More species hunting adventures on Lanzarote : Part 1.

When my mate Nick asked me where he could go for a cheap break on his own I recommended the Canary Islands or Madeira. He ended up booking up a week's holiday on Lanzarote. I say holiday but between him booking up and me asking if I could join him a few months had passed and by that point his itinerary was shaping up into what sounded to me like some kind of "Tinder rampage". Anyway, once he said I could be his wingman and I booked up all thoughts of exotic birds were put on the back burner and we began planning what exotic fish we'd like to catch instead. We flew out on the 4th of May and after dumping our bags at our apartment in Puerto del Carmen we hit the nearest rocks. Lessons learnt from our trip to Fuertaventura about the dangers of the sun we slapped on plenty of factor fifty and braved the midday heat.

Blue sky, blue sea, fish biting and a cooling Atlantic breeze. It was good to be back on Lanzarote.

There was nothing fancy about our style of fishing. Angleworm and fish fry on drop shot rigs were soon catching all the usual species found at close range, damselfish, ornate wrasse and puffers being the main species fighting over our highly attractive offerings.

Shoals of Canary damselfish hug the rocks at close range.

Puffers soon started destroying our lures and damaging our line. Truth be told they are a bit of a nuisance although when they do this party trick it's quite amusing.

Azores chromis were a slightly less common capture. The seem to be greatly outnumbered by their darker cousins. Another pretty little fish.

This saddled seabream was probably the biggest fish of our first session and was good fun on my light game setup.

Being quite tired from the early start, travel and fishing in the sun we had a reasonably sensible evening and in the morning we got up early and headed to a rock mark in Playa Blanca for first light. We started fishing with light lure gear in an attempt to catch bonito, bluefish or barracuda but after thrashing the water with a few different lures until the sun was up all we had managed to catch between us was a solitary greater weever that took my Savage Gear psycho sprat jig. Nick persisted fishing larger lures for a while but I switched to light game gear which soon had me catching a few smaller fish.

This Couch's seabream was amongst the fish I caught.

In the afternoon we headed to the back of Playa Blanca's ferry port to fish from the rocks on its outer breakwater. This produced a few ornate wrasse, damselfish, puffers and a few common pandora along with some axillary seabream and bogue. It was noticeable that the last species became much more active when ever the ferry passed by. No doubt the bottom being churned up by its propellers was producing some food for them and encouraging them to feed.

A small bogue.

On day three we headed along the coast to fish from the rocks into the mouth of Puerto Calero's large marina. Whilst I fishing angleworm on a drop shot rig Nick tried fishing a large bait under a float but this didn't interest anything so he tried ledgering a bait instead. This eventually produced a nice gilthead seabream. In the afternoon I decided to get smelly hands too and fished slivers of squid. We fished well into the afternoon and added a few more species to our tally including some nice seabream.

Striped seabream.

I caught a nice gilthead too.

Later on a small shoal of juvenile bass arrived that kept coming into close range. Freelining small chunks of squid proved an effective way to catch them. In amongst the bass were some other fish that I thought were salema but when I caught two of them I realised they were in fact a new species but I had no idea what they were. My knowledge of the fish species of the Canaries is now pretty good so this in itself was quite exciting!

I'd later discover that my first new species of the trip were Bermuda sea chub.

Heading back to the apartment for something to eat and without the wind cooling us it soon became apparent that Nick had missed a part of his ankle when applying his factor fifty and had burnt it qite badly. In the evening we headed up to Arrecife to check out a few spots and ended up walking all the way out to the end of a breakwater that extended quite far out to sea. Parking the car had proved difficult and the car park we eventually found closed at 22:00 so we didn't fish for long. Amongst all of the ornate wrasse and puffers Nick caught a nice white seabream. Once it got dark we caught a few saddled seabream as well before calling a night.

We were really racking up the seabream species.

The sun sets over the island.

As we walked back to the car Nick explained that his son Harry had asked him to try and catch a rare region specific Pokemon for him and as we drove out of Arrecife he spotted the one he'd been tasked with catching. We were driving along a one way street when he spotted it on the map though so we couldn't stop the car to get closer so we agreed to return to the spot where he'd seen it another day. Back at the apartment we overdid the cerveza and honey rum a little and had a lie in the next day. The start of the holiday had been great and we had caught a lot of fish. The best was still to come though.

Tight lines, Scott.

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Nuclear fishin.

I spent a few hours down at Torness Power Station outflow yesterday pestering the resident bass again. After catching a few at distance on a slowly retrieved metal and a jighead mounted paddletail I switched to jigging micro metals at close range. It was great fun and I even saw some of the takes as the fish came from the bottom to grab the lure which is always exciting.

I fished a few diffirent micro jigs and the bass were loving them. This one is a cheap and cheerful Hart X-Mebaru jig with one of my own assist hooks attached to the top using a micro clip. Almost all the fish were nicely lip hooked. Great for catch and release.

I like fishing with metals and it's really something I should do more often. With doing so in mind I think I'm going to be stocking up on more jigs in the 3-5g range. I might get the vice out and tie up some more micro assist hooks to use with them as well.

Tight lines, Scott.

Fin perfect.

I caught a few small bass today on one of my favourite metals, the Reins Palpuntin. Their spiky dorsal fin looks pretty damn cool. 

More light game fun on Madeira.

I enjoyed a week's holiday down on Madeira last month. It was a family holiday but as ever I managed to squeeze some tackle into my suitcase and did a spot of light game fishing. Conditions varied throughout the week but as the island is small and we had a hire car I always managed to find some shelter and did a bit of fishing. There were no real surprises in what was caught although I did catch a few sand smelt that looked quite different to the ones I've caught before in the UK and I'd later discover they were a new species.

The first day it was pretty wet. Especially up in the valley where we were staying.

For my first session I started off fishing inside Porto Moniz's deep harbour. Things were pretty slow but I eventually caught some ornate wrasse which were present at short range amongst rocks and close to the harbour's walls.

Aggressive and toothy lizardfish were caught further out. Both the diamond and Atlantic varieties were in their usual full on kamikaze mood and I caught both.

Canary damselfish were another species I caught. Pretty little things.

Towards the end of my first session I tried fishing from a new spot on the rocks at the back of the large swimming pools at Porto Moniz. It was a nice mark and after catching a few more small fish I hooked something bigger straight down the side which had my rod bend over and tried its best to get into the rocks. After a couple of hairy moments a dusky grouper appeared on the surface, beaten I thought, but it managed to throw the hook with one last thrash as I got into position to land it.

A nice spot but a change in the wind's direction during the night would prevent me returning due to the swell which was a shame.

The following afternoon we drove up onto the plains at the western end of the island and then back down the winding cliffside roads where we had lunch in Porto Moniz. On the way back to Sao Vincente we stopped and I had an hour or so to fish.

The apartment had a lovely garden and when the sun came out so did the lizards.

Considering it is basically a large lump of volcanic rock Madeira is an incredibly lush island.

As well as revisiting places I fished the last time I was on the island I tried a few new spots as well. This spot near Seixal looked good on Google Maps and access was pretty easy too as there was a road all the way down leading to a swimming pool at the bottom.

Looked quite promising.

Drop shot rigs were the main method I employed during the trip. In deep water and windy conditions they offer great control and a lot of the fish are near the bottom anyway.

I fished at the end of a strange twisted lava rock formation. Again though the fishing was tough and most bites came at close range from the usual suspects.

Puffers are cool fish but generally are a bit of a pain. They bite soft plastics to pieces with their razor sharp teeth often damaging your line in the process. Occasionally I'd manage to hook one.

Half way through the trip the girls spent a day walking in the forests around the valley where we were staying and I got the use of the car. I headed to the South coast of the island to fish a few spots there hoping for flatter seas as the wind was now coming from a northerly direction. The harbour at Ribeira Brava was my first stop and it had a big shoal of small fish taking shelter in it. Rigging up a 3g jig with a tiny treble hook and twitching it through them soon saw me discovering what they were. Most were tiny Atlantic chub mackerel but I also caught what I'd later discover were my first ever big scale sand smelt. 

The big scale sand smelt has a much shorter snout and less scales along its lateral line than the variety that is found in the UK.

Afterwards I headed further west to explore some more new spots but overall the fishing was really pretty poor and I ended up heading back up the west coast to Porto Moniz again where I sought shelter inside the harbour. Ornate wrasse, lizardfish  and Canary damselfish again made up the bulk of the fish caught but I also added a few more species to my tally in the shape of a Madeira rockfish and parrotfish.

Small but...

...perfectly formed.

Before I left to head back for dinner I tried a new spot further round inside the harbour which was much shallower and had a bit more structure on the bottom in the form of some rocky areas. This held a few common two banded seabream.

Good fun on my ultra light tackle..

On the way back to Sao Vincente I couldn't resist popping down to revisit the harbour in Seixal. The last time I was on the island and briefly fished it the water inside was very dirty but on this occasion it was very clear and this made it much easier to quickly catch a few of my target species. After shaking a few off the hook I decided not to risk being stung any longer and called an end to catching poisonous fish.

Siexal harbour is full of fine black sand. The lesser weevers that spend most of their time buried in it have adapted to match.

Towards the end of our trip we headed all the way up into the island's mountains again to visit the small village of Santana. There we saw some examples of what typical houses on the island looked like in the past.

Quaint little dwellings.

After visiting Santana we went down to the coastal town of Porto da Cruz for lunch. Before we left I did have a few chucks here from the rocks at the western end of the beach but sadly all they produced were a solitary ornate wrasse.

On the last full day of the trip the girls wanted to spend the day shopping and exploring the capital Funchal. After dropping them off I headed east and tried a final new spot, a small concrete pier below the cliffs at Porto Novo. The water there was very deep and I enjoyed my most productive session of the trip in terms of the number of fish caught. I added two more species to my tally in the shape of a few saddled seabream and common pandora. I also saw some very brief surface activity at one point but by the time I had rigged up a jig and cast it towards the area it had all ceased again.

My last few fish of the trip were common pandora.

Fishing in the winter can be tough and I think the fishing on Madeira, relatively speaking, is the same. Both times I've visited the island in February and I really need to visit in the summer as I think the fishing will be so much better and I now have a fairly good knowledge of different marks to fish. Maybe next year I'll do just that but in the mean time I've got a few more holidays booked this year to look forward to. I'm off to Lanzarote with my mate Nick at the start of May for a week's fishing and we might pop over to La Graciosa to see what the fishing is like over there as well. At the end of August I'm off to the western end of Crete with Lillian for a fortnight and some tackle will be going too. You an't beat some foreign light game fun. Even when it's poor it's still better than going out in the freezing cold here! That being said, I've not been out fishing in the UK for way too long and that is something I plan on rectifying soon.

Tight lines, Scott.

2016. Mixing business with pleasure.

I've not been out fishing yet this year, mainly due to catching every bug that seems to have been going around and also hurting my foot. Whilst recovering I've had plenty of time to look back at the fishing I did in 2016, think about the year ahead and ponder what direction my fishing might take.

The weather at the start of last year was truly dreadful. By the end of January I hadn't been fishing at all and badly needed a fix. To try and escape the harsh UK winter I took advantage of some very cheap flights and headed to Santander on the north coast of Spain for a few days with my girlfriend Lillian. Conditions there were not, shall we say, exactly conducive for using the light game tackle I'd taken with me. Still, we enjoyed our short stay and I managed to find an hour or two here and there, along with some shelter up the estuary away from the open coast, where I successfully winkled out a few small fish.

The conditions on the coast weren't ideal for the tackle I had with me.

My first fish of 2016 was this feisty common comber.

Luckily I didn't have to wait long to escape the miserable UK weather again. In March I was off abroad again for a week's fishing on Fuertaventura with two of my mates, Lee and Nick. The windy conditions hampered our lure fishing for larger species but we found some sheltered spots, caught lots of fish on our light game tackle and had a great time. As well as enjoying fishing in the sun all over the island, eating plenty of tasty seafood washed down with cold cerveza and rum, the trip also had some memorable pain related moments. Lee and I endured some epic sunburn whilst Nick experienced a slightly painful greater weever sting and accidentally fell down a hole in a breakwater we were fishing from after dark. No lasting damage was done and amongst over thirty species by the three of us I managed to tempt my first redlip blenny out of a harbour wall crack after much persistence. A species I've had several frustrating failed attempts at catching during past visits to the Canary Islands.

It was good to finally get this blenny off of my back. I've seen lots of them in the past but find the species to be a rather fussy little buggers.

They have quite an odd upper lip and a big set of fangs too.

Back in the UK again things began warming up and I enjoyed a surprise capture when my mate Dan and I visited Greenock in April to target wrasse. While we were setting up our tackle another angler told us that he had caught a tadpole fish there a few days previously. Very interesting we thought but were still quite shocked when Dan caught one shortly after we started fishing. It was very cool to see one in the flesh but to say I was a little jealous would be an understatement and I thought catching two in one day was a bit of a tall order. Towards the end of the session however I got lucky too and caught one as well which I was over the moon about.

The aptly named tadpole fish.

They have a huge cavernous mouth filled with lots of little sharp teeth.

In May I left the UK yet again and headed over to Ireland with my mate Martin for a few days, to have a go fishing for shad in St Mullins. I've been saying I'd go over for the shad's arrival for a few years now so it was good to finally go there to join the dozens of anglers who line the banks of the River Barrow to try and catch these rare fish as they head upstream to spawn. It was a fairly wet but enjoyable trip, we both caught our first shad and I'd love to go back and do it again.

Tazmanian devils ready to go. These are the lure of choice for most who turn up to target the shad.

Shad are a beautiful fish whose scales reflect the light in a multitude of iridescent colours. Photos just don't do them justice at all.

Martin with one of his many shad. He caught over fifty.

In June I got myself a new job in the soon to open Edinburgh Angling Centre. Getting the shop ready for its opening in August was a big task and this meant there was plenty of overtime available. Whilst this meant I had lots of money to spend on fishing tackle at a discounted price it also resulted in less time for me to go fishing sadly. Come the end of July I was glad to get a break from setting up the shop and went on holiday for a fortnight to Croatia with my girlfriend Lillian. Light game tackle went too and I enjoyed a fair amount of fun fishing in the Adriatic for the first time as we travelled up the county's stunning coastline from Cavtat all the way up to Pula. The highlight of the fishing I did during the trip was a session catching several gilthead seabream that gave my reel's drag a vigorous work out.

These give a great scrap on light game tackle. Awesome.

One of my targets for 2016 was to try and catch a dozen new species of fish. By October I had caught eleven and headed to Loch Etive to try and complete this little personal challenge by catching a twelfth. My target was the diminutive fifteen spined stickleback and I had an enjoyable few hours wading in the bladderwrack hunting them, eventually tempting one out of its weedy lair with a tiny piece of ragworm fished under a pole float which it eagerly shot out and attacked in a most aggressive manner.

Such a cool little fish.

Later that month my mate Lee came up to visit me for a week and we headed up to the Highlands for four days. We enjoyed the scenery, tested my car's breaks to avoid wildlife that had strayed on the road, had some great food and drink and some varied fishing too. For me the highlight of the trip was meeting up with my mate Dimitrios over on Skye and us both witnessing Lee catching a ling on a slow jig whilst we were targeting big pollock below the iconic lighthouse at Neist Point.

Highland cow roadblock. Can't get much more Scottish can you?

Lee's first ever ling was a cracker. Probably my favourite fish of the year and I didn't even catch it.

In November I tried to add a thirteenth new species to my 2016 tally. I drove all the way down to Nottingham on my day off after receiving some information about a venue that I was informed held a health population of the UK's smallest freshwater fish species, the nine spined stickleback. A long way to go for a tiny fish but I caught my target and had a lot of fun micro fishing so it was well worth the effort made.

I drove over 500 miles in one day to catch this little chap. Nurse!

As last year drew to a close I managed to get out a few times to trot maggots for grayling. After a few sessions where all I caught were out of season brown trout I managed to catch some lovely ladies of the stream. I love fishing with a centrepin. I finding it rather relaxing and during these sessions I also improved my casting technique a lot too. I'll be doing more of it before winter is over hopefully.

A perfect way to end the year.

So whilst I did less fishing last year than the previous few, mainly due to working more hours, 2016 still produced some enjoyable sessions, a few interesting new species and provided me with a few more great fishing memories. As I mentioned at the start of this post, this year hasn't got off to a great start and I've yet to wet a line in 2017.  I'm off to Madeira in a fortnight for a week long holiday though so I'm looking forward to that enormously. I've also been thinking about what other destinations I'd like to visit later in the year and I might travel further afield. I turn forty this year as well so I think a big fishy adventure of some description is on the cards. Closer to home, I'm not quite sure where I want to take my UK fishing this year if I'm honest. Whilst I'm enjoying my new job it will no doubt limit my fishing opportunities again this year and that's something I'll just have to get used to I suppose. Target wise I don't think I'll bother setting myself any goals this year and will just try and get out there and enjoy my fishing when I can.

Tight lines, Scott.