Species hunting adventures on Rhodes: Part 3.

With lionfish in mind, one of my target new species for the trip, we headed to Ladiko Bay, a spot where many swimmers have seen them whilst snorkelling. After parking the car and making our way over the rocks, I spotted a few fish in a large rockpool and set about catching them using tanago hooks baited with tiny pieces of prawn. This quickly produced three species.

First out was an incognito goby. The easiest of the three to catch.

Next out was a small peacock blenny, a little bit trickier as they’re not quite as aggressive and can get spooked.

Lastly, the smallest golden grey mullet I’ve ever caught. I’m not sure how I caught it to be honest. Tanago hooks are pretty awesome!

Making our way to the rocks, I spent some time fishing at close range hoping to tempt a lionfish from the ledge below. To my surprise, absolutely nothing was biting, so I tried further out. This produced a few yellow spotted puffer and a solitary Mediterranean rainbow wrasse.

Yet another spot that looked like it had loads of potential, but was almost entirely devoid of fish!

This Mediterranean rainbow wrasse was scant reward for my efforts!

Once again, Lillian gave me the “You’re wasting your time you idiot!” glance, so we headed off to visit somewhere that I’d at least be guaranteed to see a lionfish. A short drive later we arrived in Rhodes Town and our first stop was its aquarium.

A strange looking building. The actual fish are displayed down in the basement.

Seeing lionfish was great, they’re beautiful fish, but I really wanted to catch one!

Can you see the wide eyed flounder?

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Rhodes Town, exploring the moat of the old walled city, having some lunch and then walking around the harbours.

Whilst wandering through a wooded area near the Old Town’s moat, I spotted this large wall brown butterfly.

The old walled city of the Old Town of Rhodes.

There are a few old windmills down by the harbour.

In the evening, we visited Stegna again to see if we could spot a moray eel, but there was no sign of any. The fishing was pretty disappointing, with puffers being right in the mood and biting off my hooks repeatedly.

Little annoying buggers! Ocassionaly they would pull their party trick.

I was feeling even more frustrated that my efforts seemed to have gone unrewarded for a couple of days. Lillian was also disappointed too, having only had to deploy my net once! Calling it a night, we headed back to Archangelos and treated ourselves to some smash burgers before heading back to our accomodation.

Archangelos has several excellent food options. Some less traditional, but still delicious! I had to have my photo taken with the Stifis Bros menu. 

The next day, we had a late start and decided to walk down into town to visit the bakey again and then up the hill to the old fortress. Whilst inside the its ruins we had a break and as we were eating our Spanakopita, a traditional Greek savory pie made with layers of crispy phyllo pastry filled with spinach, feta cheese, and fresh herbs, I noticed a moth landing in the dried out vegetation nearby and took a photo.

This is a crimson speckled moth. It's not a butterfly!

Walking back to our accomodation, a large insect flew across from our left and landed on Lillian’s leg. In a very calm and controlled fashion, and without shrieking at all, she quietly asked me to remove it, so I used her hat to do just that. It was a small praying mantis! We’ve encountered a few over the years during our travels, but this time I wanted to try to handle it. Offering up my hand, much to my surprise, and Lillian’s horror, it climbed straight onto me!

Brave or stupid? I don’t know, but the praying mantis was actually quite chilled out!

I popped it on to a nearby tree branch and off it went.

In the afternoon we drove to Kolymbia, where I spent some time fishing around the town’s harbour. The fishing was once again tough, with bites few and far between, but by that point I had sort of just accepted the fact that I simply wasn’t going to catch a lot of fish, and I’d have to keep working hard for those that I did. Any frustration from the previous few days had gone, and somehow I just felt more relaxed. I did manage to catch a nice parrotfish and a big Red Sea goatfish as well as a few ornate wrasse and some yellow spotted puffer. Before heading off to get out of the sun and to have some lunch, we passed a small shrine dedicated to Agios Nikolaos, the patron saint of sailors, fisherman and travellers. I decided to say a quick prayer!

This plump parrotfish grabbed my prawn chunk and did its best to get down into the rocks.

The Red Sea goatfish also gave me a decent scrap on my trusty Rock Rover.

Another hard session in the baking sun!

I’m not in any way a religious person, but perhaps Agios Nikolaos could deliver some better fishing!

It’s hard to beat a delicious Greek Salad. We ate lots of them throughout our holiday.

Afterwards, we drove north to fish on Paralia Afantou. We managed to find a spot next to an old military installation that provided us with a bit of respite from the sun. It was a beautiful spot and there were plenty of fish biting from my first cast. Just past the drop off, there were plenty of small striped seabream and I soon caught a few of them.

What a simple yet stunning view!

It seemed as if my prayer for more fish had been answered, but perhaps I should have asked for bigger fish too? After a while I decided to spend some time casting a metal jig and then a small hard lure around. I had a couple of follows from small lizardfish, but they didn’t commit. I was just about to give up when something stronger hit my lure further out and charged off, taking line. I had no idea what it was, but after a decent fight my first ever little tunny was netted by Lillian.

Also known as the false albacore, the little tunny is a small species of tuna.

This little lure has been in my collection for a few years now. A fast sinker, it weighs 8g and as a result casts brilliantly for its size. I think I might treat myself to a few more!

I was over the moon to catch my forth new species of the trip, and hopeful there might be more around, so I carried on fishing for a little while longer. Nothing else hit my lure however, so we jumped into the car again and drove south to fish dusk from some rocks near Paralia Vlicha.

Making our way onto the flat rocky platform, I still had my plug tied on, so I gave that a few casts. Nothing was biting, but as I retrieved it at various speeds and gave it different actions to try and entice a take, Lillian and I were both surveying the submerged ledge directly in front of us. We were hoping to spot a lionfish, but instead it was a moray eel that appeared from underneath a rock. I had used up all my bait earlier in the day, so I decided to offer the fish an isome crab rigged on a cheburashka weight. This worked a treat, and after taking it into its mouth, the eel reversed back under the rock. When I struck though, I pulled the hook out of its mouth. How frustrating! For a while, I tried to tempt it out again, but there was no sign of it. Light was beginning to fade, so I switched back to fishing with my sardine patterned lure. As it gradually got dark I told Lillian that it was “cuda o’clock” and a few casts later I was proved right when I caught one!

These yellowtail barracuda are a smaller species that has arrived from the Red Sea.

I fished on for a while longer, but with a return to the same spot planned for dawn the following day, we headed off to get some food to have back at the hotel and had an early night.

Tight lines, Scott.

Species hunting adventures on Rhodes: Part 2.

The following morning, we headed to a local bakery for some tasty pastries and some iced coffee. Driving south, we visited Charaki, where upon arrival we scrambled over a rocky peninsula so that I could fish the deep water out in front of it. Finding a comfortable spot, a large shoal of baitfish was taking shelter in a gully to our right, so I set about catching one. To begin with I baited a tanago hook with a minuscule piece of isome, but they didn’t show much interest in that, so I decided to try something different!

Perhaps a tiny piece of dough from inside one of our pasties would do the trick?

The result was an immediate increase in bites, and with a bit of patience, I caught a tiny widebanded hardyhead silverside! This fish was dispatched and kept to use as bait.

Turning my attention to fishing in the deeper water, I caught a few yellow spotted puffer, but sadly nothing else. I persevered for longer than I should have and tried isome close to the bottom as well as small sinking hard baits and metal jigs. As the temperature began to creep up, Lillian gave me a look that told me I was wasting my time and that we should leave.

I gave it a good go!

To escape from the midday heat, we drove north and inland to visit the Valley of Butterflies. It was nice to hike up the valley, mostly in the shade, and there were thousands of insects flying around.

The star of the show are these Jersey tiger moths. Yes, that’s right, moths! Not butterflies!

One Jersey tiger.

Dozens of Jersey tigers.

Hundreds of Jersey tigers!

We also spotted a few of these whiptail lizards with their metallic green tails. 

This Aegean meadow brown was the only bona fide butterfly we seen on our 5km hike!

In the evening, after popping to a supermarket where I picked up some raw prawns, we headed back to Stegna to fish in its two harbours again. At the first, I ledgered small pieces of prawn on its sandy bottom and added two more species to my trip tally.

The Red Sea goatfish is another species that I first encountered on Cyprus a few years ago.

I think the common two banded seabream is becoming less common in the western Mediterranean Sea as more invaders from the Red Sea increase their numbers. This would end up being the only one I caught during the trip.

Turning my attention to fishing from the boulders at the back of the harbour, I caught a few ornate wrasse and some yellow spotted puffer. I also lost a couple of rigs to the rocky sea floor and some hooks to the puffer!

Shallow, snaggy and full of two nuisance species. Time to return to the inside of the harbour!

Ornate wrasse are another pest, though they seem to be on the decline also.

Fishing down the inside of the harbour again, searching in cracks and holes to see if I could locate some goby, blenny or scorpionfish, I caught a small giant goby and whilst unhooking it, we both spotted a Mediterranean moray eel slowly snaking its way through the rocks. Tossing the giant goby back, I quickly tied up a much stronger rig and lowered a big chunk of prawn down. The moray picked it up three times, but each time I struck, I pulled the hook straight out of its mouth. Now suspecting that something wasn’t quite right, the moray disappeared into the rocks and didn’t come out again. By this point it was getting dark so we headed along to the other harbour to look for the Atlantic tripletail.

Much to my delight, it was skulking around in pretty much the exact same spot. Lillian kept an eye on it while I baited up my chinu hook with the small baitfish I had caught earlier in the day. Having kept it in water in my wide mouth flask, it was in very good condition. Passing my hook in through its mouth and out through the top of its head, so that plenty of hook was showing, I gently lowered it into the water a short distance away from the fish and slowly pulled it into the fish’s view. As soon as the tripletail spotted the bait, it slowly moved towards it. I was expecting an explosive take, but to my surprise, it gently took it into its mouth. Pausing for a second, I struck, but somehow pulled the hook from the fishes mouth! Incredibly however, my bait had come with it so I tried again. I wasn’t sure how the fish would react, but much to my delight it slowly swam over and gently took the bait again. This time I waited a little longer, and this time my hook set was good. After a short fight Lillian was ready with my net and my third new species of the trip was inside it!

I believe the Atlantic tripletail is a very rare fish in Greek waters. Another angler caught one recently and it made the Athens Times! I was over the moon to catch one myself and it’s right up there with some of the coolest fish I’ve caught in the Mediterranean Sea or anywhere else for that matter.

Still on a high, I fished on for a short while, but there wasn’t much else biting. A black scorpionfish completely ignored my bait before charging off out of sight, but a rock goby was much more obliging and greedily gobbled it as soon as it got a whiff of freshly peeled shellfish!

It always feels a bit strange catching species that we have in the UK in such a different environment!

In the morning the following day, we drove down the coast to visit St Paul’s Bay so that I could spend an hour or so fishing from the rocks there. Sadly, the fishing was dreadful, and when a group of divers arrived and proceeded to explore the area right in front of me, I gave up and we headed to nearby Lindos to explore the town and hike up to its acropolis.

St Paul’s Bay. I fished from the rocks on the right hand side. It wasn't worth clambering out to them!

The picturesque town of Lindos and its acropolis.

The town's bell tower.

Many of the town's streets are very tourist orientated, but we wandered away from them to find some quiet back streets.

It was a very hot day, but we did hike up to the acropolis.

In the afternoon, we drove all the way across the island to the west coast. Ending up in the small port town of Kamiros Skala, where I spent and hour or so fishing. Yet again the fishing was very poor, but I added two more species to my tally before we left.

Another deep and dissapointing spot.

Casting out onto a sandy area, I caught a few wide eyed flounder.

Dropping to smaller hooks and dropping a bait tight down the side, I caught this solitary damselfish.

As we drove back to Archangelos, I told Lillian I was feeling a bit frustrated about how poor the fishing had been all day, so in the evening I had a night off from species hunting and Lillian and I walked down into town where we enjoyed an incredible meal and a few cold beers. Tomorrow would be another day and hopefully the fishing would be better!

Tight lines, Scott.

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Species hunting adventures on Rhodes: Part 1.

Last week, Lillian and I were supposed to fly to the Greek island of Rhodes, but our flight ended up being a casualty of the chaos caused by an issue with the UK’s Air Traffic Control System. A full day at Edinburgh Airport, checking in luggage, going through security, waiting in departures, being boarded, sitting on the plane for two hours, being removed from the plane again, waiting around in departures again, finally finding out our flight had been cancelled and waiting to collect our suitcase before heading home, wasn’t much fun to say the least. Somehow, using my phone on the tram back into town, I managed to get us on another Ryanair flight two days later. Our original holiday was nine nights, so we still had a week long trip to look forward to.

Arriving last Thursday afternoon, we picked up our luggage, collected our hire car and drove to our accommodation, located in the small inland town of Archangelos. It was great to be away again! Keen to do a spot of fishing, we drove down to the nearby coastal village of Stegna where I spent an hour or so scratching around with small hooks using small pieces of isome. I was soon catching a few fish.

The northern beach in Stegna, a popular little tourist spot.

Further south there was a second harbour that we'd visit later in the evening.

This tiny white seabream was the first fish of the trip.

It was soon followed by a fish that I didn’t recognise. A new species! How exciting! This is the strangely named striped piggy. Perhaps it’s called that because it’s a type of grunt.

Before too long, the resident yellow spotted puffer began destroying my scented worm imitation. They’re a real pain to be honest. Turning my attention to fishing down the harbour’s walls I caught a couple of ornate wrasse and a slender goby.

These really are a total nuisance!

I popped the slender goby into my photo tank to aid identification.

Working our way around to the mouth of the harbour, I spotted some tiny fish hiding under a boat. Taking a closer look when they came out to nibble at my isome, I realised that they were sweeper, a group of fish I had never seen in real life before. They were tiny, so I switched to a split shot rig with a tanago hook and baited it up with a tiny piece of isome. Jigging this up and down generated the most interest, and eventually I caught one of them and popped it into my photo tank.

Targeting tiny fish can be very challenging!

Sweeper are a strange looking group of fish and this was my first ever. I'm fairly confident this is a rhomboid sweeper, but if you think otherwise please get in touch!

Having caught two new species within an hour or so, it was a fantastic start to the trip. I had a few species in mind before flying out that I had never caught before, but these two had not really been in my thoughts, so were most welcome captures!

Stegna has two small harbours, and I was keen to see what the second was like, but by that point we were both quite hungry, so we went for some gyros and Greek salad in a nearby taverna first.

Arriving at the second harbour, along at the southern end of the village, we had a look around before I started fishing. It was very shallow, and there were lots of boats, all moored very closely together. Ropes everywhere would also make for tricky fishing but we found a gap and in it Lillian spotted a very odd fish just below the surface that she thought was dead. It looked like a leaf!

That's not a leaf and it’s not dead either!

Floating on its side, it was slowly moving around, and I vaguely remembered seeing a video about the species, but couldn’t remember its name. I’d later do some digging and discover what we had spotted was a juvenile Atlantic tripletail. They exhibit some clever behaviour, pretend to be a dead leaf in order to avoid predation themselves whilst using this tactic to stealthily hunt prey of their own.

Quickly rigging up a piece of isome, I slowly lowered it down in the vicinity of the fish and gave it a few twitches, but it showed no interest at all. My efforts only served to annoy the fish, and eventually it swam off down under the boats. Still on its side, it looked like a flatfish as it made its escape.

Slightly disappointed, I continued fishing and we made our way to the harbour’s narrow entrance. It was much deeper there and I added a couple more species to my tally.

First to munch a piece of isome was this pharaoh cardinalfish. Only my second ever, I caught my first on Cyprus.

Next was a redcoat squirrelfish. My first in the Mediterranean Sea, having caught them in Singapore and Okinawa.

It was getting late, and we were both pretty tired, but we had another look for the tripletail before we headed back up the hill to Archangelos. Sadly we didn’t see it, but I was hopeful it might not go to far and I may get another, better opportunity to catch it, if I returned with a small fish to use as bait! It had been a very interesting start to the trip and I was looking forward to finding out what other odd species might turn up!

Tight lines, Scott.

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