Even More Species Hunting Adventures On Gran Canaria: Part 2.

Early on day three, we headed south again, away from the strong winds that were coming from the north east. Again, our first stop was the small pond in Maspalomas. When we arrived, another angler was already at the  water's edge, fishing away.

No rod required! A little egret stalking its quarry.

Armed with tanago hooks and some bread, we quickly set about locating the suspected convict cichlids that I thought I'd spotted two days previously. It didn't take too long to spot a few, they're pretty distinctive little fish with bold stripes, and they moved around differently to the Mozambique tilapia too, hiding in the rocks in the shallow margins, close to the bottom. Given we were being a little bit naughty again, we caught a few and left before anyone noticed us. It was a fun way to start the day, I'd caught my first new species of the trip into the bargain, and Ed had caught his first convict cichlid too!

Does the fact that they have been released into the pond makes them former convict cichlids?

Heading back to Puerto de Mogan, we began the session fishing in the small tidal channel that runs out through the town to the sea, separated from the beach by a small rocky breakwater. Our target species from one of the blue metal bridges crossing over it, were mullet, and when we arrived, there were plenty of them around. Mainly small golden grey mullet, which we both quickly caught on freelined small pieces of bread flake, another new species for Ed. I also spotted a few that were bigger, a shade of light brown across their back and with yellow anal fins and edges on their tail fins too. We'd stumbled across some flathead mullet, a species I'd seen a solitary example of only once briefly before, last month whilst I was on Fuerteventura. With a bit of persistence, I managed to catch three of them.

My first ever flathead mullet and my second new species of the trip!

They have a very sort snout whose length is less than the diameter of the eye and have thin lips which have tiny serrated "teeth" on them that are just visible in this photo. Another key identifying feature is a well developed adipose eyelid, also shown in this photo. The base of the pectoral fin has a dark spot and when bent forward the pectoral fin reached past the rear edge of the eye.

In the water, the yellow markings on their anal fin and the lower edge of their tail are quite obvious, making targeting them specifically in a shoal of mixed mullet species slightly easier.

Ed tried his best to catch one too, but after a while the fish all became very wary, so we moved down to the end of the channel onto the small rocky breakwater on its left hand side. There, we set about lowering split shot rigs baited with small pieces of prawn into gaps in the rocks. My target species was a hairy blenny, and after pulling an ornate wrasse, a Canary damselfish and a Madeira rockfish out of one particularly deep hole, I caught one. Ed really wanted one too, but after trying for a while longer with no success, we opted to move again.

I find deep dark holes in rocks and boulder are a great place to catch hairy blenny.

They don't look very hairy out of the water, but when submerged, it becomes quite apparent why they are so named.

Heading around to the fish from the outside of the beach's breakwater again, my mind turned once again to catching a red banded bream. Once again the fishing was nothing special with some very quiet periods, but again we caught a few fish and were slowly adding more species to our trip's tally as we did.

There were lots of puffer around, like this Macaronesian sharpnose puffer. They are expert bait stealers, and a lot of the time you don't even feel them doing it! Regular bait checks were the order of the day. No bites after a short period usually meant a bare hook.

I caught lots of these Guinean puffer, but for some reason Ed only caught the more colourful Macaronesian sharpnose puffer.

Planehead filefish are also pretty skilled at stripping bait, with their small mouths and sharp teeth.

Casting out as far as I could, I caught a few blacktail comber. They definitely don't mess about nibbling at a bait!

From closer in, I managed to catch a huge redlip blenny by speculatively dropping my rig onto a rock that seemed to be a stopping point for a few of them. It was out of sight when this fish took my bait. It's the first time I've caught one without actually seeing them take my bait.

Like most blenny species, they can be pretty aggressive when being unhooked and handled. I wouldn't want those fangs in my finger, that's for sure!

On the way back to our apartment in Arinaga, we stopped at the bright glasseye spot again, but if anything the conditions had deteriorated, so we decided not to even bother trying. Checking when we got back, I noticed that the weather forecast had changed slightly towards the end of our stay and the wind was due to drop off the day before we were leaving. Hopefully, this might provide one opportunity to revisit and target them. We decided the following day to start the day off by trying to fish somewhere completely new that I had never visited before.

Tight lines, Scott.