastics on a jighead whilst I fished small pieces of squid just above the bottom. I had to scale down to a smaller hook to find out what was biting. 

It turned out to be black goby, and they were present in large numbers.

After catching several black goby, and nothing else, we moved along to a gap in the wall of the outer breakwater and fished from the rocks there into the sea. It was quite windy and the resulting swell made fishing tricky. I caught a few juvenile Mediterranean rainbow wrasse further out, whilst Lee pulled out a beautiful East Atlantic peacock wrasse from much closer in amongst the boulders.

Mediterranean rainbow wrasse would turn out to be by far the most prevalent wrasse species of the trip for me. 

Lee’s stunning East Atlantic peacock wrasse. Easily the most colourful example I’ve ever seen. 

After a while we hadn’t caught anything else, so we decided to head back to the car and drove south to the large port city of Alghero. At the first spot we fished in the city’s expansive harbour, there was a large shoal of juvenile annular seabream.

Catching these small annular seabream soon became quite repetitive.

Moving to fish along the outside of the northern breakwater of the port, I spotted a few blenny sitting on some submerged rocks. I had an idea which species they were, but there was an element of doubt in my mind, so I spent ten minutes or so trying to catch one, just to be sure. 

My suspicions were correct, they were rusty blenny. This particular specimen was rather plump!

A bit further along the rocks we found some deeper water and focused our efforts fishing over a cleaner area. Again, I fished small baits just above the bottom whilst Lee fished with lures. There were a few fish around and we were fairly sheltered away from the wind. 

I caught a solitary painted comber,..

…a couple of common two banded seabream,..

… and also my first East Atlantic peacock wrasse of the trip. 

Annular seabream were also around in good numbers. 

Lee wasn’t catching as many fish on soft plastics, so he went off to try his luck at another spot on the inside of the breakwater. When I went over to join him, he told me there were lots of damselfish in a corner next to where he was fishing. I switched to a split shot rig with a very small hook and quickly caught a few of them. 

Although we didn’t have a target, I just couldn’t help myself and added a damselfish to my tally. 

I also caught a few small seabream and wrasse by letting my split shot rig fall all the way to the bottom. Just before we left, I also caught a goby. Swinging it up to my hand, I quickly recognised what it was and realised that I had caught a new species! 

My first ever red-mouthed goby! I had no expectation of catching anything new on Sardinia, so this was a very welcome surprise indeed!

After a while, we walked back to the car, put our tackle in the boot, and went for a stroll around the older walled part of the city. Many medieval features remain, most notably its high sea walls. As well as some sections of the city’s fortified walls, there were several pieces of wooden artillery on display that would have been used to attack the ships of unwanted visitors. 

Quite an impressive catapult and some hefty stone projectiles on display. I’m not sure if this is an original weapon or a reproduction. 

The following day the wind had picked up again, so we drove west to Stintino. Being located on the eastern side of a peninsula we figured it would be fairly sheltered. It was, but when we arrived at the first spot it was raining heavily. When it stopped, and we started fishing, we were quickly approached and politely told we were not allowed to fish in that area. At the next spot the bottom was very snaggy, and the fishing was very slow. Apart from a few juvenile Mediterranean rainbow wrasse, I struggled to catch much else. 

More spots that looked very fishy turned out to be pretty much devoid of any fish. 

With a lot of perseverance, and by moving constantly and trying a lot of different spots, I did manage to add one sharpsnout seabream and a five spotted wrasse to my tally, but it was really, really tough going. 

Only my second ever sharpsnout seabream. 

I pulled this tiny five spotted wrasse out from a deep hole in the rocks.

By this point, it was becoming quite clear that the fishing was going to be very challenging. Most of the areas we visited looked like they should hold plenty of fish, but the lack of any was quite startling. After some seafood for lunch in a small restaurant, we headed back to Isola Rossa. In the evening we fished around the marina again. It was another tough session, but Lee’s persistence with soft plastics was rewarded when he caught the biggest fish of the trip so far.

A cracking black scorpionfish, a nice reward for his efforts. 

The following day, we drove all the way over to the northeast coast. The first two places we visited, we didn’t stay long because it turned out fishing was not allowed. We ended up driving into Olbia where we fished for a couple of hours over an almost featureless silty seabed. We quickly discovered there was a very healthy population of black goby in the area.

All we caught was black goby. The bottom was carpeted with them. I must have caught about fifty of them by the time we gave up trying to catch anything else!

Sardinian goby fest 2025 in full flow.

I did spot a blenny down the side at one point, but it swam off into a crack and refused to come out again. Feeling pretty deflated at this point, we again put our tackle away in the car and spent a few hours wandering around Olbia, Lee treated himself to a pair of hand made loafers, and then we went for some pizza and pasta before driving back to Isola Rossa.

Passing this fountain in Olbia, I was tempted to toss a coin into it and wish for better fishing!

Our first few days on the island had not been kind as far as the weather or the fishing had been concerned. Lee’s East Atlantic peacock wrasse and black scorpionfish, as well as my first red-mouthed goby aside, the fishing had been very disappointing. To make matters worse, much stronger winds were forecast for the coming days, with gusts in excess of 50mph. Before those arrived, we decided to have another evening session in Isola Rossa’s marina.

Tight lines, Scott.

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Species hunting adventures on Malta: Part 2.

On the morning of the third day of our trip, I woke up to find a text message from Gordon letting me know that he was feeling ill, had been up all night coughing, and as a result had endured a pretty sleepless night. He told me he was going to stay in his hotel to try to get some sleep and later on visit a pharmacy to get a Covid test. I decided to have a lie in, and in the afternoon fished locally around Balluta Bay, just in case Gordon felt better and wanted to wander down to join me. Sadly, he didn’t, so I ended up fishing solo until the sun set. It turned out to be quite a productive session, using small chunks of raw prawn as bait, that I bought from a supermarket and transferred into a wide mouthed flask to prolong their frozen state. Fishing both in close, and then at range out in the bay, I added a few more species to our tally and caught my first Mediterranean rainbow wrasse of the trip.

I caught a couple of small salema, dropping my bait straight down the wall of the platform I was fishing from.

I caught a couple of cardinalfish from down in amongst some rocks on the bottom. A nocturnal fish, they hide away in dark places during the day, but still be caught.

This small blue runner also fell for a piece of prawn and gave a great account of itself on my Rock Rover rod.

I was expecting the Mediterranean rainbow wrasse or the ornate wrasse to be the most common wrasse species we would catch, but that was not the case. East Atlantic peacock wrasse were the wrasse species we caught most often.

The following day, Gordon still wasn’t feeling great, so I headed out on my own again. I stayed local, walking down to Balluta Bay again, fishing with small pieces of raw prawn once more. I tried a new spot around the back of the waterpolo pool, but didn’t catch anything new. Painted comber, damselfish and seabream species making up my catch.

A particularly colourful painted comber.

A common two banded seabream. One of several small seabream I caught.

Gordon came down to join me early in the afternoon, but said he didn’t feel up to doing any fishing. He’d tested negative for Covid, which was obviously good news, said he was feeling a little bit better, and would hopefully be back species hunting with me the following day. He also said he didn’t want to give me whatever he did have, but I told him the chances were if I was going to catch it, I probably had already, given we’d been together for two days and had been sharing fishing tackle, bait and a small bait towel during that time! Rather than Gordon just standing around watching me fish, I suggested I pack up, and that we drive north so we could spend a few hours at the Malta National Aquarium. I’m a sucker for a good aquarium, and it was an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours out of the sun. The aquarium had many impressive displays, but my favourite was a relatively small tank with some mudskipper in it, one of my favourite groups of fish!

Mudskipper are awesome! I’ll be fishing for them when I visit Asia next month!

After driving back and dropping Gordon off at his hotel so he could try to catch up on lost sleep, I walked down to a fishing tackle shop to see if they sold live worms. Located near the small stone bridge over to Manoel Island, after confirming that they did stock small boxes of live worm, I went over the road to see what fish I could see hanging around in the shallow water around the bridge. Lots of mullet were present, so I bought a small loaf of bread and set up a two hook rig that I fished under a 1g Avon float. Throwing in some free offerings, they were soon eagerly attacking them and becoming confident. Casting my rig into the chaos, I hooked about half a dozen fish fairly quickly, successfully landing three of them. 

The first I successfully landed was a small thick lipped mullet.

This was followed by two golden grey mullet. Another two species added to our trip tally!

Thankfully, the following day, Gordon was feeling better, and was ready to start pulling his weight in our species hunt! We headed to get a couple of boxes of live worms, and then drove to Senglea, where we fished from a small platform next to the car park beneath Gardjola Gardens. It was a nice spot with panoramic views across the bay. 

Valletta across the water to our left.

Directly out in front of us was fairly deep water that I thought could perhaps produce some different species for us. Looking straight down though as we set up our rods, I spotted lots of juvenile saddled seabream, so we quickly dropped down our rigs down into them caught a few, adding another species to our tally in the process.

There were several small shoals of these juvenile saddled seabream directly below the platform we were fishing from.

A positive start to the session! Casting further out, all we caught initially were lots of painted comber and seabream species, until I finally caught a tiny brown comber. It was so small I didn't even feel it biting!

The brown comber is the smallest of the comber species in the Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Atlantic. Even so, this was a tiny specimen.

An absolutely massive cruise ship then arrived. As it moored opposite us on the southern shore of Valletta, its manoeuvring thrusters stirred up the sea floor. Slowly, the water in front of us went from a lovely clear blue to a slightly murky, pea green colour. The action further out slowed down as a result, so we tried closer in again. This saw us catching some wrasse, a few seabream and I also caught a tiny goldblotch grouper.

The third new addition to our tally of the session was yet another juvenile in the shape of this tiny goldblotch grouper. They all count where you're species hunting!

After that, the bites dried up completely, so we decided to head south to fish Birżebbuġa again. Revisiting the concrete slipway there to begin with, I quickly ticked off a parrotfish, the reason I wanted to fish there again.

Gordon had caught a few on day one, but I still wanted a parrotfish for this year's species tally.

Some local anglers soon turned up to float fish, so we left, letting them have the spot to themselves. Heading back along to the large rockpool by the waterpolo centre, I set about trying to tempt the fussy blenny we had seen during our previous session there. Sure enough, it was out enjoying the sunshine again, sitting on its favourite rock on the bottom. Dropping a tasty fresh piece of worm down in its vicinity, the previously stubborn fish showed immediate interest and moved over, eagerly taking the bait into its mouth. I quickly struck, but pulled the hook straight out of it again! The startled fish swam off across the bottom of the rockpool, disappearing under a large flat rock. Meanwhile, Gordon had spotted a small bass in the rockpool swimming around with a group of small mullet and focused his attention on catching that. Freelining a whole worm, it didn’t take him long at all to successfully do so, adding yet another species to our tally. Patiently waiting for the blenny to reappear, I repeatedly checked to see if it had whilst fishing in the open sea to the right of the rockpool. After catching a lot of painted comber, a few wrasse and seabream species we’d caught already, I caught the first ornate wrasse of the trip.

Another species closer to our target. I never thought I’d be so happy to catch an ornate wrasse!

After a while, the blenny finally came back out again. Lowering a section of worm down near it, the fish greedily snaffled it up again, and this time I managed to set the hook firmly in its top lip. Quickly swinging it up into my hand, I was hoping that it would be perhaps a species I'd never caught before, but it turned out to be a rusty blenny, a species I've caught many times over the years.

Only the freshest, juiciest worms will do! This fussy eater would end up being the only blenny of the entire trip.

To end the day's species hunting, we headed back around to fish over the sand at Pretty Bay. We spent thirty minutes fishing small metals out into the open sea, letting them sink before retrieving them fairly quickly,  using lots of small jerks to try and imitate a panicking bait fish. This saw a tiny barracuda have a go at my lure right at the end of one of my retrieves, and shortly afterwards I caught my second blue runner of the trip, when it smashed my metal as it got about halfway back in. Just before we left, we both caught some juvenile gilthead seabream from shallow water, drawing them out into gaps in a large seagrass bed on the inside of the small pier we were fishing from with small sections of worm.

Without a doubt, the smallest gilthead seabream I've ever caught. Like I said, size doesn't matter when species hunting. Big, small or tiny, they all count!

With two days left of our trip, we were well on our way to achieving our goal, having passed the twenty species mark. On the last two days of our trip, we planned to visit Valletta and take the ferry over to Gozo. We were looking forward to visiting both and hopefully catching the remaining species we needed to achieve our objective.

Tight lines, Scott.

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Not more species hunting adventures on Crete?!: Part 2.

On the second day of our holiday we drove into Agios Nikolaos. After a stroll around Lake Voulismeni we visited the fishmonger, so I could pick up some prawns to use as bait. Whilst there, we spotted our first lionfish of the trip. I was hopeful we’d spot them in the sea before the end of the trip, so I could try and catch one!

These venomous invaders aren’t good news for biodiversity in the Eastern Mediterranean, and to make matters worse they are gradually heading west. They are delicious apparently, so at least if there is a commercial market for them their numbers might be reduced.

Heading down to the first fishing spot, I decided to try fishing with one of the small plugs I had bought the previous day. Not something I fish with that often, as I find I get bored if they don't produce any action fairly quickly. I told Lillian I’d only be having a few casts before switching to fishing closer in with small chunks of prawn.

We headed to the shade of a few trees in the lake’s back corner. This spot has produced a fairly wide variety of species over the years.

On its very first cast out into the deeper water further out, the little minnow got smashed as it got about half way back to me! After a few dodgy moments involving the mooring ropes of the boats in front of me, a nice amberjack was drawn over the net Lillian had ready and waiting! What a team!

This small fast sinking sardine coloured minnow, fished with a quick twitchy retrieve, proved to be very effective!

A small greater amberjack. Great fun on my new setup. What a fantastic fish and start to the day!

Due to its instant success, the lure got a little more time at the end of my line than I had originally planned, but the short fight the amberjack put up must have spooked any other fish that were in the area and nothing else went near it! Eventually I switched to targeting the fish I could see in the shallower areas around the edge and over a couple of hours added a few more species to my tally, including a few different types of seabream.

Saddled seabream,..

...common two banded seabream,..

...and white seabream.

I also caught a solitary ornate wrasse and a rusty blenny. Then I turned my attention to a very shallow rocky area to see if I could catch some of the goby that usually live there. I've caught them in the past and always thought they were Bucchich's goby. As it turns out, I discovered recently that I was wrong.

An angry little ornate wrasse bares his teeth at me.

This normally feisty rusty blenny wasn’t too bothered about being caught strangely enough!

It turns out what I had been catching over the last ten years were incognito goby. This species is very similar to Bucchich's goby, but was only recognised as distinct and described by marine biologists in 2016. Something that I only learned about recently. So, whilst it was kind of my first new species of the trip, it wasn’t really! Looking back over my previous catches I’m pretty certain that I have in fact never caught a Bucchichi’s goby. They’ve all in fact been incognito goby.

In the afternoon we walked around the lake again, and I fished from the large platform that juts out over it. I gave the little plug a few casts here along with some metal jigs. A couple of amberjack did follow the plug but turned away as my retrieval ended. I also fished on the bottom closer in, but it was very snaggy, not very productive, and I only caught a couple of rabbitfish.

The water out in front of the large grey platform is incredibly deep. Over 50m in fact!

After lunch and then taking shelter from a brief but heavy spell of rain, we went for a walk and ended up on the open coast next to a large statue. I fished here for a little while from the rocks behind it, but all I caught initially were yellow spotted puffer. Almost one per cast.

This large statue depicts the “The abduction of Europa.” from Greek mythology.

After a while I was fed up catching puffer, replacing chomped lures and tying on hooks, so I moved to fish over a shallower sandy area. I was hoping to catch a pearly razorfish but all it produced was a few Atlantic lizardfish and even more yellow spotted puffer!

A most welcome Atlantic lizardfish.

I love their big toothy gobs. Not sure their prey is as fond.

Before calling it a day and heading out for dinner in the evening, we headed back to Elounda and then visited the Spinalonga viewing point we had stopped at the day before. I thought the rocks below it looked a promising spot to fish, so we made our way down. It was a lot shallower than I'd thought it would be and after a while all I’d caught were more yellow spotted puffer. It then started raining pretty heavily, so we scrambled back up to the car and headed back to the apartment to dry off.

Rain was on the way, and I was pretty fed up of catching yellow spotted puffer!

In the evening it rained a lot, but eventually it stopped for a while. Armed with my headtorch we popped out to the piers near our apartment and spent an hour or so looking for moray eels. We didn’t see any but did see quite a lot of large crabs moving around on the seabed. I dropped at bait down and one of them greedily grabbed it. This allowed me to lift it out for a closer look before returning it to the water.

We spotted quite a few of these African blue swimming crab. You've probably guessed already, these are yet another migrant from the Red Sea!

After two days on Crete I’d caught twenty species. Not a bad start to the holiday’s fishing! Unfortunately, the rain we’d experienced was just the start of some terrible weather. My fishing plans would have to be flexible. The following day I wanted to try somewhere new. A mark with deep water right in front of it, but would the weather throw a spanner in the works?

Tight lines, Scott.

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