I got more than what I came for.

Over the years, I've met quite a lot of other species hunting anglers, and many of them have helped me out enormously. As a result my fishing knowledge has improved greatly and my success as a species hunter too. I now try my best to give back to this branch of fishing whenever I can. Knowing that I'm still keen to add more species to my Scottish and UK life lists, fellow Scottish and UK species hunters often get in touch when they hear about anything unusual being caught or even seen. This is exactly what happened on Monday evening, when I received a screengrab from a Facebook group chat discussing the recent sighting of some lumpsucker in Hartlepool Marina. Checking the weather forecast, it looked very good, so I found myself some cheap accommodation, booked it for two nights and drove down there the following morning. Arriving early in the afternoon, I had a look around and paid a quick visit to the bronze statue of the infamous Hartlepool Monkey to make a wish.

Hartlepool Marina on a pleasant March afternoon.

You can probably guess what wish I made!

Returning to the area where I had been told the lumpsucker had been spotted, I set up two rods and fished fairly long three hook flapper rigs straight down the side of the Marina wall. With my hooklengths spread out at different depths I was hopeful that should my target swim past it would find one of my six raw prawn chunks! The water in the marina had a bit of a green tinge to it and I wondered if the nice weather had caused an algae bloom. Things were very slow for the first couple of hours, and I was beginning to think the trip might turn out to be a waste of time, when some interest was registered on one of my rods. Picking it up I felt a couple of very subtle knocks and lifting the rod I was pleasantly surprised to feel the weight of a good fish. It turned out to be a nice plaice that had taken my bottom bait. Not too long afterwards, this scenario played out again almost exactly, and with the aid of my extendable net, a second much bigger plaice was landed!

At 47.5cm this is the biggest plaice I've ever caught from the shore!

Over the next few hours my rods sat pretty much motionless. I was hopeful that darkness would bring some action, but things didn't really improve much. Occasionally, I was getting strange little indications, so I wound up one of my rigs and swapped out the hooklengths for some coarse fishing #26 hooks to nylon. Baiting them with miniscule flecks of raw prawn, I dropped them down expecting the next bite to result in a tiny goby or some other micro species I'd caught before, but you never know! More time passed, with nothing happening, not even the little taps, and to be honest I was contemplating calling it a night, when my tiny hook rigged rod began twitching away. Picking it up, whatever was on the end felt bigger than a small goby and was putting up a strange fight. As it came up to the surface, I got quite a shock when I realised that it was a rather big pipefish! My first ever, it turned out to be a specimen greater pipefish.

What a bizarre fish! Cousin of the seahorse, they have a bony armoured body, but are surprisingly flexible. While trying to get some photos it kept moving its long tail around in a circling motion!

With a long straw like snout, they slurp up their food. I'm not sure what they normally eat to be honest, but was certainly glad this one had taken a tiny piece of raw prawn!

A totally unexpected bonus species, I was over the moon to catch my first ever species of pipefish. It was also my 90th saltwater species in the UK, so I now only require ten more to hit my target of one hundred. I carried on fishing for a couple more hours but nothing else was biting, so I packed up and headed along the coast to my accommodation, happy in the knowledge that regardless of what happened during the rest of the trip, it most certainly had been worthwhile visiting Hartlepool Marina!

The next day, I didn't get up too early and after breakfast I decided to visit the exposed intertidal rocks on the shoreline between Pilot Pier and Heugh Breakwater. I wasn't expecting anything unusual there, but it was a lovely day, and I was still in a high spirits after the previous day's specimen plaice and greater pipefish. Carefully making my way down over the bladderwrack covered rocks, I eventually found a few rockpools that looked quite promising and spending some time dangling tiny pieces of prawn into potential hiding spots eventually produced a few fish.

My playground for a few hours of rockpooling fun.

Slightly deeper rockpools with large rocks in them provide perfect hiding places for small ambush predators and highly territorial species.

I caught a few tiny long spined sea scorpions. They're super aggressive, and if present, quickly rush out to gobble a tiny bait.

Common blenny are a bit more cautious. They won't dart out and prefer the bait put inside their hiding place or at least right next to it, so they can grab it and retreat to safety. Once caught they like to bite you, which I still find very amusing.

Walking back to the car, feeling quite relaxed and enjoying the sun, I passed a mural featuring a local angler who seemed to be struggling to catch anything.

Andy Capp wasn't having much luck with the lumpsucker either.

After some lunch, I headed back to Hartlepool Marina for another session. Hoping that lightning would strike twice, and I'd somehow catch my second new species of the trip in the shape of a lumpsucker, it was very slow. Towards the end of the session, Bill, the local angler who had spotted the lumpsucker last week, came down to say hello, so at least I had someone to talk to for the last hour or two. It was great chatting to him and the info he shared on the lumpsucker and their behaviour was very interesting. A few have been seen and some of those caught over the last few years in Hartlepool Marina, in fact only one person that he knew of had caught one fishing blind. As we chatted away, my rods sat still, and by the time I threw in the towel the only thing that I'd landed was a solitary large common prawn.

Crustaceans do not count! I'd suffered my first blank of 2026.

The following morning, I met up with Bill and another local angler named Kev. Meeting up near the marina, we walked out across Middleton Beach to fish in some rockpools next to Middleton Pier that were about to be exposed over low tide. They were both fairly confident that we'd be able to catch viviparous blenny, a species I normally target in the open sea, so the prospect of catching them from rockpools was a fairly novel concept to me.

Bill & Kev patiently searching for our target species.

One of several long spined sea scorpion I kicked the session off with.

Eventually I caught a common blenny from a deeper hole.

The rockpool that Bill had caught nine viviparous blenny from during one session a previous year, sadly didn't produce any, and left us wondering if there were any around. The lads explained that recent storms had moved a lot of the boulders around and sand had also filled in some of the cracks underneath some of the larger rocks too, limiting likely spots somewhat. Working our way along the base of the pier, Kev found a dark recess and dropping a piece of isome in, pulled out the first viviparous blenny of the session.

I think this is the first viviparous blenny time I've seen caught from a rockpool.

As we carried on exploring all the nooks and crannies we could find, a few more long spined sea scorpion were caught. The deeper and darker the hole, the bigger they got. Some also had some beautiful spots on the back sides of their pectoral fins.

The colour variations in long spined sea scorpions are diverse, but these marking are pretty awesome too.

The biggest long spined sea scorpion I caught.

As the tide turned and began to flood, we doubled back and made our way back towards the shore. When we reached the spot where Kev had caught the viviparous blenny, I dropped my bait into the same spot. It wasn't in there long before a fish was pulling my rod tip down and the second viviparous blenny of the session was quickly pulled out.

My first viviparous blenny from a rockpool. A new way to target them that I might try locally.

Bill then encouraged me to drop my split shot rig down into a small but particularly deep hole. Rather than a gap in rocks in a rockpool, it was part of the foundations of the pier and the hole went down a few feet. Again, it didn't take too long for a fish to take my bait and pull my rod tip down. Pulling it out, I could tell it was a bigger fish and was quite surprised when a shore rockling appeared!

My first shore rockling from a rockpool too!

Three beards does not always make it a three bearded rockling!

By that point, the tide was about to cut us off, so we made our way back up onto the sea coal covered sands of Middleton Beach. It had been great fishing with Bill and Kev, I'd really enjoyed their company and had learned a new approach for targeting viviparous blenny that may prove to be useful in the future at similar venues.

Middleton beach is covered in a layer of sea coal giving it a jet black appearance.

Heading back to our cars, I thanked Bill and Kev for inviting me to join them, sharing their knowledge, and then we said our goodbyes. After some lunch, I decided to make the three hour drive back up the road. It had turned out to be a very enjoyable trip. The specimen plaice and the unexpected bonus capture of the greater pipefish made the tough fishing in the marina well worth the effort and the time spent rockpooling had also been very enjoyable too. I'd gone to try to catch a lumpsucker, but despite having failed to do that, it felt like I'd gained a lot more out of the trip. A new PB plaice, a new species, and I'd also met two local anglers who had given me valuable information and shown me a new way to target viviparous blenny. All that being said, the draw of catching a lumpsucker might see me returning to Hartlepool again very soon!

Tight lines, Scott.

More species hunting adventures on Tenerife: Part 3.

Keen to catch some different species, we decided to visit the small concrete pier located at the northern end of Playa de Fañabé, a long artificial beach in Costa Adeje made from golden sand imported from Africa. Armed with a few loaves of bread, a couple of cans of sardines and a mop bucket and a large metal spoon borrowed from our accommodation, the plan was to freeline and float fish bread to catch whatever species we could attract and get feeding. Making up a bucket of groundbait and spooning some into the sea soon drew the attention of some small mullet and derbio. Freelining tiny pieces of bread flake on #20 hooks, I soon caught a couple of mullet, a derbio and bogue.

The small mullet turned out to be golden grey.

A bit more cautious, a small group of derbio sat further out and were eating the groundbait much lower in the water column. Adding a small split shot helped get my bait down past the mullet intact.

A few small bogue were also in amongst the shoal of golden grey mullet.

After a while, I turned my attention to catching one of several redlip blenny that Nick had spotted straight down the side of the pier, sitting on the submerged rocks. They are fussy eaters, possessing a specialised mouth that is adapted to scraping food from the surface of the rocks they live on. Usually, it takes a bit of patience to catch one, and even that doesn’t guarantee success. Much to my delight, one of them lashed out aggressively, hit my small prawn chunk almost straight away and was hooked.

This redlip blenny was acting aggressively, in my opinion, not feeding. Possibly this was purely territorial behaviour.

By this point Ryan had given up trying to catch a golden grey mullet, having hooked one but failed to land it. He had switched to fishing pieces of prawn on the sand further out and was rewarded with a nice striped seabream that put a nice bend in his ultralight setup.

Seeing Ryan catch this nice striped seabream, I wanted to catch one too.

Switching to similar tactics soon saw me catch a few, but none were as big as Ryan’s fish.

Next, I spent some time fishing with soft plastics close in, slowly bouncing them through the boulders there in an attempt to tempt an island grouper. I didn’t manage to locate any sadly, so before the end of the session, I spent some time casting a split shot rig baited with prawn out into the open sea. The bottom there was rocky, so this unsurprisingly produced a few Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse and puffers. Eventually, my persistence paid off when I finally caught something else.

This ended up being the only planehead filefish of the trip. Note the damaged tail. Probably the result of living with hundreds of pufferfish.

The following day, we fished from a comfortable rock mark at the back of Los Abrigos Harbour. Nick and Ryan fished heavy gear to see if they could catch some stingrays or sharks. I fished out over the sandy bottom. This produced lots of wide eyed flounder, some Atlantic lizardfish, a couple of greater weever, lots of puffer and a couple of stunning pearly razorfish.

Despite the fact they don't grow very big, wide eyed flounder really give a good account of themselves from deep water. Not as colourful, but its floral markings are very pretty.

Puffer were again a bit of a pain, but the less common of the two species, the Macaronesian sharpnose puffer, are undeniably beautiful.

The beautiful pastel shades of the pearly razorfish. Easily my favourite species of wrasse from this part of the world. Very tricky to handle as they are quite flexible and will try to bite as well!

Towards the end of the session, I spent some time fishing with some light metal jigs and a sinking hard plug, but my efforts went unrewarded. After packing up, we headed off to get some bait from the supermarket so that we could have a second evening session out with the heavy gear. Unfortunately, after spending a fair bit of time driving around to multiple supermarkets, none of them had any fresh mackerel, sardines or scad in stock. Rather than go out with inferior bait from the frozen section, we decided to visit the breakwater of Playa de San Juan’s harbour with lighter tackle to see what smaller nocturnal species we could catch. It was quite a productive session, and we managed to add a few more species to our trip’s tally.

As you would expect, we caught quite a lot of cardinalfish.

I caught this very large Madeira rockfish. When it came to the surface I thought it was a black scorpionfish because it was so big!

I caught the only axillary seabream of the trip.

We also caught a few bastard grunt, another species that's commonly caught after dark.

Nick caught the best fish of the session. A small Moroccan white seabream.

Before we left, Ryan was fishing with a small paddletail on a jighead down the inside of the harbour wall when a barracuda appeared from the shadows, grabbed it and charged off, taking him completely by surprise. Fishing with ultra light tackle, with only a 6lb fluorocarbon leader, the fish bit him off instantly. The three of us spent a while trying to catch using heavier tackle but had no luck. Every so often we heard a splash as a barracuda hit the small baitfish that they were hunting from just below the surface. Just before we left we also spotted a solitary and fairly large bright glasseye also taking a small baitfish right at the end of the breakwater. We switched to small straight lures on 2g jigheads to try and catch one of those, but again we had no luck, so we called it a night.

On our last full day on Tenerife, we headed to fish from the rocks to the left of Playa de la Arena. The fishing was pretty slow. Casting out onto a sandy area, I was hoping to add a lesser weever to our tally but the only sand dwelling species that I caught was a pearly razorfish. Closer in only produced a few Canary damselfish, too little reward to be balanced precariously on the uneven rocks we were perched on, so we made the decision to head to the breakwater at Playa de San Juan for the rest of the day.

Playa de la Arena is a popular black volcanic sand beach.

Ryan found an elevated position to fish from.

A female pearly razorfish exhibiting silver scales on the sides of its stomach.

 We quickly decided that it wasn't worth persisting with the mark just to catch even more Canary damselfish!

Arriving back at the end of the breakwater, thinking about it, I realised that it was the place where we’d probably caught the best variety of species during the trip. It was also a safe, comfortable venue making it easy to fish. I was hopeful that a few hours spent fishing there might throw up something we hadn’t caught during the trip, or perhaps even a new species for me. I saw an Atlantic trumpetfish there back in 2015 and African sergeant have also been caught there recently, so we knew that it could produce all sorts of species. We caught plenty of fish as we enjoyed fishing in the warmth of the afternoon sun one last time, but I didn’t catch any new species and none of the three of us caught anything that was a new addition to our trip tally.

I caught this deep red cardinalfish with black accents on its fin tips.

We also caught lots of Guinean puffer. Over the duration of the trip, we must have caught well over a hundred of these between us!

All too soon, our time on Tenerife was coming to an end, and as is sometimes the case, the best conditions of the trip were forecast to arrive as we were about to fly home! We went out for something to eat on the last night of the trip and packed our bags ready to fly home the following afternoon. None of us were particularly looking forward to arriving back in a freezing cold Edinburgh, where a nasty cold snap had plunged the temperatures to below zero. With a few hours to kill the next day before we had to be at the airport, we drove up to the north of the island, up into the hills to Mirador De Jardina where we enjoyed some amazing views.

The mountains of Gran Canaria poke up above the clouds in the distance.

One last look at the magnificent Mount Teide.

It had been great to get away with Nick and Ryan again, we'd all enjoyed the trip, and we had caught a lot of fish. The windy conditions had limited our choice of fishing venues a bit, and the heavy presence of four particular species had been very frustrating too.

Here’s a summary of the species I caught, with the three new ones highlighted by bold text…

1. Atlantic Lizardfish
2. Axillary Seabream
3. Azores Chromis
4. Bastard Grunt
5. Bogue
6. Canary Damselfish
7. Cardinalfish
8. Common Stingray
9. Derbio
10. Emerald Wrasse
11. Golden Grey Mullet
12. Greater Weever
13. Guinean Puffer
14. Keeltail Needlefish
15. Macaronesian Sharpnose Puffer
16. Madeira Goby
17. Madeira Rockfish
18. Ornate Wrasse
19. Parrotfish
20. Pearly Razorfish
21. Planehead Filefish
22. Redlip Blenny
23. Rockpool Blenny
24. Spiny Butterfly Ray
25. Striped Seabream
26. Wide Eyed Flounder

Nick also caught...

27. Moroccan White Seabream

It was nice to visit Tenerife again, it’s a beautiful place, but being honest, I think it’s perhaps my least favourite of the Canary Islands. A little bit too overdeveloped and the parking was a bit of a pain at times. The amount of Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse and puffer we encountered whilst fishing on Tenerife was ridiculous. It felt like there were much more there than I've encountered on any of the other main islands. I'd also like to visit the inhabited islands I haven't been to yet, La Palma, La Gomera, and El Hierro. That being said, plans are already under discussion for a fishing trip to Fuerteventura at the tail end of the year, so that'll most likely be where I visit next.

Tight lines, Scott.

More species hunting adventures on Tenerife: Part 2.

On day three of our holiday, we drove up the east coast of Tenerife towards its capital Santa Cruz and then headed up to the north coast. The swell forecast wasn’t great for those parts of the island, but we wanted to see for ourselves just how bad it was, and it was also an opportunity to check out some new spots that we could return to later in the week if the wind dropped off as was predicted. As it turned out, the first series of places we visited were completely unfishable due to breaking waves, and it wasn’t until we reached the picturesque village of Garachico, that we finally found a sheltered spot where we were able to fish. My first cast produced a nice emerald wrasse which was followed by lots of ornate wrasse, Canary damselfish and puffers.

I’ve only caught a handful of emerald wrasse over the years. My first was at the very same place just over ten years ago!

The fishing wasn’t producing anything interesting, so we decided to drive up the incredibly steep and windy Camino Real las Arenas, through the mountains and then back down to Los Gigantes to spend the afternoon fishing into deep water from the rocks. Given its location and the direction of the wind we weren’t expecting much of a swell there, but when we arrived the sea was rolling in, crashing violently onto the rocks periodically. After walking along the coast for a while, we eventually managed to find a spot that we could fish that was fairly flat and elevated above the water. Nick and Ryan spent their time casting jigs and hard plastics around on heavy tackle, but had no joy. I tried to fish small baits on the bottom, but the current made that difficult, and all I caught were a few ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish.

The massive cliffs of Los Gigantes.

All things considered it had been a bit of a wasted day as far as the fishing had gone. In the apartment that evening, after going out for dinner, we formulated a plan for the next day and decided we'd try somewhere new in the morning  and then head out in the evening with our heavy gear to target stingrays.

The following day we headed down to a rock mark near the small coastal village of El Puertito. We had to walk a fair distance from the car down to the spot, but it looked quite promising when we arrived, and we quickly set up our gear.

Tenerife's nearby neighbour La Gomera off in the distance.

Again, Nick and Ryan spent a bit of time casting jigs and lures to see if any larger fish were around, but had no joy. I fished the bottom initially, and quickly discovered that Canary damselfish and ornate wrasse were present in plague proportions yet again.

They might be colourful, but I soon got fed up catching them.

Feeling slightly frustrated, Nick and I decided to do some float fishing. Again I went with a small bait under a small float to try and catch a needlefish, whilst Nick put out a large bait under a cigar float to try to tempt something big. After a short wait, my float jerked to the right a couple of times. Suspecting it may be what I was after, I let the bite develop to ensure the fish had taken the bait all the way inside its mouth before winding down. A small needlefish was then quickly wound in and hoisted up, but was it my first new species of the trip?

As far as I know, there are three species of needlefish present in the waters around the Canary Islands. The garfish, the Agujon needlefish and the keeltail needlefish.

Having done some research before the trip on the key identifying features of the three species I knew by examining the fish’s tail, which was obviously flattened out, that I’d caught my first keeltail needlefish.

After that, I float fished for a while longer, hoping that an Agujon needlefish would pass by and take my bait, but only the occasional ornate wrasse swimming up from the submerged reef as my float drifted over, was all I caught. Before we left, I switched to bottom fishing at distance to see what else was around, but disappointingly, all I caught was a steady succession of Canary damselfish.

In the evening, we headed down to Playa de Aguadulce, to have a go for stingrays after dark. Arriving just as the sun went down, we got set up at the top of the beach’s steep slope and lashed mackerel and sardine baits onto the dongle hanging from the circle hooks on our pulley rigs. Casting them out as far as we could and setting our rods into our tripods with the drag on our reels backed right off, we got as comfortable as we could on the beach’s large stones and patiently waited.

The waiting game begins.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how productive the session was going to be, but not long after it got dark, my rod started nodding away and then line started coming off my reel as a fish moved off with my bait. Picking up my rod and tightening up the drag, I felt the weight of something decent. A ten minute fight then ensued, with me following the fish along the beach as it moved off to my right. Scrambling over the loose stones was quite difficult, and I almost lost my footing a couple of times. Luckily, I ended up at an area where the gradient of the beach was a little less steep. This made it easier to land the fish and Ryan came along to give me a hand. Eventually a nice spiny butterfly ray appeared in the breaking waves and using them to my advantage, I successfully got the fish far enough up the shore that we could quickly lift it up away from the breaking waves. Ryan did get wet feet in the process though! Since the tail on the spiny butterfly ray is very small, the risk of its stinger coming into contact with you is neglegable unless you get really close to it. Regardless, I exercised caution and stayed in front of the fish whilst I carefully unhooked it. The debarbed circle hook was easy to remove having worked perfectly, ending up in the corner of the fish’s mouth. After a couple of quick photos, we carefully lifted it back down to the water’s edge and released it again.

I was over the moon to catch my first ever spiny butterfly ray. It was also my second new species of the trip.

After watching it disappear from sight, I took a few moments to catch my breath before carefully heading back along to where I’d started. Using a good amount of bait elastic, I prepared my second bait of the night. Lashing two sides of mackerel taken from the tail end of the fish together, flesh side facing outward around my dongle. Casting this back out to roughly the same spot, it didn’t take a great deal of time for my rod to show signs of interest again. Much smaller indications, but they were clearly out of sync with the breaking waves. After letting the bite develop, I lifted my rod to feel the weight of a much smaller fish. This time it was easily wound in, and thankfully I didn’t have to scramble about on the stones too much.

My first ever common stingray was a very small specimen. They can reach weights of several hundred pounds! Despite being so small, I took great care unhooking it due to its stinger. Holding its tail by the tip using a wet towel, again the circle hook was nicely placed and removal was very straightforward.

With such a good start to the evening, I was sure that Nick and Ryan would soon get in on the action too. Ryan and I were sharing a tripod, whilst Nick was located about twenty yards to our left. He seemed to have a few snags directly in front of him though and had lost a couple of rigs. Then, whilst winding in to put on a fresh bait, his lead had got stuck in the stones down in front of him where the waves were coming up the beach. Trying to release it, the lead suddenly came free and flew straight back towards him, striking him hard in the face. The first Ryan and knew about this was when he came along towards us with blood pouring out of his nose and over his face. I thought perhaps he had lost his footing, fallen and hit his face on the ground, but then he explained what had happened. Ryan and I were obviously concerned about his well-being, but he assured us he was fine, so we helped him clean up his face and kept a close eye on him for the rest of the session.

Despite taking a 7oz gripper straight to his face and being bloodied and sore, Nick managed to crack a bit of a smile!

A couple of hours went by with no further action, despite fairly regular bait changes, until Ryan’s rod started nodding away. Lifting it from the tripod he had a fish on. Unfortunately after a short fight it somehow managed to throw the hook just before we caught sight of it, which he was very upset about. Not long afterwards we ran out of bait and called an end to a quite eventful session.

The next day the wind had dropped off, so we decided to try a couple of spots up the east coast near the island’s capital Santa Cruz. Rather than taking the quickest route, directly via the TF-1 motorway, we took a leisurely drive up into the island’s interior and through the Teide National Park. Stopping at various spots to take in the incredible views and alien lava field landscapes as we headed north.

Driving through strange volcanic landscapes,…

…eventually you find yourself almost 3km above sea level, up above the clouds,…

…where you can take in stunning views of the majestic snow capped Mount Teide, Spain's tallest mountain.

Driving back down to sea level, we spent an hour or so fishing from the sea defence boulders near the Castillo de San Juan Bautista. Again it looked like a promising spot, but it didn't seem to matter where we cast, all we caught from the open sea were Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse and puffers. I spent half an hour dropping baits down into gaps in the boulders, hoping to pull out a hairy blenny but all I caught were even more ornate wrasse and a couple of Madeira rockfish.

The Castillo de San Juan Bautista is almost four hundred years old. The modern concrete builing in the background is the Auditorio de Tenerife Adán Martín. Build at the start of this century, I'm not sure that'll last as long.

By that point in the trip we were all quite fed up of catching ornate wrasse.

Heading back to the car and making a short drive slightly north of the capital, we parked up and made our way to the Muelle de Cory, one of two small stone piers that run parallel to each other with a slipway between them. It was quite windy, but there were a few locals float fishing and they were catching a few fish, mainly bogue. Heading to the end of the structure, we tried fishing down the side and casting around in various directions, but our efforts only produced endless puffers.

Guinean puffer were also beyond annoying by that stage. Bait stealing pests with razor sharp beak like teeth that damage line. They can also bite hooks clean off.

Again feeling a little frustrated, we decided to head along to a concrete platform situated near the edge of a public swimming area. As we made our way there, we reached a point where we had to scamble up some rocks to reach the platform. Just before we went up, I had a look down the side to see if I could spot any fish. In amongst the Canary damselfish and ornate wrasse I spotted a few Azores chromis, so I quickly tied on a small hook and caught a couple of them.

Another species added to our trip’s tally and a very welcome change to the repetitive catches we’d suffered all day.

There were a couple of women fishing on the platform, but we didn't see them catch anything. The three of us caught some fish, but there are no prizes for guessing what they were! Heading up the east coast to try out luck had proved to be very unproductive. All three of us were thoroughly bored of catching ornate wrasse, Canary damselfish and puffers. It wouldn't be so bad if occassionally other species got to your bait first, but it didn't seem like there were any other species around!

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the final part...