Yes, that's right! I’ve been to Crete again! At the end of last month, Lillian and I headed off there for a relaxing holiday. We’ve been to the Greek islands several times and love Crete in particular, this being our fifth holiday there! This time we decided to stay in Elounda and then Agia Gallini, both for four nights each. We didn’t arrive until very late in the evening, so after we got to our accommodation, we just went straight to bed. In the morning when we woke up the sun was shining, and I was keen to get my species hunting under way, so we went for a walk into town, stopping on some piers as we went. I had a brand new Nebula Rock Rover to break in, along with a new Daiwa Exceler reel, freshly loaded with some nicely colour coordinated grey Daiwa J-Braid Grand X8.
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| The nice view from our room balcony. |
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| Before long, I set about catching some fish. |
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| All shiny and new! Lovely. |
Fishing Angleworm on a drop shot rig, I soon caught a few black goby, rock goby, an annular seabream and a small painted comber. The black goby were all very light in colour, so I popped one in my photo tank just to check they were actually black goby.
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| The ability to examine fins is one of the great benefits of the tank. Identify confirmed! Just a black goby. Always worth checking! |
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No tank required to identify this small annular seabream, although it would probably have fit into it!
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I was expecting to catch a few more painted comber, as in the past I’d caught lots of them there, but instead I began to catch a few yellow spotted puffer, one of many migrant species that have travelled from the Red Sea into the Eastern Mediterranean via the Suez Canal. Over the years, the number of these I catch when on Crete has been steadily increasing. They are super aggressive and don't seem to be in any way cautious, so they often get to lures and bait first before other fish get a chance. As a result, some of the native fish seem to be in decline. Ornate wrasse, Usually a common capture, were noticeably absent, and I didn’t catch any more painted comber either, another species that's normally present in big numbers.
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These yellow spotted puffers quickly became a real pain. They damage your line and can even just bite hooks off completely!
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After a while, and following a quick visit to the local fishing tackle shop where I bought some small lures and some preserved shrimps in a small jar to try out, we headed back to the apartment complex, jumped in our hire car, and made the short drive north to Plaka. On the way there, we passed a roadside viewing point for Spinalonga, a small island and former leper colony out in the bay, and stopped briefly to take a photo or two. When we arrived in Plaka we had some lunch and afterwards I did a bit more fishing around its small harbour.
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| Having been over to Spinalonga by boat a couple of times in the past, we decided just to admire it off in the distance. |
I started off fishing with tiny pieces of the preserved shrimp on tanago hooks to try and catch a damselfish. Their small mouths can make them tricky to catch, but I got one reasonably quickly, and a few other species were also caught whilst I tried.
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| A few bogue took my tiny pieces of prawn. Their scientific name is Boop boops, but it should be Poop poops if you ask me! |
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I also caught a couple of marbled rabbitfish. Covered in venomous spines, this is another well established invader from the Red Sea.
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| After a bit of persistence, I caught a damselfish. |
The wind then suddenly changed direction causing a slight swell to kick up, so we moved over to fish from the rocks down the back of the harbour where it was fairly sheltered. At this point, I switched to the ever reliable Angleworm on a drop shot rig. The bottom was mainly rocky and produced a couple of combers, an Atlantic lizardfish, a few Mediterranean rainbow wrasse and lots of yellow spotted puffers. There were also a few sandy areas as well, and casting my rig onto these I caught a wide eyed flounder.
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| This common comber was the first fish to munch my Angleworm. |
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The beautifully patterned wide eyed flounder. I love catching these funky floral flatfish!
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Before we called it a day, the wind switched back again, so we moved back to the inside of the harbour. Fishing down the harbour wall, I spotted a small group of reticulated filefish amongst the shoals of damselfish. Tying on a smaller hook and baiting it with a little piece of shrimp I eventually managed to get it close enough to one so that the damselfish didn't have a chance to strip off the bait and the weird looking fish took it straight away.
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Yet another Lessepsian migrant. A lot less annoying than the puffer though! This fish was my 200th species of 2023 as well.
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So, a fairly productive start to my holiday's species hunt, and I'd achieved my species hunting target for this year of catching two hundred species on day one of the trip. The amount of puffer I was catching and the slightly limited number of other species was a bit of a concern, but I was hopeful that some of the other venues I was planning to fish over the remainder of the trip might produce more native fish and hopefully some new ones as well!
Tight lines, Scott.
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