On the morning of our final day, we headed back to Playa de la Guirra, where I hunted for blennies and gobies around some rocks exposed at low tide. Gordon fished over the sand further out and caught a few wide eyed flounder. As well as catching a few pale black goby, my first of the trip, I also caught a few small rockpool blenny a tiny blenny that looked a little different. Popping one of the black goby and the tiny blenny into my photo tanks, I took a few photos of both.
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| Black goby caught over sand often have a much paler colouration. |
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| I haven’t been able to positively identify this juvenile blenny as of yet. |
After one last quick, but unsuccessful stop at the pond at the back of the Elba Sara Resort, to try and catch some golden grey mullet or flathead mullet, we drove all the way north to Corallejo, where we fished from the rocks at the back of the harbour’s ferry terminal.
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| Plenty of deep water out in front of us and a nice view too, with Isla de Lobos to the east and Lanzarote off further in the distance. |
Casting out away from the rocks, it quickly became apparent that there was a large ravenous population of Guinean puffer present. They did their best to amuse us, but frankly by that point in the trip, we were sick of the sight of them.
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| I've seen this party trick far too many times. It’s not even mildly amusing any more. Well, maybe just slightly amusing! |
After catching literally dozens of Guinean puffers and the odd Canary damselfish, we then decided to cast a little shorter, trying to target the area at the base of the rocks in the hope that there would be a few more species there. From there I caught my first common two banded seabream of the trip and a wide eyed flounder. Gordon somehow managed to catch a crab! I think as he wound in his rig he must have let it rest on a rock near the surface and the crab had grabbed it.
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| Usually I catch a few of these during a trip, but this ended up being the only common two banded seabream I caught on this one. Gordon had caught one earlier in the trip. |
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| You don't need to be on the beach to catch a wide eyed flounder! |
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| These normally scurry off when you get close, so you don't normally get this good a photo opportunity! I held this one down and quickly took a load of photos as I pulled my hand away! |
As we continued to target the area closer in, Gordon eventually caught the first axillary seabream of the trip, and shortly afterwards, I caught one too. The inside of their mouth is bright pink, making them easily distinguishable from other seabream species. Really, the only other seabream that I think they could be mistaken for is the common pandora. Personally, I don't think they look similar at all, the common pandora had lots of bright blue spots over its body!
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| Also known as Spanish seabream. Species number forty four! One to go! |
I then switched to dropping down into gaps in the boulders directly in front of me. Hoping to pull out a hairy blenny, the first fish out was an ornate wrasse and I thought it might be difficult to get through those if there were lots down there. I needn't have worried though, my next drop produced what I was after, and we'd hit our new improved target!
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| A female hairy blenny. I've never caught the male. They're much more colourful! Species number forty five! Bonus mission accomplished! |
Heading back to the car, we jokingly said that we'd try to catch another five species so we'd end up on fifty. Our next stop was the small, sheltered harbour of El Cotillo over on the north west coast, a spot that produced both sharpsnout seabream and zebra seabream the last time I was on the island. Unfortunately, upon arrival we found it was full up heavily coloured water containing tons of suspended weed, making it virtually unfishable. We briefly tried fishing from some rocks to the south of the harbour, but with a residual swell running as a result of strong winds that had been blowing the previous few days, and also the sea floor being very snaggy, we quickly decided to head back to Corallejo, so we could fish from the rocks behind the ferry terminal again. On the drive there however, I took the wrong turn at a split in the road, and we ended up headed south away from Corallejo. We could have carried on and turned around at the next junction, but it was quite far down the road, so instead we decided just to drive back to Caleta de Fuste and fish from the rocks there. Driving through the town to reach the rocky shore, we passed some cool fishy graffiti, stopping briefly, so I could take some photos of it.
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| The dusky grouper was my favourite. We'd both caught them during the trip. |
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| Followed closely by this molly miller. Identifiable by the rows of cirri on the nape. A blenny species neither of us had caught. |
After a short walk, we arrived at our final fishing spot of the trip, a fairly flat rock platform, with very deep water out in front of it. I knew that both Couch's seabream and blacktail comber were potential catches, so we fished two hook flapper rigs baited up with chunks of raw prawn, and cast out as far as we could. We were planning on having a nice meal in the evening, and with an early flight home the following day, we agreed to fish until the sun set. This gave us about two hours to fish.
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| I'd never fished this spot before and it was very deep out in front of us. |
After a while, we hadn't caught anything unusual, just lots of damselfish, pufferfish and the odd ornate wrasse. I tried fishing with a metal jig for a while, but this only produced a solitary diamond lizardfish. Switching back to fishing on the bottom with bait, we were almost out of raw prawn chunks, when I caught a bogue, so we dispatched it and began using small strips of that, once the raw prawn had gone. This produced a lot less bites, but when mine did eventually get taken by something, it was a very aggressive take and my rod had a cracking bend in it, so I knew straight away it was something decent. After a decent scrap a nice Couch's seabream came to the surface, and after a bit of thrashing around, I nervously hoisted it up the rock face.
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| This small diamond lizardfish was a nice change to the damselfish, pufferfish and ornate wrasse. |
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| This Couch's seabream, also known as a red porgy, was much more welcome! Gordon caught a couple of smaller specimens soon after I returned this one. A nice species for us both to catch during our final session of the trip! Species number forty six! |
We fished on until the fish bait had all been used up. Most was just stripped from our hooks, leaving just the skin behind, and didn't catch anything else of note. In the evening, we went out for an amazing steak dinner and a few beers. It had been a fantastic trip, and we'd both had a really enjoyable time. We'd caught a lot of fish and an impressive forty six different species between the two of us. I'd caught forty on my own, including five new ones!
Here's a list of the species I caught, with the new ones in bold...
- Atlantic Lizardfish
- Axillary Seabream
- Azores Damselfish
- Bastard Grunt
- Bermuda Sea Chub
- Black Goby
- Bogue
- Butterfly Winged Comber
- Canary Damselfish
- Cardinalfish
- Comber
- Common Two Banded Seabream
- Couch’s Seabream
- Derbio
- Diamond Lizardfish
- Dusky Grouper
- Gilthead Seabream
- Greater Weever
- Guinean Puffer
- Hairy Blenny
- Island Grouper
- Macaranesian Sharpnose Puffer
- Madeira Goby
- Madeira Rockfish
- Madeiran Sardinella
- Moroccan White Seabream
- Monkey Blenny
- Mozambique Tilapia
- Ornate Wrasse
- Common Pandora
- Parrotfish
- Planehead Filefish
- Redlip Blenny
- Rockpool Blenny
- Saddled Seabream
- Sailfin Molly
- Salema
- Striped Seabream
- Thick Lipped Mullet
- Wide Eyed Flounder
- Annular Seabream
- Balao Halfbeak
- Black Scorpionfish
- Black Seabream
- Goldblotch Grouper
- Red Banded Seabream
Gordon also caught the following species that I did not...
This was my seventh trip to the Canary Islands, so it's safe to say I like it down there! I'd like to return at some point in the not too distant future, to have another go at catching a glasseye, and I'd probably take some heavy tackle next time as well, so I could to do some shore fishing for shark species too. The idea of visiting the three main islands of La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, that I've never been to, is also appealing, so I dare say I've not visited the Canary Islands for the last time!
Tight lines, Scott.
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