Even More Species Hunting Adventures On Gran Canaria: Part 3.

Keen to try fishing somewhere new, the next day we headed to a spot I'd seen other anglers fishing from in a YouTube video. Isla de Anfi is an artificial island that sits between Puerto de Anfi del Mar and Playa Anfi del Mar. Obviously, fishing in the marina, or from the beach, is prohibited, and as it turns out, fishing on the small island is not permitted either. A local who was fishing when we got down there, came over and told us that the police sometimes patrol the area, and whilst we wouldn't get into serious trouble, they would politely ask us to leave if they found us fishing. We only fished for thirty minutes before he approached us, and as the fishing was very poor, this information made the decision to leave a pretty easy one. I added one new species to our tally before we headed back up the hill to where we had parked the car, meaning the visit hadn't been a complete waste of time.

Isla de Anfi. No fishing allowed. We only spotted a sign as we left. If you decide to try here yourself, I'd visit at first light for a couple of hours.

A solitary small comber made our visit worthwhile.

We then headed west to Playa de Amadores to fish from its eastern breakwater again, but both the car parks were full, so we decided to head back to Puerto de Mogan once again. Having fished there twice already, we knew what to expect. The fishing had been reasonably consistent, and the draw of catching a red banded seabream, or something else unusual, was too hard to resist!

We just couldn't stay away!

Like previous sessions at the venue, we caught a reasonable amount of fish and in amongst the usual suspects we also added a few more species to our tally.

I knew it was a seabream when I hooked this common two banded seabream, but it wasn't the red banded seabream I was hoping would snaffle my squid strip.

I caught the first butterfly winged comber of the trip.

This diamond lizardfish also munched a strip of squid.

As the sun began to get fairly low in the sky, and the beach behind us began to empty, we decided to head around to target mullet for an hour or so in the channel. Ed wanted to catch his first flathead mullet, but there were a lot more mullet present and this made catching them very difficult. Numerous thick lipped mullet were around, and all we caught were those and some small golden grey mullet.

Our first thick lipped mullet of the trip.

Their thick upper lip with its rows of papillae make the species easy to identify.

The following day, we got up early and headed back to Playa de Amadores to ensure we got a parking space. First order of the day was a bit of fun in the rockpools at the end of the eastern breakwater.

I caught a few Madeira goby. They're not shy!

After catching a few fish from the rockpools, we turned our attention to fishing in the sea. I spent a bit of time trying to target garfish using a metal jig. I added a few pieces of thread from my fish handling towel to its treble hook to improve my chances of landed one should I get take, but despite getting a few hits, I didn't connect with any of the culprits. Switching back to fishing on the bottom out in the deep water, I caught a few bogue, as did Ed.

Bogue are quite a pretty seabream species in my opinion, in a sort of subtle way.

In the evening, we headed back to the bright glasseye spot. In my heart, I knew it was almost certainly a waste of time, as the condition were pretty much the same as they had been for the duration of the trip, but we went anyway. Whilst waiting for the security guard to leave and the sun to set, we fished from the beach nearby. The bites were few and far between, but came eventually and we both caught a few fish. I caught a bastard grunt and Ed caught his first Atlantic lizard fish and a greater weever. I caught a small wide eyed flounder and Ed caught his first one too, shortly afterwards.

A small bastard grunt. Much more common after dark in my experience, but you do catch some during the day as well.

Always love catching these pretty little flatfish. Ed was over the moon catching his first one too.

In the end, the conditions inside the glasseye spot were still very poor, so we decided just to head up to Arinaga to fish the pier there for an hour or so. We were both feeling pretty tired at this point, so we didn't stay for that long.

I ticked off a greater weever, just before we decided to call it a day.

We had been fishing pretty hard from the moment we arrived, and being honest, it had caught up with us. In the evening, we decided just to relax. I treated myself to a steak and a few cold beers, and we watched some videos on YouTube about the island and also some fishing videos too. We had two days left to reach our target of forty species, and I wasn't sure if we would do it. Hopefully we'd be suitably refreshed the following day to refocus and get the remaining species we needed.

Tight lines, Scott.

Even More Species Hunting Adventures On Gran Canaria: Part 2.

Early on day three, we headed south again, away from the strong winds that were coming from the north east. Again, our first stop was the small pond in Maspalomas. When we arrived, another angler was already at the  water's edge, fishing away.

No rod required! A little egret stalking its quarry.

Armed with tanago hooks and some bread, we quickly set about locating the suspected convict cichlids that I thought I'd spotted two days previously. It didn't take too long to spot a few, they're pretty distinctive little fish with bold stripes, and they moved around differently to the Mozambique tilapia too, hiding in the rocks in the shallow margins, close to the bottom. Given we were being a little bit naughty again, we caught a few and left before anyone noticed us. It was a fun way to start the day, I'd caught my first new species of the trip into the bargain, and Ed had caught his first convict cichlid too!

Does the fact that they have been released into the pond makes them former convict cichlids?

Heading back to Puerto de Mogan, we began the session fishing in the small tidal channel that runs out through the town to the sea, separated from the beach by a small rocky breakwater. Our target species from one of the blue metal bridges crossing over it, were mullet, and when we arrived, there were plenty of them around. Mainly small golden grey mullet, which we both quickly caught on freelined small pieces of bread flake, another new species for Ed. I also spotted a few that were bigger, a shade of light brown across their back and with yellow anal fins and edges on their tail fins too. We'd stumbled across some flathead mullet, a species I'd seen a solitary example of only once briefly before, last month whilst I was on Fuerteventura. With a bit of persistence, I managed to catch three of them.

My first ever flathead mullet and my second new species of the trip!

They have a very sort snout whose length is less than the diameter of the eye and have thin lips which have tiny serrated "teeth" on them that are just visible in this photo. Another key identifying feature is a well developed adipose eyelid, also shown in this photo. The base of the pectoral fin has a dark spot and when bent forward the pectoral fin reached past the rear edge of the eye.

In the water, the yellow markings on their anal fin and the lower edge of their tail are quite obvious, making targeting them specifically in a shoal of mixed mullet species slightly easier.

Ed tried his best to catch one too, but after a while the fish all became very wary, so we moved down to the end of the channel onto the small rocky breakwater on its left hand side. There, we set about lowering split shot rigs baited with small pieces of prawn into gaps in the rocks. My target species was a hairy blenny, and after pulling an ornate wrasse, a Canary damselfish and a Madeira rockfish out of one particularly deep hole, I caught one. Ed really wanted one too, but after trying for a while longer with no success, we opted to move again.

I find deep dark holes in rocks and boulder are a great place to catch hairy blenny.

They don't look very hairy out of the water, but when submerged, it becomes quite apparent why they are so named.

Heading around to the fish from the outside of the beach's breakwater again, my mind turned once again to catching a red banded bream. Once again the fishing was nothing special with some very quiet periods, but again we caught a few fish and were slowly adding more species to our trip's tally as we did.

There were lots of puffer around, like this Macaronesian sharpnose puffer. They are expert bait stealers, and a lot of the time you don't even feel them doing it! Regular bait checks were the order of the day. No bites after a short period usually meant a bare hook.

I caught lots of these Guinean puffer, but for some reason Ed only caught the more colourful Macaronesian sharpnose puffer.

Planehead filefish are also pretty skilled at stripping bait, with their small mouths and sharp teeth.

Casting out as far as I could, I caught a few blacktail comber. They definitely don't mess about nibbling at a bait!

From closer in, I managed to catch a huge redlip blenny by speculatively dropping my rig onto a rock that seemed to be a stopping point for a few of them. It was out of sight when this fish took my bait. It's the first time I've caught one without actually seeing them take my bait.

Like most blenny species, they can be pretty aggressive when being unhooked and handled. I wouldn't want those fangs in my finger, that's for sure!

On the way back to our apartment in Arinaga, we stopped at the bright glasseye spot again, but if anything the conditions had deteriorated, so we decided not to even bother trying. Checking when we got back, I noticed that the weather forecast had changed slightly towards the end of our stay and the wind was due to drop off the day before we were leaving. Hopefully, this might provide one opportunity to revisit and target them. We decided the following day to start the day off by trying to fish somewhere completely new that I had never visited before.

Tight lines, Scott.

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

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

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

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

We both caught plenty of cardinalfish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tight lines, Scott.

Look what’s been caught!

Since getting back from the Canary Islands last month, I’ve not been out fishing that often. One evening session locally with my mate Ryan only produced two fish. Tough going and a reminder of why I don’t fish much here at this time of year. Receiving photos of yet another topknot and also a reticulated dragonet that had been caught by anglers I know in Greenock, inspired me to travel through a couple of times to try my luck. I’ve caught both these species before, but not in Scotland. Fishing over the spot where the reticulated dragonet was caught for a few hours at the start of the first session, produced a single black goby and over a dozen sand goby. 

This black goby was my first fish of the two sesssions. 

Twitching my tiny bait along the bottom, I caught loads of sand goby. 

Turning my attention to targeting topknot as high water approached for the last couple of hours of the first session, I wasn’t overly surprised when I caught a few small wrasse from down in amongst the gaps in the rocks I was dropping my rig into. 

Goldsinny wrasse are plentiful all along the rocky edges of the venue. Over the summer months, they become a bit of a nuisance. 

Corkwing wrasse are also present in great numbers. 

For my second visit, my mate Ryan decided to join me. I spent the entire session targeting a topknot down in the rocks, whilst Ryan fished a bigger bait at the edge of them, hoping to catch his first ever tadpole fish, another species the venue is known to produce. A brisk easterly wind made it a fairly cold day and to make matters worse the fish weren’t really in the mood. A few wrasse were caught between the two of us, and towards the end of the session, I caught a solitary Yarrell’s blenny. 

Yarrell’s blenny are a strange fish. I love catching them. 

Their head in particular is quite odd. I think it looks a little too small for their body!

So, the hunt for my first Scottish topknot will have to continue. Quite a few have been caught there now, so I’m fairly confident that I’ll get one eventually. A Scottish reticulated dragonet would also be most welcome, although I think that may require a massive slice of luck. Also falling into this category are streaked gurnard, lumpsucker and small-headed clingfish, three other species that have also been caught around Greenock that I’ve never caught before. So, I dare say I’ll be fishing there quite a lot this year. 

Tight lines, Scott.

More Species Hunting Adventues On Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 5.

On the morning of our final day, we headed back to Playa de la Guirra, where I hunted for blennies and gobies around some rocks exposed at low tide. Gordon fished over the sand further out and caught a few wide eyed flounder. As well as catching a few pale black goby, my first of the trip, I also caught a few small rockpool blenny a tiny blenny that looked a little different. Popping one of the black goby and the tiny blenny into my photo tanks, I took a few photos of both.

Black goby caught over sand often have a much paler colouration. 

I haven’t been able to positively identify this juvenile blenny as of yet. 

After one last quick, but unsuccessful stop at the pond at the back of the Elba Sara Resort, to try and catch some golden grey mullet or flathead mullet, we drove all the way north to Corallejo, where we fished from the rocks at the back of the harbour’s ferry terminal. 

Plenty of deep water out in front of us and a nice view too, with Isla de Lobos to the east and Lanzarote off further in the distance. 

Casting out away from the rocks, it quickly became apparent that there was a large ravenous population of Guinean puffer present. They did their best to amuse us, but frankly by that point in the trip, we were sick of the sight of them. 

I've seen this party trick far too many times. It’s not even mildly amusing any more. Well, maybe just slightly amusing!

After catching literally dozens of Guinean puffers and the odd Canary damselfish, we then decided to cast a little shorter, trying to target the area at the base of the rocks in the hope that there would be a few more species there. From there I caught my first common two banded seabream of the trip and a wide eyed flounder. Gordon somehow managed to catch a crab! I think as he wound in his rig he must have let it rest on a rock near the surface and the crab had grabbed it. 

Usually I catch a few of these during a trip, but this ended up being the only common two banded seabream I caught on this one. Gordon had caught one earlier in the trip.

You don't need to be on the beach to catch a wide eyed flounder!

These normally scurry off when you get close, so you don't normally get this good a photo opportunity! I held this one down and quickly took a load of photos as I pulled my hand away!

As we continued to target the area closer in, Gordon eventually caught the first axillary seabream of the trip, and shortly afterwards, I caught one too. The inside of their mouth is bright pink, making them easily distinguishable from other seabream species. Really, the only other seabream that I think they could be mistaken for is the common pandora. Personally, I don't think they look similar at all, the common pandora had lots of bright blue spots over its body!

Also known as Spanish seabream. Species number forty four! One to go!

I then switched to dropping down into gaps in the boulders directly in front of me. Hoping to pull out a hairy blenny, the first fish out was an ornate wrasse and I thought it might be difficult to get through those if there were lots down there. I needn't have worried though, my next drop produced what I was after, and we'd hit our new improved target!

 A female hairy blenny. Species number forty five! Bonus mission accomplished!

Heading back to the car, we jokingly said that we'd try to catch another five species so we'd end up on fifty. Our next stop was the small, sheltered harbour of El Cotillo over on the north west coast, a spot that produced both sharpsnout seabream and zebra seabream the last time I was on the island. Unfortunately, upon arrival we found it was full up heavily coloured water containing tons of suspended weed, making it virtually unfishable. We briefly tried fishing from some rocks to the south of the harbour, but with a residual swell running as a result of strong winds that had been blowing the previous few days, and also the sea floor being very snaggy, we quickly decided to head back to Corallejo, so we could fish from the rocks behind the ferry terminal again. On the drive there however, I took the wrong turn at a split in the road, and we ended up headed south away from Corallejo. We could have carried on and turned around at the next junction, but it was quite far down the road, so instead we decided just to drive back to Caleta de Fuste and fish from the rocks there. Driving through the town to reach the rocky shore, we passed some cool fishy graffiti, stopping briefly, so I could take some photos of it.

The dusky grouper was my favourite. We'd both caught them during the trip.

Followed closely by this molly miller. Identifiable by the rows of cirri on the nape. A blenny species neither of us had caught.

After a short walk, we arrived at our final fishing spot of the trip, a fairly flat rock platform, with very deep water out in front of it. I knew that both Couch's seabream and blacktail comber were potential catches, so we fished two hook flapper rigs baited up with chunks of raw prawn, and cast out as far as we could. We were planning on having a nice meal in the evening, and with an early flight home the following day, we agreed to fish until the sun set. This gave us about two hours to fish.

I'd never fished this spot before and it was very deep out in front of us.

After a while, we hadn't caught anything unusual, just lots of damselfish, pufferfish and the odd ornate wrasse. I tried fishing with a metal jig for a while, but this only produced a solitary diamond lizardfish. Switching back to fishing on the bottom with bait, we were almost out of raw prawn chunks, when I caught a bogue, so we dispatched it and began using small strips of that, once the raw prawn had gone. This produced a lot less bites, but when mine did eventually get taken by something, it was a very aggressive take and my rod had a cracking bend in it, so I knew straight away it was something decent. After a decent scrap a nice Couch's seabream came to the surface, and after a bit of thrashing around, I nervously hoisted it up the rock face.

This small diamond lizardfish was a nice change to the damselfish, pufferfish and ornate wrasse.

This Couch's seabream, also known as a red porgy, was much more welcome! Gordon caught a couple of smaller specimens soon after I returned this one. A nice species for us both to catch during our final session of the trip! Species number forty six!

We fished on until the fish bait had all been used up. Most was just stripped from our hooks, leaving just the skin behind, and we didn't catch anything else of note. In the evening, we went out for an amazing steak dinner and a few beers. It had been a fantastic trip, and we'd both had a really enjoyable time. We'd caught a lot of fish and an impressive forty six different species between the two of us. I'd caught forty on my own, including five new ones!

Here's a list of the species I caught, with the new ones in bold...

1. Atlantic Lizardfish
2. Axillary Seabream
3. Azores Damselfish
4. Bastard Grunt
5. Bermuda Sea Chub
6. Black Goby
7. Bogue
8. Butterfly Winged Comber
9. Canary Damselfish
10. Cardinalfish
11. Comber
12. Common Two Banded Seabream
13. Couch’s Seabream
14. Derbio
15. Diamond Lizardfish
16. Dusky Grouper
17. Gilthead Seabream
18. Greater Weever
19. Guinean Puffer
20. Hairy Blenny
21. Island Grouper
22. Macaranesian Sharpnose Puffer
23. Madeira Goby
24. Madeira Rockfish
25. Madeiran Sardinella
26. Moroccan White Seabream
27. Monkey Blenny
28. Mozambique Tilapia
29. Ornate Wrasse
30. Common Pandora
31. Parrotfish
32. Planehead Filefish
33. Redlip Blenny
34. Rockpool Blenny
35. Saddled Seabream
36. Sailfin Molly
37. Salema
38. Striped Seabream
39. Thick Lipped Mullet
40. Wide Eyed Flounder

Gordon also caught the following species that I did not...

41. Annular Seabream
42. Balao Halfbeak
43. Black Scorpionfish
44. Black Seabream
45. Goldblotch Grouper
46. Red Banded Seabream

This was my seventh trip to the Canary Islands, so it's safe to say I like it down there! I'd like to return at some point in the not too distant future, to have another go at catching a glasseye, and I'd probably take some heavy tackle next time as well, so I could to do some shore fishing for shark species too. The idea of visiting the three main islands of La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, that I've never been to, is also appealing, so I dare say I've not visited the Canary Islands for the last time!

Tight lines, Scott.