Even more species hunting adventures on Lanzarote: Part 1.

At the end of November, I flew down to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands with two of my mates, Nick and Ryan, for a week of species hunting. I've been twice before and Nick was with me the last time I visited the island, but for Ryan it was his first real foreign holiday. We were all looking forward to the trip, and three sets of tackle went with us. Ultralight gear would be used most of the time and would no doubt account for most of the species we would catch, but we also took heavy lure gear to use at dawn and dusk for barracuda and bonito and finally three heavy beachcasters, so we could fish after dark for stingrays and other shark species.

The day before we left we checked the weather and to be honest it left us feeling a little bit deflated. High winds building up over a number of days with a fair bit of rain also forecast and couple of days of thunderstorms thrown in to the mix as well. Certainly not the type of weather you expect when you fly down to that part of the world! Anyway, we were still determined to make the most of the trip even if we may have to temper our expectations. Arriving in the evening after the sun had set we quickly picked up the hire car from the airport, drove to a supermarket to get some food and bait, found our apartment, grabbed the ultralight gear out of our luggage and hit Playa Chica pier for a couple of hours.

It was a pleasant, warm evening and turned out to be a fairly busy if short session. We had raw prawns and squid to use as bait, with the latter proving much the more effective choice. Fishing the bottom few feet  of the water column, we caught a few bogue, common two banded seabream, white seabream, blue jack mackerel, axillary seabream, a Madeira rockfish and one of my favourite nocturnal mini species, cardinalfish.

The cardinalfish. These little red rubies come out to feed after dark.;

Catching seven different species was a good start to our species hunting. With over a hundred species possible, I’d set us a fairly ambitious group target of fifty species for the week, but given the weather that was coming our way we all agreed to forget that and just enjoy whatever fishing we managed to do as the conditions might restrict our opportunities during our stay. Back at the apartment we went straight to bed as we had an early start planned the following morning. We wanted to head down to the back of Puerto del Carmen harbour for a few hours, targeting primarily barracuda.

Down on the rocks before sunrise, we thrashed the deep water in front of us with various plugs, soft plastics and metal jigs. I think it's more a case of being in the right place at the right time than anything else, and sadly we had no luck in that respect. We decided to put the lure rods away once the sun had been up for a while and headed along to the rocks at the mouth of the harbour armed with our ultralight gear and some bait.

Not an entirely unproductive morning on the heavy lure rods, various new lures were tested and also got a thorough wash.

After scrambling down the rocks from the clifftop path, we got into some fish straight away. Nick fished in a deep gully fairly close in.

Ryan and I cast as far as we could out into the entrance of the harbour.

None of us were shocked when we all caught our first ornate wrasse of the trip. Unsurprisingly, they made up the bulk of our catches over the remainder of the week.

We added a few more species to our tally in the shape of a common pandora…

…a ringneck blenny…

…and a couch’s seabream.

We also caught a black goby, some Guinean puffer and a blacktail comber before we decided it was getting too hot and the action slowed right down, the fish obviously agreeing with our assessment of the rising temperature. A bit sweaty we headed back to the apartment for some lunch and a siesta.

At about 17:00 we put our beachcasters in the car and headed south to check out a couple of stingray marks. The wind had really started to blow and as a result the first mark, a long beach, was being battered by a large swell, making fishing virtually impossible. The second mark was slightly better as it offered some protection from the wind, but there was still a bit of swell running so it was far from ideal. We gave it a go anyway and three up and over rigs baited with sardine were cast out onto a sandy area beyond the rocks, but after a couple of hours the conditions deteriorated further and when it started raining we all got a bit of a soaking and decided pack up. Even if we hooked a fish it would have been a nightmare trying to land it. At least we had seen what the mark was like before the sun had set and if conditions improved we could return later in the week to that part of the island.

By the time we got back to Puerto del Carmen the wind had really picked up, and it rained heavily most of the rest of the evening, so we chilled out in the apartment and had a few beers with the intention of making another early start the next day. When our alarm clocks went off, it was raining heavily again, so we had a couple more hours in bed and waited for it to stop before heading down to Playa Chica pier for another session there. When we got down there it was absolutely mobbed with divers though, more divers than I’ve ever seen there in fact, so we headed west to fish from some rocks near the mouth of Puerto Calero Marina instead. It’s a spot that usually throws up a good variety of species, but all we caught were dozens of ornate wrasse, some puffer and a few Madeira goby. The Madeira goby did add another species to our group tally. The tally that, as the three of us had discussed, I definitely wasn't keeping a track of.

Living on the wrong island.

In the afternoon, we decided to try a new spot further up the eastern side of the island to hopefully stay out of the wind. A small stone pier in Punta Mujeres was chosen, and it proved to be a very good spot, comfortable to fish from, providing lots of ultralight sport and adding several species to our haul.

There were lots of puffer fish in the area. Mainly Guinean puffer…

…but also the odd Macaronesian sharpnose puffer too. They're more colourful with various shades of blue spots on them and are a little nicer to look at, but still a super aggressive, bait stripping pest.

One fairly small shallower area off to the right of the pier held quite a lot of annular seabream.

Nick and I both caught a single planehead filefish each.

Ryan also caught a wide eyed flounder.

We fished there until we ran out of bait, adding an Atlantic lizardfish, some Canary damsel, an Azores damsel and a couple of emerald wrasse to the species we’d already caught. We also watched several large stingray swim past the base of the pier and head out off into deeper water. So we had also stumbled upon another potential mark to fish for them if the conditions were right. On our way back to Puerto del Carmen we also checked out Playa de la Garita, a black sand beach not too far from Punta Mujeres, that we figured might also be a reasonably comfortable place to fish for stingray after dark. It had been a productive day and our trip tally, which we’d all completely forgotten about because we were all just focusing on having fun, was now a respectable twenty three.

After dinner, we discussed our options for the next few days after checking the weather forecast again. The following day it was due to improve a bit, with the wind dropping off slightly, so we decided to book seats on the first ferry to take us over to La Graciosa in the morning. There we planned to spend the day fishing into deep water with our heavy lure rods to see if we could catch some bigger fish.

Up early the next day, we drove up to Órzola on the north coast and took the thirty minute ferry over to La Graciosa. It's a very small island and has no proper roads, so 4x4 jeeps are the only means of transport available. Speaking to the drivers of these off road taxis, they warned us against fishing from the two marks I told them we were interested in going to, saying that the swell was too big on them both for us to fish safely, instead they helpfully suggested an alternative which we then drove to. It was a bumpy ride in the back of the old Land Rover, but after about twenty minutes we were dropped off and given directions to the mark, which required a short walk north along the rocky shoreline. Arriving at the small peninsula, it didn’t look anything special or particularly deep, but we got our gear set up and started fishing with various lures. The weather forecast had predicted a dry day, but the grey clouds overhead had other ideas, and we got soaked to the skin three times. Each time the rain stopped, it gave us the chance to dry off a bit before it started again, drenching us once more. To make matters worse, none of us had any interest in any lure from any fish that may have been around.

More jigs, plugs and soft plastics being cleaned until absolutely spotless. Shirt, shorts and trainers also got given a good wash too. Repeatedly.

Eventually the rain stopped and stayed off, and having tried various different types of lures with no success, I switched over to ultralight tackle and kicked a few whelks off the rocks to use as bait. This rather predictably produced endless ornate wrasse and puffer. Occasionally, a different species did manage to reach the bait first, breaking up the monotony.

I caught our first diamond lizardfish of the trip. They seem to prefer living in rocky habitat, unlike their cousin, the Atlantic lizardfish, which prefers clean sand.

I also caught a solitary common comber from the rocky bottom in front of us.

Switching to a split shot rig and dropping my whelk bait into rockpools that appeared as the tide dropped, produced some rockpool blenny.

Shortly before we had to leave, I also got broken off by what I suspect was a grey triggerfish. We saw one following an ornate wrasse up as I wound that in and on my next drop I hooked something that powered off when I set the hook. Heading underneath a ledge, I had no choice but to apply some pressure to try and bully it away from the snag. As soon as I did though, my rig failed at the loop knot that I had used to create my hooklength. Landing a grey triggerfish would have been a new species for me, so I was pretty gutted, but being busted up by larger fish is always a risk when you fish with ultralight tackle. 

To their credit, despite not getting any interest in their lures all day, Nick and Ryan both persisted with the heavy lure gear until it was time to head back to the dirt track road to get picked up to be taken back to Caleta del Sebo harbour. Another short bumpy ride later we arrived back at the port. As we had just under an hour or so to kill before our ferry left, we fished with our ultralight tackle from boulders at the back of the harbour breakwater, where we all caught some ornate wrasse and Guinean puffer. It had been a bit of a disappointing day trip really but at least none of us blanked on La Graciosa and the rain had stayed off too, so by the time we caught the ferry back to Lanzarote we were all fairly dry.

Arriving back in Puerto del Carmen we got freshened up and headed out that evening for a meal and a “few” drinks.

Things started a little messy when Ryan returned from the bar with these cocktails.

The meal was great and we had a great laugh visiting a few pubs before returning to the apartment where we carried on drinking for a few hours. As we didn’t go to bed until very late, there would be no early start the next day. This marked the midway point of the trip and whilst the weather hadn’t been great, we’d certainly tried to make the most of things and had caught twenty six species in the process. Not bad really, all things considered.

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for part 2. 

Six spines short.

I popped out at the end of October to visit a drainage pond in Dunfermline to see if I could catch my first Scottish nine spined stickleback. My tactics for the day were simple, fish a tiny chunk of a pinkie on a tanago hook under a pole float. This produced dozens of sticklebacks over a two hour period that were all carefully inspected before being placed in a "keep bucket" before being returned when I left.

Tiny hook! Tiny bait!

This concrete overflow at the edge of the reed filled pond area was packed full of fish!

So was my "keep bucket"! Sadly, every single one of them were six spines short!

Back to the drawing board with catching this species in Scotland I think, although I suspect a burn that runs past the pond may warrant a session or two as it may contain them. I may also be barking up the wrong tree completely, because the information I have on their exact location is patchy at best, so I may be trying in the wrong place completely! As a result, I've subsequently done a bit more research so that I can formulate an alternative plan of attack. Googling away, I stumbled upon a scientific paper entitled "The evolutionary ecology of dwarfism in three-spined sticklebacks.". It contains a useful table detailing the population density of nine spined stickleback in several lochs on North Uist. A long way to travel but maybe I could combine a few sessions fishing for nine spined sticklebacks there with sessions targeting other species found in the Outer Hebrides whilst I'm there. I hear three bearded rocklings are sometimes caught around Harris!

Tight lines, Scott.

What's next? Raiding rockpools!

Going forward, what species can I target in Scotland that I haven't caught before? Well, I've been reliably informed that some East Coast rockpools have been known to very occasionally turn up the odd topknot or lumpsucker. This info was shared by a bait collector, who sometimes comes across them when he's out after dark gathering various molluscs and crustaceans. 

A small lumpsucker. These fish are now bred for use as cleaner fish in farmed salmon pens.

A small common topknot clinging to a piece of kelp. I think these are relatively common but due to their lifestyle, hiding in cracks and upside down under rocks, they are not caught often by anglers. They're nocturnal, which might explain them showing up in rockpools after dark as they hunt for food.

It goes without saying that next year I'll be out with my waders and a head torch on to see if I can spot either of these species, ready to drop a baited hook in front of their mouths should I get lucky enough to spot them!

This revelation got me thinking, and whilst doing further research into what other unusual species can sometimes turn up in Scottish rockpools, I stumbled across an interesting video on YouTube. It featured some great underwater footage of several transparent gobies and possibly also a crystal goby too in rockpools. Amazingly, the video was shot in exactly the same area I'd been told to go looking for the juvenile lumpsucker and topknot!

This is a transparent goby. A tiny goby that you've probably never heard of. They are pretty hard to spot because, as their name suggests, they are almost see-through! This has me wondering if they are not uncommon and maybe are overlooked or mistaken for the fry of other species?

This is a crystal goby. Compared to the transparent goby it has a slightly longer body, its second dorsal fin and anal fin have a lot more rays which are shorter and more uniform in height and its first dorsal fin only has two rays or is absent completely.

Finding them let alone catching these diminutive gobies might be extremely difficult, but I like a micro species challenge and besides, I know it can be done as a few very dedicated species hunters in Scandinavia have successfully targeted both. With some patience and a packet of tanago hooks, I think I can catch them too!

Several types of pipefish are also species that I might discover whilst exploring rockpools. I believe there are six species of pipefish that inhabit UK waters.

1. Broadnosed Pipefish (Syngnathus typhle)
2. Greater Pipefish (Syngnathus acus)
3. Lesser or Nilsson's Pipefish (Syngnathus rostellatus)
4. Shortsnout Pipefish (Lissocampus filum)
5. Snake Pipefish (Entelurus aequoreus)
6. Worm Pipefish (Nerophis lumbriciformis)

Related to the seahorses, this family of fish are perfectly adapted to living in seaweed, where they are perfectly camouflaged. Not a group of fish I knew much about until I started writing this blog post, but I've been learning about them in the process. Every day is a school day!

Here's a snake pipefish. Tanago hooks might come in handy if I manage to spot any pipefish.

So, I think rockpools could provide some potentially exciting and unusual additions to my Scottish species tally and as well as the species discussed above, who knows what other weird fish might turn up?

Tight lines, Scott.

Rockpool tomfoolery.

I had some pinkies left over from my bitterling fishing on the last day of my staycation, so I decided to head down to Dunbar to mess about in the rockpools at the back of its old harbour. A simple split shot rig was used and I fished in the bigger rockpools, dropping the wriggling green bottle larvae down in front of gaps and cracks where I though fish might be hiding. It didn't take long for a few common blenny and long spined sea scorpions to give away their positions. I then caught a leopard spotted goby and the smallest five bearded rockling I've ever seen.

How can you not love these aggressive little goblins. They were more interested in my shiny split shot though so there's a presentation lesson there.

Only the third time Ive caught a leopard spotted goby during a session in this specific area.

The smallest five bearded rockling I've ever seen let alone caught! I had to pop it in a tub of water to positively identify it.

Next I spotted some red claws poking out of a crack down the side of a rockpool and offered up a pinkie. The owner quickly grabbed the bait and I quickly lifted it up onto the rocks.

Even this very colourful spiny squat lobster couldn't resist a pinkie!

Before I left I popped into the main harbour and spent half an hour targeting flounder in "Flatty Corner", a sandy area where they seem to like to congregate as the tides floods before they then head round into the old harbour to feed on the worms in there.

Slowly dragged along the bottom, several small flounders inside Dunbar harbour also took a liking to my fairly unorthodox bait choice.

Quite a fun little session, the rockpool exploration was inspired by a conversation I'd had at work with a customer who told me what he has, in the past, found in rockpools while he was out gathering bait. More on the topic of the potential of rockpool fishing in my next post.

Tight lines, Scott.

Hunting new UK species whilst on "staycation" in England and Wales.

At the beginning of September, Lillian packed a case, I packed some fishing tackle and we jumped in the car and headed south on a two week long "staycation", a tour of various locations around England and Wales. While we were away, as well as doing a lot of sightseeing, I took the opportunity to try and catch a few new UK species and also meet up with some of my fishing mates along the way to wet a line.

After visiting Whitby, York, Leamington Spa and Warwick we made our way further south to Nottingham where I made my first attempt at catching a new species from the River Trent, a water that has a healthy population of spined loach, cousin of the stone loach.

The spined loach, a tiny fish that many anglers have probably never heard of, let alone caught. It is only found in five river systems in the east of England.

Armed with my tanago setup, my approach was quite simple, fishing in the margins ledgering small chunks of pinky maggot on the bottom in silty areas fairly close to the edge. Loach are normally nocturnal, but as I discovered recently, when I caught my first stone loach, they can be tempted to feed during daylight hours. The problem with that tactic however, is that most other species in the river also feed during the day. Quite predictably, my bait didn't stay on the bottom very long before being eaten by other small fish instead of my target.

Minimalist tackle means you can be very mobile, so we wandered along the river, enjoying the scenery and I tried numerous spots with my tiny tanago rod.

As well as lots of roach and perch, I caught a few dace...

...and some nice rudd too, but as I pretty much expected, no spined loach.

After a few hours, we walked back to the car and headed further southeast, so I could have another go at catching a spined loach from the Nene washes. They are a system of large ditches that act as a flood storage reservoir for the River Nene. They also supposedly have high concentrations of spined loach in them. Sadly, I had no luck there either, instead catching lots of roach and a couple of small perch. Having enjoyed catching a fair amount of fish at both venues I wasn't too disappointed, besides, I knew that catching a spined loach was a long shot, especially during the day. I might have to revisit these venues on my own for some nighttime sessions next year during the summer.

The next destination on our itinerary was the market town of Sudbury, where we'd pay my mate Lee a visit. It was nice to see him again and also to meet his new girlfriend for the first time. We had dinner in the evening and the next day we headed out for a few hours to target chub on the River Stour. Lee has caught some cracking chub on various small lures on very light tackle over the last few years since he moved back to Sudbury, and he was confident we would catch some.

Lee with a nice lure caught chub.

As it turned out the fishing was quite tough, but I was happy enough when I eventually caught my first chub from a river, having only ever caught them from coarse fishery ponds.

My first River Stour chub. Not a new species for me, but still a first, so I was chuffed to catch it on a freelined carp pellet. Much smaller than some of the fish we spooked and failed to tempt, but I didn't care.

In the evening, after another tasty meal, we headed out again to Ely, where we spent a few hours trying to catch zander on lures from the River Ouse at a well known spot that's popular with lure anglers. Again, Lee had caught a few nice ones there, so hopes were high, and again whilst I've caught them before it had been a while, so I was keen to catch one again.

They only come out at night.

The session got off to a good start when I caught a nice pike and then we both caught a few perch as the sun began to set. After dark we were sure the zeds would come out to play, but unfortunately we failed to get any interest at all from them. Still, it was an enjoyable session in good company. 

Leaving Lee early the following morning, we drove southwest to our next English city, Portsmouth. On the way we stopped for an hour or so and joined the crowds to have a walk around Stonehenge, and then we stopped in Romsey, so I could try to catch another new species, the topmouth gudgeon. An ornamental fish farm near Romsey is believed to have been the entry point into the UK for this invasive species in the early 80s. From there it spread around England and Wales in the mouths of other coarse fish. The Environment Agency has been trying to eradicate them for years and have been quite successful in achieving this I believe, although a few isolated populations still remain.

It was very busy when we visited the ancient stones. Very difficult to get a photo with no other tourists in it.

Perched on a tree stump watching a tiny pole float I was quite content.

This is what a topmouth gudgeon looks like. A small, but extremely naughty little fish.

Fishing with my tanago setup again, this time armed with some squat maggots, I had lots of fun catching endless roach, perch, rudd, dace, minnows and gudgeon but failed to get "lucky" with the destructive invasive species, so I didn't have to contact the Environment Agency to let them know I had found a population.

We continued on to Portsmouth, which was only on our tour because my mate Adam had promised me he would take me out on his boat there to his secret brill mark. He also caught a few butterfly blennies earlier this year and if I'm honest that was the inspiration for the entire trip!

Adam with a chunky ballan wrasse.

A brill Adam caught with its dorsal frill on show.

The totally awesome butterfly blenny Adam also caught.

The trip was actually in doubt due to the conditions over the days leading up to it, but they calmed down enough on the day, allowing us to go out. It was actually a lovely day and I had to apply some sun cream to stop myself being burned. It turned out to be a very tough session though. Adam caught a couple of bass and a dogfish from the small bank we were fishing over and all I managed to catch was a solitary black bream. Despite this, I enjoyed Adam's company and several interesting conversations we had about fish and catching them. I don't think Adam will mind me saying he's a bit of a nerd like me when it comes to these topics! I'd love to go back down next year for another go at catching a brill and if possible I'll time it to coincide with the arrival of the butterfly blennies in the summer.

Back to port and back to the brill drawing board.

The next morning we headed west to fish inside Brixham harbour. My target there was a ringneck blenny, a species I've caught before in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands, but never in the UK. Using ragworm as bait in an area swarming with wrasse probably wasn't the best choice, but I thought it would also give me the best chance of catching one, so I used it anyway. After about four hours of endless corkwing, ballan, cuckoo and goldsinny wrasse, as well as fair numbers of pouting and the odd tompot blenny, juvenile pollock and rock goby I finally caught my target.

Good quality ragworm. Wrasse and mini species love it!

The first successful session of the entire trip produced my first ever ringneck blenny in the UK.

It has two rings going around its neck hence the name.

No reason to hang about any longer I quickly packed up and we jumped back into the car. We then drove all the way to Rhossli in South West Wales where we'd stay in the Worm's Head Hotel for three nights. The area was stunning, with high cliffs and beautiful long sandy beaches. Whilst in the area I had two sessions on Mumbles Pier attempting to catch my first ever grey triggerfish, but the conditions had just began to settle down after a windy period and the fishing was extremely challenging. Over the two sessions I only managed to catch two fish, a tiny black bream and a corkwing wrasse. Other anglers fishing did confirm that plenty of triggerfish had been caught over the previous months so I'll just have to return next summer I guess to try again.

The highlight of two difficult sessions fishing on Mumbles Pier.

The last place we visited was Bangor in North Wales which we used as a base to visit Snowdonia National Park and Anglesey. I only had two short sessions here and no new species were targeted. The first session was from the rocks on the northern side of Trearddur Bay. Sections of ragworm fished on my ultra light setup produced some great sport from the resident wrasse.

This ballan was the biggest fish of the trip and put a nice bend in my Rock Rover.

Fishing over a sandy area further into the bay also produced a few sand goby. Fun too, they just require a different set of skills to catch.

Whilst in the area we met up with my mate Ross for a spot of lunch with his new girlfriend in a small eatery in Menai Bridge. Afterwards we drove up to Amlwch Harbour where we did a spot of mini species hunting. Just relaxing fun really and whilst we did rack up a few species it was more about catching up with Ross for a few hours than catching fish. His job means he spends a fair amount of time out of the country guiding in Norway and other exotic desinations. Now he's bought a house in Wales and settled down a bit, finding time to meet up might get even tougher, so it was great to see him again.

Ross guides in Norway, where he also catches a few fish like this impressive halibut.

He also guides in more exotic destinations. This giant trevally was caught on Rodrigues Island, a territory of Maritius.

The end of our "staycation" had almost arrived and it was time to drive back up the road to Edinburgh. We planned in two stops to break up the journey. First we stopped at Kingsdown Flash in Abram so I could catch a few bitterling on my tanago rod. Not targeting a new species, just having a bit of fun. My approach being more refined than previous visits I caught dozens of the diminutive fish, pretty much one every cast at every peg I fished from as we wandered around the small venue.

Good eyesight is required to put a tiny piece of a pinky maggot on a tango hook.

This is actually a very large bitterling. Most of them I caught were much smaller. They're very pretty fish that photos don't do justice to sadly.

Our next stop saw us taking a slight detour into the Lake District so that Lillian could visit The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction close to Lake Windermere. I didn't read the books when I was a child but appreciated anglers being represented in one of the scenes.

Mr Jeremy Fisher playing a fish. Not sure which species.

I enjoyed our "staycation". The weather had played a part in making some of the fishing tough but I was happy that I'd added a species to my all time UK tally. Really it was nice to spend time with Lillian in some nice places we'd never visited before and also catch up with some of the good friends I've met through my fishing adventures over the years. There are still several species I've never caught in the UK before, particularly on the south coast of England, so I'll be back down there again soon. Adam tells me the butterfly blennies appear in July, so perhaps I'll do a little trip down then.

Tight lines, Scott.