More Species Hunting Adventues On Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 3.

Arriving on Fuerteventura for the second half of our trip late in the morning, we couldn't check into our accommodation until 16:00, so we visited a supermarket to pick up some lunch and bait so we could go fishing. To begin with we spent a few hours targeting mullet. I knew there were at least two species in the area, thick lipped and golden grey, with a third, the flathead mullet also potentially present. This third species would be a new one for me. After hastily pulling out the tackle we needed from my suitcase in a car park, we headed to some rocks in Caleta de Fuste between the town's marina and beach. After having some lunch, we set up our gear, made up some groundbait, and began fishing.

Our chosen spot for the afternoon's session.

We did spot a couple of mullet cruising around, and float fishing bread flake, whilst continually spooning in small amounts of groundbait, we were hopeful we could attract a few more into the area in front of us. Over a few hours, we caught quite a lot of fish, but amazingly none of them were mullet! We did add six species to our tally for the trip, so whilst the mullet fishing was a complete failure, it still turned out to be a fantastic start to our time on the island. As well as the five species below, Gordon also caught a single common two banded seabream. 

First out for both of us were a few Moroccan white seabream.

We also caught quite a few of these Bermuda sea chub. They put up a great little scrap.

We also caught some small striped seabream.

I caught a solitary saddled seabream.

Finally, we caught a couple of small derbio.

With an hour or so left before we could get into our accommodation, we headed to a small man made pool of water situated on the upper shoreline behind the Elba Sara Resort. This long, narrow pond seems to be connected to the water features in the resort's grounds via some pipes at its top end. It was full of mullet, with the odd Madeira goby sitting motionless on the bottom. Much more interestingly, there were good numbers of sailfin molly around the edges! I also watched a common eel appear from one pipe and swim into another, so we didn’t know what else was in there! When we first arrived, there were a few people feeding the fish, but they soon all left, we had the pond to ourselves for a while, and set about catching some of the inhabitants. A few mullet were quickly landed and all were carefully identified.

All the fish we caught were thick lipped mullet. There may have been some golden grey mullet present but we didn’t catch any. I did see one flathead mullet in the pond, identifiable by a yellow edge on the bottom of the anal and tail fins. This sighting would lead us to return to the pond again a couple of times later in the trip.

Turning my attention to catching the sailfin molly, I tied on a tanago hook and lowered in a tiny piece of bread. A small group of them were soon eagerly nibbling away, but hooking them proved tricky as more often than not, they simply knocked the bread off. Switching to a tiny piece of raw prawn was a good choice, it stayed on the hook point longer, and I had quickly caught a few of them on it.

Such a cool little fish and my fifth new species of the trip too! Who would have thought you could catch them from a pool on a beach in the Canary Islands!?

Their colouration varied greatly, due to melanism I think, but I'm confident they are all the same species.

I caught this much plainer example.

The first three were all females. I then caught this colourful male with its huge dorsal fin!

After heading to our apartment up on the hill, right at the back of Caleta de Fuste, to check in, we immediately headed back down to the coast again to fish from the rocks just on the northern edge of the town.

We headed out to the tip of this rocky peninsula, where we got down close to the water's edge.

A few hours here produced a lot of Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse, both species of pufferfish and planehead filefish. In amongst those however, we sporadically managed to pull out a few species that were additions to our trip tally, and on that front, it was quite productive.

Gordon caught a single annular seabream,...

...and a solitary black seabream.

In close, I caught a parrotfish,...

...and a few Azores damselfish. No incredibly striking colours on these, but they are still quite an attractive damselfish in my opinion.

So, our first day on Fuerteventura had unexpectedly seen us add a dozen species to our tally, taking it to thirty eight! With three full days left to fish, surely we'd have no problem hitting our target of forty? I was very confident, and we joked about trying to catch fifty, but you never know, we could equally struggle to add any more. That said, there were a few species I thought we could target, and I was also hopeful that I'd catch some more new species as well. If we fished into deep water, maybe I'd get lucky and catch a red banded seabream? I was also still keen to catch a glasseye, but could I find a spot holding them? I had a potential venue in mind, but would it hold them? Having confirmed the presence of flathead mullet in the area, maybe we could catch one of those? It had been a great trip up to that point, easily my most productive ever in the Canary Islands, and regardless of what number of species we'd end up on, we were both looking forward to visiting other areas of the island and catching a lot more fish before our time fishing in the sun was over!

Tight lines, Scott.

More Species Hunting Adventues On Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 2.

The next stop on our first full day on Gran Canaria was quite similar to the one before, another breakwater for a busy beach. This time, it was the eastern breakwater of Playa de Amadores. Also constructed from very large boulders, the end section is lower down that the start and concrete has been poured in between the boulders, making for a comfortable fishing experience, with no risk of tackle boxes going down into gaps, never to be seen again. After finding a spot, we began fishing, and quickly caught a few puffers, Canary damselfish and our first ornate wrasse of the trip.

I remember catching an ornate wrasse for the first time and how excited I was! They are still a beautiful species, but over a decade and several hundred ornate wrasse later, I don't quite get the same buzz.

After a while, I took a short break from fishing in the sea to quickly raid some small man made “concrete and rock” pools behind us. You can't ignore small bodies of water and the species they hold when you're on a species hunt.

It didn’t take more than five minutes for me to tempt a few Madeira goby..

...and rockpool blenny, taking our tally into double figures.

Returning to fishing in the sea, I turned my attention to the numerous redlip blenny that were sitting on submerged boulders all along the edge of the breakwater. Predominantly an algae eater, I find them difficult to catch. They generally either ignore your bait, or simply swim off as it lands in their vicinity. Eventually, I dropped my prawn down in front of one large specimen that actually seemed interested/agitated by its sudden arrival in its proximity. The only problem being that a large swarm of other, much more aggressive species, would dart over and fight over the bait, spooking my target in the process. I persisted for well over an hour. Failing to hook the fish a few times in between catching several other "pest" species. I thought it might lose interest, but I think it was acting out of aggression, defending its territory, rather than trying to eat my bait. Eventually my perseverance paid off though, and I managed to strike fast enough to hook only my second ever redlip blenny. It was wound in rapidly and quickly swing up into my waiting hand! I was so excited to catch it, Gordon asked me if it was a new species!

One of my favourite blenny species. Big and chunky, they're up there with the tompot blenny in terms of character, in my opinion anyway. 

Their top lip is a large flap that it drags along rocks to harvest the algae from them. A very fussy eater. 

Such a funky face and their eyes move independently too, making for some entertaining expressions. 

To end the day, we headed to a small harbour back up the east coast of the island, reasonably close to our accommodation. The main target species there was glasseye, a member of the bigeye family. They are a nocturnal fish ,that lives in caves and down in amongst breakwater boulders during the day, coming out to feed at night.

Our target species, the glasseye.

We fished for a couple of hours, most of which I spent shining my headtorch around, hoping to catch the reflections from the large eyes of our target species. Sadly, they didn’t seem to be present, so we turned our attention to fishing on the bottom over a sandy area. We caught a few bastard grunt and greater weever. Gordon also caught a solitary black goby.

The electric blue markings of this greater weever were particularly vivid under the intense light of my headtorch.

Before we left, a couple of huge stingray arrived and cruised around the bottom, hunting for prey. It was a cool sight at the end a fairly long day's fishing, so we called it a night and headed back to our apartment. 

The next day we decided to head all the way up to Sardina on the northwest coast of the island, to a spot I visited several times the last time I visited Gran Canaria and caught a good variety of species there. On the way, we stopped at a supermarket and bought some raw prawns, squid and bread to use as bait and also a few extra loaves to make up a bucket of groundbait. Arriving in the town and walking down to its small pier, we were soon spooning in our groundbait and had attracted a few fish. Freelining small pieces of bait down through the feeding fish, we soon caught a few bogue.

Fairly large as far as bogue go.

A few derbio also arrived, along with quite a lot of another species that I didn’t quite recognise. I spent a fair bit of time trying to catch one of those and briefly hooked a few, but after a few seconds they would come off. Occasionally, when my bait got closer to the bottom, I’d catch a Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse or a Madeira rockfish. Then I caught a small blenny from the rocky sea floor, that took the tip of a small squid tentacle. Unsure of its identity, I began to carefully examine it.

Initially I thought this could be either a ringneck blenny or a mystery blenny.

Checking its neck it certainly had a couple of rings, but I wanted to check the cirri too, so I popped it into my photo tank. 

The fish’s cirri were relatively long and very thin. They were branched too. On a ringneck blenny, they all begin from a common base, so it wasn’t one of those. They didn't look like the cirri of a mystery blenny however, being much too thin. So, what species had I caught?

Doing further research when I got home, I discovered that there was a third similar species found in the Canary Islands, the monkey blenny. Studying photographs of this species, its cirri much better matched those on my specimen, being branched and very thin. So this turned out to be my second new species of the trip, although it is quite possible that I've caught one before on Lanzarote and misidentified it as a ringneck blenny. In future, I'll be carefully examining the cirri of all blennies I catch in that part of the world! I think this is the best way to confidently identify them to species level.

Meanwhile, Gordon had been fishing further out from the pier with slightly larger baits and was rewarded with a nicely bent rod. After going to ground, he managed to get a nice goldblotch grouper free again, and after a decent scrap, I netted it for him. I then returned my focus to catching the odd fish that were appearing every time I tossed in a few spoonfuls of groundbait. After hooking and loosing a few more, I was just about to run out of groundbait, when I eventually got a decent hookset on one and landed my third new species of the trip.

Again, a bit of research was required later on before I was able to positively identify this as a Madeiran sardinella. The black spot behind the gill plate and the grey tail fin with black tips being the key distinguishing features.

Towards the end of the session, Gordon stuck with fishing slightly larger baits a bit further out, whilst I decided to switch to targeting some predatory fish. I started off fishing some small soft plastic lures on cheburashka weights close to the bottom. This surprisingly didn't produce anything, so I switched to a small metal jig, which also didn't tempt any fish. It wasn't until I tried twitching a small sinking pencil lure over a shallow rocky area to the right of the pier, that I caught a few lizardfish. Not long after that, the sun set and we decided to call it a day.

An Atlantic lizardfish. I also caught it's cousin the diamond lizardfish too. They are super aggressive ambush predtors, and few small prey fish escape from all those inward facing teeth!

As we walked up the hill to the car we were treated to stunning vies to the north of Spain's highest peak, Mt Teide, off in the distance on neighbouring Tenerife.

Our last day on Gran Canaria had quickly arrived. We decided to head back to Puerto de Mogan again, so that I could spend a few hours trying to catch a red banded seabream. Sadly, neither of us caught one, but we did add a few more species to our tally whilst trying.

There were a few planehead filefish around.

We also both caught our first common comber of the trip. Gordon also caught a butterfly winged comber as well.

Late in the afternoon we headed back to the venue where some species hunters I know caught glasseye. For a couple of hours before the sun set, we fished from the rocks at the end the venue's breakwater. Gordon chose to cast baits out onto a sandy area and was rewarded with a few lizardfish and dozens of greater weever, which he had lots of fun unhooking! I suggested he change tactics before he got stung, but he decided to persist with what he was doing! All the while, I had been clambering about on the boulders, dropping small baits into the gaps between them into dark areas, hoping a glasseye would be hiding down in one. This produced a lot of Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse and Madeira rockfish. After a while I caught a few cardinalfish, a dusky grouper and then my fourth new species of the trip in the shape of an island grouper.

Another nocturnal species, Cardnalfish also like to hide down in dark areas amongst boulders during the day.

Gordon had already caught one but this was my first dusky grouper of the trip.

I knew these we also a potential catch but I was still over the moon when I caught my first ever island grouper.

After it got dark, we moved to a different area along from the boulders and turning my headtorch on, I spotted some glasseye! About a dozen of them had appeared from their hiding places and were swimming around incredibly slowly, about a foot below the surface in a fairly shallow area. Some of them were pretty big, and I was excited to see them. Sadly, despite trying several different approaches, I really struggled to induce a take, only hooking one very briefly from down behind a rock, but it came off after only a few seconds. I spent an hour or so trying to hook another, but for whatever reason they just weren't in a feeding mood, so I eventually admitted defeat.

Heading back to the town where we were staying, we went out to a local bar to watch some football, enjoy some food and a few beers. Back at the apartment, we packed up our stuff in preparation for our flight to Fuerteventura the following morning. Halfway into our trip, we were more than halfway to reaching our target of forty species. Normally adding species gets harder the more you catch, but there were quite a few species of seabream that we hadn't caught yet, and I was confident we'd get a few of them before the end of the trip as well as a few other species too.

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the next part.

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.

Click here for the next part.

All hail the rockling king!

I headed out on Sunday evening for a short session at Dunbar Harbour with my mate Ryan. We were joined by our mate Nick, who lives in Dunbar, and the three of us spent a few hours scratching about with small worm baits to see what we could catch. We were expecting to be plagued by juvenile coalfish, but oddly, there were hardly any around. After a fairly fruitless hour or so fishing inside the harbour, we walked around to its mouth and fished there for a couple of hours. It wasn't much more productive to be honest, but after one or two small coalfish and cod, Ryan caught a few five bearded rockling, and Nick and I pulled out some long spined sea scorpion.

The long spined sea scorpion can be caught all year round!

As our hands slowly got numb in the cold evening breeze, Ryan caught another five bearded rockling. Then another. Then another! He was on fire! Unlike most anglers, I really enjoy catching rockling, so with so many around, I was hopeful I'd catch some too. Eventually, towards the end of the session, I did get one.

What turned out to be my only "slug" of the night was this small shore rockling.

I don't care what anyone says, rockling are awesome!

Incredibly, by the time we called it a night, Ryan had caught nine rockling! All of them the same species, sporting five beards. I think that's the most I've ever seen caught in one session, an especially impressive feat given it was a relatively short one! Having been outrocklinged nine to one, I was glad it wasn't any kind of competition! Funnily, Ryan was a little bit annoyed that he hadn't caught a shore rockling, whilst I was slightly disappointed that I hadn't managed to catch a five bearded rockling. I may pop out tonight locally to try and catch one!

Tight lines, Scott.