Species hunting adventures on Rhodes: Part 4.

In the morning, our alarm when off at 5:00, and we were back on the rocks before first light. Not being a morning person it was a bit of a struggle and the fishing was so poor, that I wish we hadn’t bothered. Switching to soft plastics fished on a jighead, saw them get bitten in half by the super aggressive yellow spotted puffer and when I tried isome on a drop shot rig, they were the only species I caught. Lillian taking a few photos of me as I fished before sunrise would turn out to be the only highlight of the session.

I really like a fishing silhouette shot.

Feeling a little bit frustrated yet again, we took a break from fishing and visited the island’s Bee Museum and the cliff top viewpoint up at Filerimos Monastery. Afterwards we headed down the west coast to go for a walk in some woods to hunt for butterflies.

On the way to the Bee Museum we passed a herd of goats. 

Honey being pressed at the Bee Museum. Lillian bought a few jars to bring home. Bee vomit is good for you!

There were lots of peacocks up at Filerimos Monastery. The views up at the big stone cross would have been much better as the sun set, but weren’t that impressive during the day in my opinion.

On the way down the west coast, we stopped at a supermarket and grabbed some food for lunch and a sliced crust free loaf for bait. Revisiting Kamiros Skala, I spent and hour freelining bread in the hope that I’d catch some saddled seabream, salema or thick lipped mullet, but all I managed were a few marbled rabbitfish and a wide banded hardyhead silverside.

The locals refer to rabbitfish as "Germanós" which translates into “Germans”. This is because they started appearing during World War II when Greece was occupied by Axis forces.

The widebanded hardyhead silverside, is yet another invader from the Red Sea that is present in large numbers. Their name is quite a mouthful. They’re pretty tasty too when dusted in flour and fried.

I have a few casts with my trusty little plug. Some reasonably big lizardfish had a swipe at it, but didn't connect.

Driving up in to the hills again, we stopped at a roadside viewpoint to admire our surroundings and some other Greek islands off in the distance.

Our butterfly hunt was successful, and we spotted several Freyer's grayling.

The wooded area we’d walked around was half way down a small road that led down to a tiny coastal village, so we headed down there. At the southern end, beneath a steep cliff, was a small concrete platform, so I fished from that and some nearby rocks. It was here that I suffered my first blank of the trip. Rather deflated, we had a fishing free evening again.

A stunning view at least.

Our last full day on Rhodes had arrived. The night before, we decided that we would drive down to the southern end of the island, so I’d picked out a couple of spots to visit where I could fish. When we got up in the morning the sky was overcast, and checking the forecast, some rain was predicted. I was hoping that the change in conditions might somehow improve the fishing! On our way out of Archangelos, we popped into the fish market and I got a few prawns and a small bag of sand smelt for bait.

Our first stop was Plimmiri Marina. I’m not sure why it’s called a marina, it’s more of a small harbour!

When we arrived a local was already fishing at the end of the harbour. He had two bait rods out and was float fishing bread and cheese paste on a third. He’d caught a spotted weever, so I tucked myself into a gap between where he was and a fishing boat and began casting in small chunks of prawn in the hope that I would catch a spotted weever myself. I got bites from the first cast, but couldn't hook the culprits. Then I had a really strong take and was almost immediately bitten off. Tying on another hook, I cast out to the same spot. Another good bite resulted in something very heavy being briefly hooked, but this time my hook pulled. Seeing what was happening the local confirmed what I already suspected, there were silver cheeked toadfish in the area!

These massive pufferfish are a huge problem in the Eastern Mediterranean. They have very strong jaws and razor sharp teeth. They also contain deadly toxins, so cannot be eaten. They damage fisherman’s nets and are destroying local fish stocks due to their voracious appetite. In short, they are highly invasive and have a very negative impact wherever they spread. Despite all of this, I really wanted to catch one!

Adding a wire trace to my rig with a strong chinu hook on business end, I cast in a big chunk of prawn out to roughly the same spot once again. I didn’t have to wait very long for another silver cheeked toadfish to take the bait, and this time it wasn't going to bite me off! It felt pretty big, putting a good bend in my Rock Rover. I wouldn’t describe the battle that ensued as epic, but the sheer size of the fish made it a bit of a struggle to get it in. Taking my time, letting the fish take some line when necessary, it eventually appeared on the surface in front of us and Lillian was ready with my net yet again.

Calling the silver cheeked toadfish an odd looking species is probably being very kind.

A set of powerful jaws and razor sharp beak like teeth are not to be messed with!

They’re also very strong and slimy, which made this trophy shot pretty difficult.

Happy to have caught my fifth new species of the trip, but not wanting to be bitten off repeatedly, I switched my focus to fishing down the side at the end of the harbour. We had some bread left over from the previous day, so Lillian fed that in and before too long a lot of fish had gathered. I spotted three species that would be additions to my trip’s tally and before too long had managed to catch two of them. At that point it started lightly raining, but being so warm it was actually quite refreshing and it didn’t last very long.

This tiny saddled seabream was fairly straight forward to catch as there were loads of them and they eagerly attacked a small piece of bread on a tiny hook.

This thick lipped mullet took a little longer, but once we got them feeding confidently on the free offerings, this one wasn’t messing around and took the flake on my hook in one go.

The third species was bluespotted cornetfish, and I tried various approaches to try and catch one of them, but they just weren’t interested in anything I presented. Shortly afterwards, the local caught a small dusky grouper from the huge concrete blocks at the base of the end of the breakwater, so I tried to do the same. Dropping a bait down into the dark gaps between them, I spotted something striped moving around. At first I thought it was a zebra seabream, but as it slowly swam up into the light I could make out more of its features and quickly realised what it was. A lionfish! One of my top target species for the trip! I quickly changed to a split shot rig and baited my hook with a small sand smelt. The fish had disappeared out of sight, so I spent some time twitching my bait around down in the gap where I’d spotted it, and other likely hiding places nearby. After a while with no reward, I spent a bit more time fishing further out on the clean sandy bottom. This produced quite a lot of wide eyed flounder and a small Atlantic lizardfish.

The biggest wide eyed flounder of the bunch. The large gap between its eyes makes this one a male.

Even small Atlantic lizardfish have eyes bigger than their stomach.

We had a break for some lunch at a nearby seafood restaurant where we shared a whole grilled squid and yet another Greek salad. Heading further south we soon arrived at the Prasonisi viewpoint.

Prasonisi Island sits just off the southernmost tip of Rhodes. It's possible to walk over a submerged sand bar to get to it.

Watching people wading over to the island was pretty cool, but we headed to a nearby rock mark where I fished again. It was fairly shallow, and the sun was out again, so it wasn’t a great surprise when I didn’t catch anything. My second blank session of the trip.

Before heading back to the car, I took a moment to tally up all the species I’d caught and realised I needed one more to hit thirty, a nice round number. Driving back up to Stegna, I had one last session in its northern harbour. When we arrived, I dumped in most of my bait in an attempt to lure out a moray eel. Waiting for one to appear, I fished small pieces of prawn down the harbour walls to try and catch something like rusty blenny, a Madeira rockfish or a black scorpionfish. This approach produced a few fish but nothing that I hadn’t caught already earlier in the trip.

At one point my two hook rig produced a double shot of a slender goby,..

…and a pharaoh cardinalfish.

As light faded, I also caught another rhomboid sweeper, one a little bit bigger than my first.

Not venturing too far from the area I’d baited up, a moray eel did eventually put in an appearance and dropping down a big chunk of prawn, the fish took it into its mouth and backed up into the hole it has poked its head out of. Waiting a few seconds before striking, for once I didn’t pull the hook. It felt like a good, solid hook set, and I kept pressure on waiting for the fish to tire. After a minute or so I could feel it begin to do so, the strength and intensity of its wriggling decreasing. Suddenly, my line went slack. I’d been bitten off. I was gutted and as we were going out for dinner, didn’t really have time to try again. 

On our last day, we had a few hours in the morning where I could have had one final session, but when we woke up to thunderstorms and heavy rain, I was doubtful that an opportunity to fish would become available, unless the weather drastically improved. Packing everything up, we drove up to Rhodes Town hoping that when we got there, the rain might have stopped. Sadly it hadn’t. Driving down the coast towards the airport, the clouds did break a little and it did stop raining briefly, so we stopped by the sea one last time, but I didn’t want to pull my fishing tackle out of the suitcase as we didn’t have much time to spare.

The clouds begin to break up and the blue sky starts to appear again. That's Turkey off in the distance. I’ve never been to Turkey for a fishing trip.

The fishing during the trip had been pretty tough going to say the least, but with some great highlights. I’d caught twenty nine different species, including five new ones. Three of the new species, striped piggy, Atlantic tripletail and little tunny were quite unexpected too which was nice. It was great to catch my first rhomboid sweeper and silver cheeked toadfish too. 

I think there were three species that I observed that I didn’t manage to catch. Bluespotted cornetfish, a species I have caught before on Cyprus, and two that would have been first time captures. I had several chances to catch my first Mediterranean moray eel and made a bit of a mess of them all. Lessons have been learned, and next time, I’ll be packing some much heavier line. Having seen Lionfish on my last few trips to Greek islands, they continue to be elusive. I think they have feeding periods around dawn and dusk, so in the future I’ll be focusing on targeting them around those periods. Perhaps a spot of snorkelling to locate them or perhaps even snorkel fishing to catch one underwater would be advantageous. Anyway, overall it was an enjoyable holiday and as always Lillian was incredibly supportive of my angling addiction! She was also pretty handy with my net, helping me land some of my catches. 

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

1. Atlantic Lizardfish
2. Atlantic Tripletail
3. Common Two Banded Seabream
4. Damselfish
5. Giant Goby
6. Golden Grey Mullet
7. Incognito Goby
8. Little Tunny/False Albacore
9. Marbled Rabbitfish
10. Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse
11. Ornate Wrasse
12. Parrotfish
13. Peacock Blenny
14. Pharaoh Cardinalfish
15. Red Sea Goatfish
16. Redcoat Squirrelfish
17. Rhomboid Sweeper
18. Rock Goby
19. Saddled Seabream
20. Silver Cheeked Toadfish
21. Slender Goby
22. Striped Piggy
23. Striped Seabream
24. Thick Lipped Mullet
25. White Seabream
26. Widebanded Hardyhead Silverside
27. Wide Eyed Flounder
28. Yellow Spotted Puffer
29. Yellowtail Barracuda

It was also nice to see some new species of butterfly during the trip...

1. Aegean Meadow Brown
2. Freyer’s Grayling
3. Large Wall Brown

Lillian and I both enjoyed our first trip to Rhodes together. A fairly small island, I think I’d return, but perhaps after visiting some other Greek islands first. The fact that the best fishing happened when the weather was what most would consider to be poor has got me thiking that a trip to that part of world might be better outwith the hottest summer months, so perhaps a visit out of season might be worth exploring? 

Tight lines, Scott.

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.

Click here for the final part…

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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