More Species Hunting Adventues On Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 3.

Arriving on Fuerteventura for the second half of our trip late in the morning, we couldn't check into our accommodation until 16:00, so we visited a supermarket to pick up some lunch and bait so we could go fishing. To begin with we spent a few hours targeting mullet. I knew there were at least two species in the area, thick lipped and golden grey, with a third, the flathead mullet also potentially present. This third species would be a new one for me. After hastily pulling out the tackle we needed from my suitcase in a car park, we headed to some rocks in Caleta de Fuste between the town's marina and beach. After having some lunch, we set up our gear, made up some groundbait, and began fishing.

Our chosen spot for the afternoon's session.

We did spot a couple of mullet cruising around, and float fishing bread flake, whilst continually spooning in small amounts of groundbait, we were hopeful we could attract a few more into the area in front of us. Over a few hours, we caught quite a lot of fish, but amazingly none of them were mullet! We did add six species to our tally for the trip, so whilst the mullet fishing was a complete failure, it still turned out to be a fantastic start to our time on the island. As well as the five species below, Gordon also caught a single common two banded seabream. 

First out for both of us were a few Moroccan white seabream.

We also caught quite a few of these Bermuda sea chub. They put up a great little scrap.

We also caught some small striped seabream.

I caught a solitary saddled seabream.

Finally, we caught a couple of small derbio.

With an hour or so left before we could get into our accommodation, we headed to a small man made pool of water situated on the upper shoreline behind the Elba Sara Resort. This long, narrow pond seems to be connected to the water features in the resort's grounds via some pipes at its top end. It was full of mullet, with the odd Madeira goby sitting motionless on the bottom. Much more interestingly, there were good numbers of sailfin molly around the edges! I also watched a common eel appear from one pipe and swim into another, so we didn’t know what else was in there! When we first arrived, there were a few people feeding the fish, but they soon all left, we had the pond to ourselves for a while, and set about catching some of the inhabitants. A few mullet were quickly landed and all were carefully identified.

All the fish we caught were thick lipped mullet. There may have been some golden grey mullet present but we didn’t catch any. I did see one flathead mullet in the pond, identifiable by a yellow edge on the bottom of the anal and tail fins. This sighting would lead us to return to the pond again a couple of times later in the trip.

Turning my attention to catching the sailfin molly, I tied on a tanago hook and lowered in a tiny piece of bread. A small group of them were soon eagerly nibbling away, but hooking them proved tricky as more often than not, they simply knocked the bread off. Switching to a tiny piece of raw prawn was a good choice, it stayed on the hook point longer, and I had quickly caught a few of them on it.

Such a cool little fish and my fifth new species of the trip too! Who would have thought you could catch them from a pool on a beach in the Canary Islands!?

Their colouration varied greatly, due to melanism I think, but I'm confident they are all the same species.

I caught this much plainer example.

The first three were all females. I then caught this colourful male with its huge dorsal fin!

After heading to our apartment up on the hill, right at the back of Caleta de Fuste, to check in, we immediately headed back down to the coast again to fish from the rocks just on the northern edge of the town.

We headed out to the tip of this rocky peninsula, where we got down close to the water's edge.

A few hours here produced a lot of Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse, both species of pufferfish and planehead filefish. In amongst those however, we sporadically managed to pull out a few species that were additions to our trip tally, and on that front, it was quite productive.

Gordon caught a single annular seabream,...

...and a solitary black seabream.

In close, I caught a parrotfish,...

...and a few Azores damselfish. No incredibly striking colours on these, but they are still quite an attractive damselfish in my opinion.

So, our first day on Fuerteventura had unexpectedly seen us add a dozen species to our tally, taking it to thirty eight! With three full days left to fish, surely we'd have no problem hitting our target of forty? I was very confident, and we joked about trying to catch fifty, but you never know, we could equally struggle to add any more. That said, there were a few species I thought we could target, and I was also hopeful that I'd catch some more new species as well. If we fished into deep water, maybe I'd get lucky and catch a red banded seabream? I was also still keen to catch a glasseye, but could I find a spot holding them? I had a potential venue in mind, but would it hold them? Having confirmed the presence of flathead mullet in the area, maybe we could catch one of those? It had been a great trip up to that point, easily my most productive ever in the Canary Islands, and regardless of what number of species we'd end up on, we were both looking forward to visiting other areas of the island and catching a lot more fish before our time fishing in the sun was over!

Tight lines, Scott.

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