Gilty as charged.

On the final day of my trip I had planned to head to Dorset to spent the day fishing Swanage Pier before making the drive back up the road. However, after hearing that small gilthead seabream were being caught in Weymouth Harbour I changed my plan so I could fish there first thing in the morning and then head along to Swanage. I got up early and drove down, arriving in Weymouth just after 08:00 I got my gear out of the car and began fishing angleworm on a dropshot rig. A few hours went by and I had worked my way around the harbour covering a fairly large amount of ground with no success locating my target. After having a break to pester some gobies I decided to concentrate my efforts in one area and switched to fishing with bait. I set up a scaled down three hook flapper rig with #10 hooks and baited them up with small sections of Dynabait ragworm. This produced a few small bass and then I hooked a small gilthead which fell off as I lifted it up the harbour wall. Another hour or so soon passed and having not hooked another one I was feeling a little frustrated so I adjourned for lunch and decided to head to the Weymouth Angling Centre to buy some fresh ragworm. Sandwich eaten and armed with a small amount of great quality bait I headed back to the spot where I'd hooked and lost my target. Baiting up my rig with small pieces of the fresh ragworm I cast it out, started getting bites straight away and I was soon reeling in a small gilthead seabream. I managed to land it this time, the first one I've caught in the UK.

What I visited Weymouth for and caught fairly easily once I changed my approach.

I was one species closer to my long term goal of catching one hundred saltwater species from around the UK so I was pleased to catch it but I was quite annoyed with myself for persisting with the same ineffective approach all morning. It was well into the afternoon and driving along to Swanage Pier when I would have to leave again less than two hours after getting there was just not worth it so I stayed in Weymouth and caught a few more gilthead seabream and bass. I was pretty sure that if I'd bought and used the fresh ragworm when I had arrived in the morning I probably would have had my target pretty quickly and been on my way to Swanage. Fishing lures can be fun but really if you want to catch fish quickly then in most scenarios good quality bait is hard to beat. As a species hunter and someone who just enjoys catching fish the method used isn't that important to me, it just needs to be the most effective one that's available on the day. This is something I know and my choice of approach had in all likelihood cost me a session at Swanage Pier, one of my favourite venues on the south coast. It's not the first time I've been guilty of fishing with lures when quality bait was available and proved to be the better choice of approach. A bit of an annoying way to end my trip but with several potential targets available on the south coast I'll be able to visit Swanage the next time I'm down.

Tight lines, Scott.

Something squidy going on!

On day five of my trip I headed back to Cornwall. Following up on the information about pilchards given to me by the angler at Mevagissey Harbour I had booked myself a place on Anglo Dawn, a charter boat running out of Falmouth. To cut a long story short the fishing was pretty poor and no pilchards were caught but on the way back in we stopped to do some jigging for squid. This was the most productive part of the day, a few were caught and it was quite good fun.

I caught this fairly large one. Beginner's luck.

As a catch and release angler I don't normally eat my catch but I do love eating squid. Sadly because I was staying in a B&B taking it wasn't really an option so one of the other anglers on the trip took mine. It was slightly dissapointing that we didn't hit a shoal of pilchards as the skipper confirmed he'd been catching plenty of them recently but that's fishing for you. During the trip there was talk of red seabream, bluefin tuna and porbeagle being caught in the area so I think I might be returning to Falmouth in the future.

Tight lines, Scott.

Species hunting in Sutton Marina.

On day four of my trip I headed south to Plymouth to fish Sutton Marina. I'd arranged to fish with an angler named Rich, who is a regular poster on one of the fishing forums I frequent, for the first time and was looking forward to some company. After meeting up we started of fishing with lures and caught a few rock gobies, goldsinny wrasse and ballan wrasse. I then spotted what I was confident were some two spotted gobies and pointed them out to Rich before catching one just to confirm I was right.

Two spotted goby are fairly common and are easy to spot if you know what to look for. They're the only goby I know that swims around up off the bottom preferring instead to hang around close to the weed on harbour walls.

After a while we started heading around to the top end of the marina where it was a lot deeper. We changed to fishing split shot and Carolina rigs hard on the bottom in an attempt to catch some flounder but didn't have any luck. Instead this produced lots of rock gobies, a couple of sand gobies and a couple of small mackerel that hit our rigs as they fell to the bottom. Carrying on around to the eastern side of the marina we started fishing an area where the lower wall was made up of small rocks inside wire that we thought might hold some tompot blennies in the cracks. At this point in the session I decided to switch to fishing with small pieces of Dynabait ragworm. This saw my catch rate increase with wrasse making up the bulk of the fish and before too long my species tally for the day had entered double figures.

In between lots of corkwing and ballan wrasse I caught this almost purple pouting,...

...my first tompot blenny of the year...

...and a couple of rock cook wrasse.

It was a fun session but time had flown and sadly it was soon time to for Rich to head off. Before we said goodbye we headed back around the marina to Cap'n Jaspers snack shack for something to eat. Species hunting sure can make a man hungry.

The legendary "Jasperizer" double quarter pounder with bacon, cheese, loads of onions, a few pickles and some chilli sauce!

It was good to meet up with Rich and fish Sutton Marina again. It had been a relaxing session and I'd enjoyed my most productive day's species hunting there into the bargain which I was pleasantly surprised by given how late in the year it was. I guess being closed off most of the time means that a lot of the fish inside it are permanent residents and can be caught all year round, especially if you're prepared to fish lures and bait like I did. This venue is well worth a visit if you're in the area whether it be for a spot of species hunting, to fill an empty stomach with a large tasty burger or even both!

Tight lines, Scott.

Double dragonet.

On day three of my trip I headed to Mevagissey in Cornwall to try and escape the rampaging children that had taken over Ilfracombe. When I arrived just late in the morning it was a nice day and more importantly it was very quiet. Settling down to fish on the outside of the harbour's southern breakwater I was curious to see if the multitude of species that can be caught in the summer were still around. In short the answer was a resounding no! However, it was nice to enjoy some peace and quiet as I sat fishing a scaled down three hook flapper with #14 hooks baited up with small pieces of Dynabait ragworm on ultra light tackle waiting for bites. The fishing was incredibly slow and I was starting to think that in fishing terms the drive had been a complete waste of time when I finally had a bit of interest and caught something. It was a small dragonet that for some reason looked a little funny. Upon further inspection I got a pleasant surprise.

Looking at it casually it would have been easy just to assume it was a common dragonet but something about told me it was different. I think it was the slight red tinge to its head that made me take a closer look at the little chap.

Extending the first dorsal fin revealed a nice pattern and also that the fish was a male.

Extending the tall second dorsal fin revealed another set of striking markings and confirmed my suspicions. I had caught my first ever reticulated dragonet.

I was delighted and probably wouldn't have been bothered if I hadn't caught anything else but over the next few hours I caught a few common dragonets. Another angler then turned up and we had a chat about species hunting. I showed him the photographs of my reticulated dragonet so he could identify one should he catch one and he told me that he'd caught some pilchards whilst out on a charter boat a few days previously. He didn't stay long and didn't catch a reticulated dragonet but managed to catch a few common dragonets too. After he left I caught a second reticulated dragonet and then a few more common dragonets.

Here is one of the common dragonets. Note the completely different fin shape and colouration. They group of spines on the rear edge of the gill plate common dragonet is also slightly larger and stands out more prominently.

Towards the end of the session I tried fishing straight down the wall through gaps in the kelp along at the end of the pier. Using this tactic I had clingfish in mind but instead caught a few of goldsinny wrasse and a long spined sea scorpion. Before heading back to Ilfracombe I decided to get something to eat and ended up trying something new. I can now heartily recommend huss which was very tasty indeed served with some chunky chips. So my trip was going well, whilst the fishing certainly hadn't been frantic at the two venues I'd fished, it had been most productive in terms of catching new species and with three days left I was keen to try and catch some more.

Tight lines, Scott.

...three bearded by nature.

I headed down North Devon at the end of last month to spend six days fishing from Ilfracombe Pier. That was the plan anyway but upon arrival early in the afternoon I discovered that the town was really busy. I hadn't realised that it was the English schools' half term holidays. I spent a few hours dodging crabbing net wielding children trying to catch a clingfish down the side of the lower section of the pier but had no luck. I did catch a few fish the majority being juvenile pollock and sand smelt. After checking into my accommodation I headed back down to the pier to fish into darkness for three bearded rockling. The ground close in that I decided to fish was pretty rough so I fished a one hook paternoster rig with a rotten bottom to try and minimise tackle losses. A strip of mackerel was the bait of choice and I tossed a few small pieces down the side of the pier to help attract my target. Having spoken to a few local anglers before arriving and a few more on the pier earlier in the day who all told me there were plenty three bearded rockling around I was confident about catching one but I didn't expect to catch one after only half an hour.

Success! My first ever three bearded rockling.

As the lower deck of the pier where I was fishing was soon to be covered by the rising tide, having caught my target and feeling pretty tired having left Edinburgh at 04:00 to make the drive down, I headed back to my accommodation to get some well earned sleep. The next day I headed back down to the pier and waited on the tide to drop so I could get onto the lower section again to try for clingfish once more. Whilst I waited I fished straight down the walls of the upper platform and caught loads of blennies. The pier is home to a huge bronze sculpture by artist Damien Hirst so I took some time out to have a look at it.

"Verity". A rather large and equally strange piece of art.

As soon as the tide dropped far enough I started fishing on the lower section for clingfish but before too long the hordes of noisy kids had arrived and started throwing their crab nets in. Later in the day the navy also arrived and started training divers around the pier too forcing all the anglers who were there to move over to where I was, making it a little cramped. The fishing over the next few hours was pretty dire and eventually I decided to retreat to the B&B to rethink my plans for the next few days' fishing.

Tight lines, Scott.

Three bearded by name...

I drove down the A1 to Cove last night for a session targeting three bearded rockling. Quite often in the past fellow anglers have told me they've caught them on the east coast only for them to show me photos of shore rockling. Despite having never caught a three bearded rockling, to my mind the two species cannot really be mistaken for each other. Having seen a photo of an actual three bearded rockling that was caught from the mouth of Cove's harbour, I was hopeful that I might get lucky and catch one myself. Ledgering strips of mackerel things were very slow, and I spent six hours basically feeding the crabs and winding in to put a fresh piece of bait on every twenty minutes. I only caught one fish all night just after the tide began to ebb and whilst it was a rockling with three beards it was sadly not a three bearded rockling!

The fish I caught last night was a shore rockling. It is a pretty drab looking fish, not pink with brown spots like its three bearded cousin.

As well as having a lovely purple ring around the eyes, it also has three "beards" which I think is why some anglers who aren't really interested in rockling misidentify them.

For the avoidance of doubt, the fish above is a three bearded rockling. Pretty hard to confuse the two, given the three bearded rockling's much more colourful appearance.

I've been doing more research recently into potential hotspots for targeting three bearded rockling. They seem to be much more prolific on the west coast of the country, so that's where I'm going to try next. I'm off to the north coast of Devon next week to try my luck at Ilfracombe Pier for six days. As well as holding plenty of three bearded rockling, it seems that this venue is also known to produce clingfish, so I'll be fishing tiny baits straight down the side of the pier to try and get lucky during the day.

The Connemarra clingfish has banded eyes and orange markings on its cheeks.

The shore clingfish has two bright blue spots on the top of its head.

I'm really looking forward to this trip. It's always exciting fishing somewhere new. It's a long way to drive, and it's also been a while since I was down there, so depending on how I get on catching my three main new species targets I might try and visit some other more familiar venues while I'm down there.

Tight lines, Scott.

More species hunting adventures on Crete : Part 4.

Midway through the second half of our holiday we headed through the mountains to the south coast again, this time to spend an afternoon in the remote village of Loutro. It really is remote and can only be reached by foot from a village up above it in the mountains or by boat. We decided to take easy option, taking a ferry from Hora Sfakion and after no time at all we arrived.

Loutro is very picturesque with all its buildings painted in the traditional Greek island style, white with blue doors and windows.

The small street that runs along the front of the village is full of restaurants so we had a wander all the way along through them before picking one to have lunch in. Most of them had someone trying to tempt you to eat in their establishment but one restaurant took a rather different, feathered approach to its promotion.

This is Coco the parrot. He talks to potential customers. Really they should teach him to say "Try our moussaka!".

After lunch I got the green light to fish from the end of the village's small pier. Around it were large submerged concrete blocks so I fished in the gaps between them. This was productive and after catching a few ornate wrasse I added a couple of species to my tally.

My first scorpionfish of the trip was this Madeira rockfish.

There were also a few parrotfish in amongst the ornate wrasse.

The water out in front of the pier looked pretty deep so after a while I switched my attention to fishing that. The bottom further out was sandy and from it I caught a few common combers, a goldblotch grouper, some Atlantic lizardfish and a couple of wide eyed flounders on various soft plastics fished on a drop shot rig.

A local who saw me catching the wide eyed flounders informed me the Greeks refer to them as "tongues".

I then tried fishing lures further up in the water column too but apart from the numerous small garfish hitting my paddletails I didn't get any interest so I tied on a tiny metal and caught a few of them before packing up so we could sit in a bar in the shade enjoying a cold drink and an ice cream while we waited for our ferry back to Hora Sfakion to arrive.

The next day I decided to get up early and made my way to the rock mark I'd seen from Nikos' boat. Access was relatively easy with goats having made several fairly well worn paths most of the way round the headland and just a little bit of straight forward rockhopping at the end had me in position ready to fish as the sun appeared over the horizon.

The sun rises.

It was quite deep but the bottom was fairly rough close in so after losing a few leads and catching nothing but rainbow wrasse I began exploring the sea bed a bit further out. After casting around in a few different directions and catching a few more rainbow wrasse I then found an area that held some couch's seabream and caught half a dozen of them before things went quiet.

Also known as the red porgy, Couch's seabream was my fortieth species of the trip.

Heading back to the car there was nobody on the beach yet so I had a few casts from it. Slowly working my way along it I caught some Atlantic lizardfish, striped seabream, plain red mullet, black goby and lesser weever.

Later that morning we drove into Rethymno and this time had no trouble parking the hire car down near the harbour. After wandering along the front of the harbour for a while we doubled back and headed up to explore the Fortezza, a large Venetian fortress build upon Paleokastro Hill in the town.

The Fortezza from the road below. There are only a few buildings left inside its walls.

Lillian likes old buildings and castles so she loved it. Not really my thing if I'm honest and walking around in the afternoon heat the non stop noise of the female cicadas was driving me mad. There were so many of them I even managed to catch one from a tree.

What a racket these bugs make!

Wandering back down into the shade of Rethymno's old town's narrow streets was nice and it was quite relaxing just rambling around. Eventually we stumbled upon a lovely little restaurant where we had some lunch.

The old town in rethymno was lovely.

This is the restaurant we found by accident. It's called To Pigadi. "The Well" in English.

A tasty selection of appetisers to tide us over.

For some strange reason after lunch Lillian was desperate to spend an hour or so throwing small chunks of bread into Rethymno harbour. Pretty strange I thought but I went along and threw some in myself, with a hook stuck in each piece of course. Lillian did a great job of attracting some fish and it didn't take long at all for a few mullet to arrive. The usual frustration soon ensued but after a while I managed to get my presentation right and caught three of them before the loaf was all used up.

I was hoping for a flat headed grey mullet which would have been a new species for me but I happily settled for it's thin lipped cousin as it was still another species added to my tally.

The next day we headed to the south coast yet again. I had booked us on a day trip on a boat to a private beach that included a spot of fishing on the way to catch our lunch. I couldn't wait though and before we even left the harbour I had caught some fish in the shape of some annular seabream and a plain red mullet.

Plain red mullet have no markings on their fins and have much shorter feelers under their chin than their striped cousins.

Cruising west along the coast we stopped briefly to visit a cave before headed to the fishing area. The boat was small enough to go right inside but having been on boat trips before whilst on holiday on Greek islands I'd seen my share of "blue caves" before and wasn't that impressed.

Greek island boat trips to see "blue caves" are pretty common and if you've seen one blue cave you've seen them all really. 

After headed further along the coastline we eventually stopped to catch lunch. Whilst everyone else was given a hand line to fish with I used my own tackle and this undoubtedly helped me catch more fish. Everybody caught fish though, mostly common combers but some Couch's seabream, rainbow wrasse and the odd painted comber got caught too.

I caught a solitary painted comber which would be my only one of the trip.

As we fished it became apparent that there were some larger fish around as well. Reeling up a fish my rod bent over briefly before straightening out again after a few seconds. Something had grabbed my common comber and bitten its body off leaving me just the head to wind up. This happened to another angler too so there was obviously a shoal of predators around. after stopping at a few different spots we'd soon caught enough fish to eat so the boat then took us to a small secluded beach where we all got off and relaxed. The crew then set to work preparing our lunch and we enjoyed it under the shade of a small wooden shack built at the top of the beach with wooden benches inside it.

 Delicious freshly caught fish and Greek salad was washed down with some wine.

After driving back to Georgioupolis in the evening I had an hour at dusk down at the river. I focused on fishing soft plastics on jigheads and had fun catching barracuda and bluefish. The odd bass also showed an interest, following before turning away as I worked the lure back closer to me. I was beginning to give up on catching a bass when one appeared from nowhere deep down right in front of me, charging up and swallowed my lure before turning and heading out into the current. It put up a reasonable scrap but with no snags in my vicinity I just took my time and let it take line when it wanted to run. When it tired I quickly landed it and took a photo before returning the fish, much to the disgust of a couple of locals who were fishing further along the rocks.

Released to fight another day. Someone has to release some fish as the locals almost always don't.

The combo the bass took. I'd forgotten how good these particular jigheads and soft plastics were.

Shortly afterwards I headed further upstream to fish just down from the bridge. Sticking with soft plastics mounted on a jighead I caught some yellowtail barracuda and bluefish before switching to a split shot rig baited with ragworm to sight fish for smaller species. This saw me catching blennies, gobies, bogue and I added another species to my tally when I caught a few small axillary seabream.

Rusty blennies have reddish brown tips to their pectoral and tail fins which I'd guess is where they get their name.

The end of our holiday was approaching fast and on our last full day on Crete we drove east along to Hersonissos to visit Aquaworld Aquarium. We love it there and visit every time we are on the island. As we reached Hersonissos however we began passing loads of roadside signs for Dinosauria. Quite by accident we then drove right past the dinosaur theme park. I loved dinosaurs when I was a kid so after asking Lillian if she fancied going for a look we turned the car around and went in.

With lots of large animated models roaring loudly I'd have loved to have visited a park like Dinosauria when I was a kid.

Some of us don't really grow up though.

After finding somewhere to park and quickly grabbing some lunch we headed in to see Aquaworld Aquarium's fish and reptiles. Obviously I enjoy looking at the fish but for me the highlight of our visits is always handling the reptiles. First off we spent a bit of time having a look at the fish though. The majority of the tanks contained local species, most of which I have now caught, but one fish in particular still caught my eye. It was a rather plump red scorpionfish, a species I'd love to catch.

We were informed that this handsome chap had recently devoured two of his tank mates and was relaxing behind this rock digesting them.

In the area of the venue dedicated to reptiles we spent a lot of time looking at the various creeatures on display. The opportunity to handle many of them is what I like most and I happily took anything that was thrust in my direction.

A bearded dragon.

A blue tongued skink.

A small Burmese python.

Lillian, whilst quite happy handling various lizards, wasn't overly keen on the snakes. With a bit of coaxing by the time we left she gotten right into the swing of things.

Lillian worked on her fear by holding this small rather docile royal python which seemed to like her as well.

She was soon confident enough to be cuddled by this large Burmese python.

Before we left we got to see one of the latest additions to the reptile collection, a pair of young basilisk lizards. These are also known as Jesus lizards as they can run very quickly along the surface of water.

This handsome male is called Basil.

Having travelled over 100km to get to Hersonissos it seemed stupid not to wet a line whilst there so I had a hour or so fishing in the town's harbour. It was pretty slow going but after catching a few rainbow wrasse I got a nice surprise when I caught a fish and didn't have any idea what it was. My knowledge of the fish species found in the Mediterranean is pretty good now so this was very exciting! I took a few photos before releasing it and would do some research later on to try and identify it.

The mystery fish. My money was on a wrasse of some kind.

As we were walking back to the car Lillian spotted what she thought was a fish sitting between two rocks on the bottom in a shallow corner. I quickly put my rod back together and as I still had a drop shot rig on I tapped my lead on what we thought was the fish several times. It didn't move to begin with but eventually it must have been sufficiently annoyed by my lead landing on it repeatedly and suddenly came to life. It was a rather big black scorpionfish and after a short swim it took up a new position and sat motionless again so I tried to get my lead in position so that my lure would fall in front of its mouth and be twitched around. The fish just didn't look interested in the slightest however. Perhaps it was already digesting something like the red scorpionfish we'd seen in the aquarium. I was about to give up when it lurched forward, grabbing my lead then quickly spat it out again before swimming off under a large rock out of sight. I tried to tempt it out from its new hiding hole but had no luck. I was kicking myself for not changing from my drop shot rig to a more suitable presentation but luckliy as we were about to leave I spotted another much smaller black scorpionfish sitting on the bottom. Lillian kept an eye on it while I tied on a hook and squeezed on a piece of split shot just above it. A bit of ragworm was slowly dropped down in front of it and the fish gobbled it up straight away.

Dynabait dehydrated ragworm. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively gotta' catch a black scorpionfish from a harbour, accept no substitutes.

On the way back to Georgioupolis I had a think about what else I could possible add to my tally before the holiday was over. A dusky grouper was probably the most obvious target so I sent my mate Andy a message asking him for more info on where he'd caught them when he last fished Geogioupolis. We arrived back just as light was fading and having had a reply from Andy I had a quick go for a dusky grouper. I lost two drop shot rigs in two casts though and as we were hungry I put the rod back in the car and we went for a meal in the excellent Arkadi fish taverna.

Back in our apartment later that night I spent some time online slowly trawling through fishbase on my phone and looking at the wrasse species of the Mediterranean. I eventually found a photo of the species that I had caught earlier in the day. Only first recorded in 2013, Pteragogus Trispilus didn't even have a common name and was yet another species that has found its way into the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal.

In the morning I got up early and headed back to the shallow rocky area to try and catch a dusky grouper again. This time I fished a paddletail on a weedless hook attached to a 3g cheburashka lead,  a much better presentation for the ground I was fishing over. Retrieving this slowly close to the bottom and lifting my rod tip a little when it hit rocks the results were a stark contrast to my lazy, ill thought out approach the previous evening. My first cast produced a common comber and my second a dusky grouper. These were followed by three more dusky groupers before the final morning session of the trip was over.

The right tool for the job...

...yields the right result!

Dusky groupers are great fun on light game tackle, even small ones, so I headed back to spend the next hour or so packing our suitcases with a big smile on my face. Checking out just before noon we didn't have to be at the airport until 19:00 so we drove into Chania to spend a few hours. I couldn't believe my luck when we parked the car and walked around the corner to find a fishing tackle shop! What are the odds? After stocking up on hooks and some soft plastics that I probably don't need we had a walk through town looking around the main market before heading down to the harbour for lunch.

After lunch we still had a couple of hours left before we had to head to the airport so I drove us to Marathi. Its a beautiful little place and I had one last fish from the rocks on the outside of its harbour. The water was fairly deep, the bottom was sandy and after catching some wide eyed flounder, common two banded seabream and Couch's seabream I got a nice surprise in the shape of one final new species when I caught some yellow spotted puffers.

Yet another invader from the Red Sea was my last fish of the holiday.

Before leaving we witnessed some bait fish getting hammered off in the distance around a nearby island. As the area evidently has the potential for targeting larger species and I'd like to revisit it next time I'm on Crete if possible for a session at dawn or dusk.

Predators were feeding hard over by this island. If only we didn't have to leave we could have hired a pedalo.

Sadly the time had come to head to the airport and fly home. Another holiday had come to an end and my Mediterranean species hunt with it. As ever Lillian had been incredibly understanding of my obsessive behaviour and as result my fishing had been very fruitful. Over the two weeks I had caught forty seven species including nine new ones which was a most unexpected bonus. I'd like to thank my mate Andy who offered me some superb information and advice on the fishing around the areas where we were staying as I couldn't have achieved my impressive species tally without his assistance. It would be cool if we could fish over there together in the future.

Here's the final summary of what I caught with the new ones in bold.

1. Annular Seabream
2. Atlantic Lizardfish
3. Atlantic Stargazer
4. Axillary Seabream
5. Bass
6. Black Goby
7. Black Scorpionfish
8. Bluefish
9. Bogue
10. Bucchich's Goby
11. Cardinalfish
12. Common Comber
13. Common Dolphinfish
14. Common Pandora
15. Common Two Banded Seabream
16. Couch's Seabream
17. Damselfish
18. Dusky Grouper
19. Garfish
20. Giant Goby
21. Goldblotch Grouper
22. Greater Weever
23. Lesser Weever
24. Madeira Rockfish
25. Marbled Rabbitfish
26. Ornate Wrasse
27. Painted Comber
28. Parrotfish
29. Peacock Wrasse
30. Pearly Razorfish
31. Plain Red Mullet
32. Threespot Wrasse*
33. Rainbow Wrasse
34. Reticulated Filefish
35. Rock Goby
36. Rusty Blenny
37. Saddled Seabream
38. Sand Smelt
39. Salema
40. Striped Seabream
41. Swallowtail Seaperch
42. Thin Lipped Mullet
43. White Seabream
44. Wide Eyed Flounder 
45. Yellowstripe Barracuda
46. Yellowtail Barracuda
47. Yellow Spotted Puffer

*Since returning home I have contacted the marine biologist who first recorded Pteragogus Trispilus to ask him about how fish species get their common names. He replied and told me that for newly recorded species the person discovering them usually suggests a suitable name which is often related to their scientific name, I this case he has suggested a common name of the threespot wrasse.

One of the many highlights of the trip was catching the threespot wrasse and not knowing what it was. It's a feeling I've not had for a while and as I'm now starting to think about next year's holidays maybe heading further afield would let me catch more weird and wonderful species that I'm not familiar with. I've got one last trip in 2017 to look forward to first though as I'm off  to Gran Canaria with two of my mates at the beginning of December for a week's fishing. Nine weeks to go until we fly out and I can't wait!

Tight lines, Scott.