In hot water.

I had my first session of the year last week. I met up with an angler I met at work and we headed down to the hot water outflow at Torness Power Station to bother the resident mullet. Freelined bread flake on ultra light tackle was the chosen approach and it proved to be very successful but the first few fish we caught were not the intended target species. The resident juvenile bass wanted some of our Warburtons too and we ended up catching more of them on bread than we caught mullet.

Good fun on ultra light tackle in the outflow's current.

Eventually we caught a few thick lipped mullet. Szymon had never caught a mullet before and it was nice to see him catch his first.

I also caught a couple of nice golden grey mullet too. Szymon was hopeful he'd get one as well as he'd never caught one before but didn't get lucky.

Once the tide turned things in the outflow slowed down so I changed my rig and ledgered little pieces of Dynabait ragworm down amongst the submerged sea defence boulders. As always the blennies that live in the artificially warm water were most obliging and catching the cheeky little blighters was a nice end to a good session. Szymon's interested in catching a few new saltwater species this year so I suspect we might fish together again.

Tight lines, Scott. 

2017. Is less more?

I'm a bit late with this review of last year's fishing but better late than never I suppose. 2017 saw me getting out less but when I did manage to wet a line I still enjoyed some great fishing, most of which took place during several trips abroad but I'm going to include a couple of UK highlights too. Finding the time to write blog posts at the moment is difficult due to work and other commitments so I'm going to keep this review short and sweet.

Catching an Atlantic Bonito on light rock fishing tackle.

Caught on a rod rated to 7g this 60cm bonito weighing approximately 7lb is easily the most epic battle with a fish I've ever had. Absolutely awesome! Massive thanks to my mate Nick who clambered down some slippery rocks to land it for me!

Trying a new style of fishing.

To target tiny species I bought myself a "Tanago" rod. Tanago are a small species of fish that the Japanese target, usually with the use of a tiny delicate float and equally tiny very specialised hooks.

To start off I did target tiny fish like minnows and three spined sticklebacks.

After a few session I got curious and wanted to see what the rod could cope with. A session at Magiscroft saw me catching some bigger fish including some small carp which was great fun and the rod coped admirably. 

Species hunting on Crete.

I had lots of fun species hunting during a two week holiday on Crete last summer. One of the new species I caught was this small common dolphinfish which was great fun on an ultra light rod.

I caught forty seven species in total including a few very colourful ones like this cleaver wrasse...

...and this swallowtail seaperch which was another species I'd never caught before.

This Atlantic stargazer, another new species I caught, took a small jig was probably my favourite capture of the trip.

South coast species hunt.

In October I headed to the Devon, Cornwall and Dorset for a five day species hunt. I based myself in Ilfracombe where I caught my first three bearded rockling, a species I've been after for a while.

Mevagissey Harbour's outer breakwater in Cornwall is a fantastic venue for species hunting and I always try and visit it when I'm down there.  The fishing was tough when I popped down for a day but my visit did produce a nice surprise in the shape of my first ever reticulated dragonet.

Getting the lads together on Gran canaria.

It had been far too long since I'd last fished with both Ross and Lee. The three of us first met six years ago on Anglesey and the three of us getting together for a week long holiday on Gran Canaria in December we had a great time.

The fishing wasn't anything special really, pretty much what we've come to expect from a week in the Canaries, but I did catch three new species during the week. One of them was a new species of blenny named Molly Miller which was my favourite of the three. I still don't know where this blenny gets its name.

Molly Miller is a bit of a punk and sports a funky mohican.

So looking back I've added a few more fishing memories to my collection and caught a few fish in good company. I guess fishing less doesn't mean you can't get more out of the fishing you do! I think this year is going to be quite similar. I'm still doing lots of hours at work and have also got some work planned in my flat throughout 2018 but I'm going to try to hopefully get out when I can and also I'd like to try to add one or two species to my UK tally this year if the opportunity to do so arises. Doing overtime regularly means I'm also looking forward to more foreign fishing adventures this year and have a week's fishing on a Greek island with Lee and Ross, a week's holiday on Cyprus with my girlfriend Lillian and what I think will be an epic three week trip to Japan, again with my girlfriend Lillian, to look forward to.

Tight lines, Scott.

Species hunting on Gran Canaria : Part 2.

Having reached the midway point of our holiday and having only explored the coast we were keen to see a bit more of the island. We decided to chance our luck with half a day fishing in a dam without the required licenses. Given the license only costs €3.22 for tourists we figured it was hardly crime of the century and really if had been a lot easier to obtain one we would have happily paid for them. Anyway, off up into the island's interior we went and the scenery as we drove was breathtaking. 

The drive was enjoyable until I noticed how much fuel the ascent was using and got a little worried that we might run out before being able get more petrol!

We pulled over and whilst I tried to find out where the nearest petrol station was Ross and Lee photographed this woodpecker that was battering a hole in a roadside tree.

After successfully locating a small town with a petrol station and filling the tank we headed to our chosen dam to target largemouth bass. Things were slow but making our way around it we eventually started getting a few hits on various types of lures. After hooking and loosing a couple of fish Lee and I managed to land a few small largemouth bass. Unfortunately Ross, who'd never caught one before, didn't manage to get one before we left.

My only largemouth bass of the session took a small Salmo plug.

Having successfully avoided the authorities we headed back down out of the mountains to fish legally only to find it was quite windy with a bit of a swell running on the coast. We visited a few new marks that I thought might be potentially more sheltered but couldn't figure out how access some of them and at the last one the fishing was pretty poor so we threw in the towel and headed back to the apartment to relax and have an early night in preparation for another sunrise session the following day.

Returning to Puerto Rico again early in the morning armed with lure gear we had another go for barracuda and bonito but after a few hours nothing had shown any interest in our lures.

Ross casts out a jig as the sun rises.

Whilst Lee persevered with his lure gear once the sun had risen, Ross and I switched to much lighter tackle. We quickly caught some rockpool blenny and madeira goby to add to our tally before switching our attention to a parrotfish that we spotted swimming in and out of the submerged boulders at close range. While we were trying to catch it Ross looked up to see Lee was into a fish. It turned out to be a barracuda but sadly it managed to escape when it thrashed on the surface just as Lee was about to lift it up onto the rocks. He was gutted and understandably so, Lee and I have a pretty poor record when it comes to barracuda with neither of us having successfully landed one of any size. Shortly afterwards we headed back to the apartment and later in the day we headed back out again, returning to Puerto de Sardina taking both our ultra light tackle and our heavy bait gear. Upon arrival we had some fun with the smaller fish and I set about catching a few more Molly Miller. After catching them the day before I had bought a box of Ferrero Rocher and the contents had been devoured so I could use it to get some better photos of their funky "hair".  

Molly Miller has a punk hair style.

Fishing away we spotted some Zebra seabream in amongst the canary damselfish and ornate wrasse, a species none of us had caught before. The other species around them were much more aggressive however and getting through them proved difficult but eventually we managed to catch a few zebra seabream.

The aptly named Zebra seabream. My third new species of the trip.

As darkness fell we packed up the ultra light tackle, got out the heavy gear and fished large fish baits for shark species. After less than an hour the ratchet on Ross's reel started to click and after letting the bite develop a little he wound down and hooked into a nice fish. After a few runs a nice spiny butterfly stingray came to the surface and after making several attempts to get back to the bottom it was eventually beaten and was successfully landed with help from Lee on the pier's nearby slipway. 

Ross's first cast saw him catch his first spiny butterfly ray and also saw Lee get a little wet.

All excited by this capture we were hopeful this would just be the first of a few but sadly it turned out to be the only fish of the session with the only other brief bit of excitement coming when my rod registered some interest but that turned out just to be an octopus. Pretty tired from a fairly long day we headed back to the apartment.

On the seventh and final full day of the trip we headed to Las Palmas to see if there was anywhere inside its massive harbour area where we could fish. The areas we wanted to fish were all sadly out of bounds but eventually we found a marina where a fishing competition was taking place, located a nice shady spot and began fishing, enjoying a few cold beers. Apart from the zebra seabream the lack of seabream species during the trip had been was noticeable but at this spot we caught a few over a couple of hours in the shape of common pandora, black seabream and common two banded seabream.

It was nice to catch a few more bream species. I caught this black seabream.

Ross and Lee caught a few common two banded seabream.

Feeling hungry we then had a break and enjoyed some tasty Paella, Canarian potatoes and a few more cold beers in a nearby restaurant before having a couple more hours fishing into darkness. Lee and Ross fished heavier tackle in the hope of catching a larger predatory species but didn't have any luck. I fished small baits on ultra light gear and once the sun set I caught lots of bastard grunt.

Our last day on the island had arrived and we got up early and visited a nearby harbour for one last go for larger stuff at sunrise. Sadly the mark was a lot shallower than we had anticipated and we had no luck so we headed back to the apartment to pack and load our cases into the car. As we still had a bit of time to kill we decided to drive all the way back to Puerto de Sardina again for a few final hour's fishing. A bit of groundbait soon drew in several shoals of small fish and we caught loads of bogue, derbio, white trevelly, a few garfish and some puffers.

The puffers, whilst not as prolific as previous trips to Canaries, were still quite annoying, destroying lures and damaging line with their sharp teeth. This Macaronesian sharpnose puffer did have some lovely blue markings on it.

Below the shoals of smaller fish there were a few parrotfish moving around so I dropped down a bigger chunk of prawn to try and tempt one. My bait was barely on the bottom when something came out of the rocks, grabbed it and tried to get back into it's ambush position. It put a a decent scrap but hopes of a nice parrotfish were dashed when a nice black scorpionfish appeared.

Scorpionfishes rock so I wasn't too upset that it wasn't a nice parrotfish.

We were having lots of fun but soon it was time to put the gear into the cases and head to the airport bringing another fishing trip on foreign soil to an end. We'd caught lots of fish using a variety of methods and had a great time on the island.

Here's a quick summary of what was caught...

I caught the following species with new ones in bold...

1. Atlantic Lizardfish
2. Bass
3. Bastard Grunt
4. Black Scorpionfish
5. Black Seabream
6. Bogue
7. Canary Damselfish
8. Cardinalfish
9. Cleaver Wrasse
10. Derbio
11. Diamond Lizardfish
12. Garfish
13. Greater Weever
14. Guinean Puffer
15. Large Mouth Bass
16. Macaronesian Sharpnose Puffer
17. Madeira Goby
18. Madeira Rockfish
19. Molly Miller
20. Ornate Wrasse
21. Pandora
22. Rockpool Blenny
23. Thick Lipped Mullet
24. Wide Eyed Flounder
25. White Trevally
26. Zebra Seabream

Lee and Ross also caught...

27. Black Tailed Comber
28. Common Two Banded Seabream
29. Gilthead Seabream
30. Salema
31. Spanish Sardine
32. Spiny Butterfly Ray
33. White Seabream

More importantly though the three of us had really enjoyed each others company and hopefully it won't be too long before the three of us are fishing together again. We've all agreed that we need to meet up more often and later this year the three of us are planning a week's fishing on a Greek island, most likely Crete. I'm really looking forward to another fishing adventure with these two lads.

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.

Gilty as charged.

On the final day of my trip I had planned to head to Dorset to spent the day fishing Swanage Pier before making the drive back up the road. However, after hearing that small gilthead seabream were being caught in Weymouth Harbour I changed my plan so I could fish there first thing in the morning and then head along to Swanage. I got up early and drove down, arriving in Weymouth just after 08:00 I got my gear out of the car and began fishing angleworm on a dropshot rig. A few hours went by and I had worked my way around the harbour covering a fairly large amount of ground with no success locating my target. After having a break to pester some gobies I decided to concentrate my efforts in one area and switched to fishing with bait. I set up a scaled down three hook flapper rig with #10 hooks and baited them up with small sections of Dynabait ragworm. This produced a few small bass and then I hooked a small gilthead which fell off as I lifted it up the harbour wall. Another hour or so soon passed and having not hooked another one I was feeling a little frustrated so I adjourned for lunch and decided to head to the Weymouth Angling Centre to buy some fresh ragworm. Sandwich eaten and armed with a small amount of great quality bait I headed back to the spot where I'd hooked and lost my target. Baiting up my rig with small pieces of the fresh ragworm I cast it out, started getting bites straight away and I was soon reeling in a small gilthead seabream. I managed to land it this time, the first one I've caught in the UK.

What I visited Weymouth for and caught fairly easily once I changed my approach.

I was one species closer to my long term goal of catching one hundred saltwater species from around the UK so I was pleased to catch it but I was quite annoyed with myself for persisting with the same ineffective approach all morning. It was well into the afternoon and driving along to Swanage Pier when I would have to leave again less than two hours after getting there was just not worth it so I stayed in Weymouth and caught a few more gilthead seabream and bass. I was pretty sure that if I'd bought and used the fresh ragworm when I had arrived in the morning I probably would have had my target pretty quickly and been on my way to Swanage. Fishing lures can be fun but really if you want to catch fish quickly then in most scenarios good quality bait is hard to beat. As a species hunter and someone who just enjoys catching fish the method used isn't that important to me, it just needs to be the most effective one that's available on the day. This is something I know and my choice of approach had in all likelihood cost me a session at Swanage Pier, one of my favourite venues on the south coast. It's not the first time I've been guilty of fishing with lures when quality bait was available and proved to be the better choice of approach. A bit of an annoying way to end my trip but with several potential targets available on the south coast I'll be able to visit Swanage the next time I'm down.

Tight lines, Scott.