More species hunting adventures on Tenerife: Part 2.

On day three of our holiday, we drove up the east coast of Tenerife towards its capital Santa Cruz and then headed up to the north coast. The swell forecast wasn’t great for those parts of the island, but we wanted to see for ourselves just how bad it was, and it was also an opportunity to check out some new spots that we could return to later in the week if the wind dropped off as was predicted. As it turned out, the first series of places we visited were completely unfishable due to breaking waves, and it wasn’t until we reached the picturesque village of Garachico, that we finally found a sheltered spot where we were able to fish. My first cast produced a nice emerald wrasse which was followed by lots of ornate wrasse, Canary damselfish and puffers.

I’ve only caught a handful of emerald wrasse over the years. My first was at the very same place just over ten years ago!

The fishing wasn’t producing anything interesting, so we decided to drive up the incredibly steep and windy Camino Real las Arenas, through the mountains and then back down to Los Gigantes to spend the afternoon fishing into deep water from the rocks. Given its location and the direction of the wind we weren’t expecting much of a swell there, but when we arrived the sea was rolling in, crashing violently onto the rocks periodically. After walking along the coast for a while, we eventually managed to find a spot that we could fish that was fairly flat and elevated above the water. Nick and Ryan spent their time casting jigs and hard plastics around on heavy tackle, but had no joy. I tried to fish small baits on the bottom, but the current made that difficult, and all I caught were a few ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish.

The massive cliffs of Los Gigantes.

All things considered it had been a bit of a wasted day as far as the fishing had gone. In the apartment that evening, after going out for dinner, we formulated a plan for the next day and decided we'd try somewhere new in the morning  and then head out in the evening with our heavy gear to target stingrays.

The following day we headed down to a rock mark near the small coastal village of El Puertito. We had to walk a fair distance from the car down to the spot, but it looked quite promising when we arrived, and we quickly set up our gear.

Tenerife's nearby neighbour La Gomera off in the distance.

Again, Nick and Ryan spent a bit of time casting jigs and lures to see if any larger fish were around, but had no joy. I fished the bottom initially, and quickly discovered that Canary damselfish and ornate wrasse were present in plague proportions yet again.

They might be colourful, but I soon got fed up catching them.

Feeling slightly frustrated, Nick and I decided to do some float fishing. Again I went with a small bait under a small float to try and catch a needlefish, whilst Nick put out a large bait under a cigar float to try to tempt something big. After a short wait, my float jerked to the right a couple of times. Suspecting it may be what I was after, I let the bite develop to ensure the fish had taken the bait all the way inside its mouth before winding down. A small needlefish was then quickly wound in and hoisted up, but was it my first new species of the trip?

As far as I know, there are three species of needlefish present in the waters around the Canary Islands. The garfish, the Agujon needlefish and the keeltail needlefish.

Having done some research before the trip on the key identifying features of the three species I knew by examining the fish’s tail, which was obviously flattened out, that I’d caught my first keeltail needlefish.

After that, I float fished for a while longer, hoping that an Agujon needlefish would pass by and take my bait, but only the occasional ornate wrasse swimming up from the submerged reef as my float drifted over, was all I caught. Before we left, I switched to bottom fishing at distance to see what else was around, but disappointingly, all I caught was a steady succession of Canary damselfish.

In the evening, we headed down to Playa de Aguadulce, to have a go for stingrays after dark. Arriving just as the sun went down, we got set up at the top of the beach’s steep slope and lashed mackerel and sardine baits onto the dongle hanging from the circle hooks on our pulley rigs. Casting them out as far as we could and setting our rods into our tripods with the drag on our reels backed right off, we got as comfortable as we could on the beach’s large stones and patiently waited.

The waiting game begins.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how productive the session was going to be, but not long after it got dark, my rod started nodding away and then line started coming off my reel as a fish moved off with my bait. Picking up my rod and tightening up the drag, I felt the weight of something decent. A ten minute fight then ensued, with me following the fish along the beach as it moved off to my right. Scrambling over the loose stones was quite difficult, and I almost lost my footing a couple of times. Luckily, I ended up at an area where the gradient of the beach was a little less steep. This made it easier to land the fish and Ryan came along to give me a hand. Eventually a nice spiny butterfly ray appeared in the breaking waves and using them to my advantage, I successfully got the fish far enough up the shore that we could quickly lift it up away from the breaking waves. Ryan did get wet feet in the process though! Since the tail on the spiny butterfly ray is very small, the risk of its stinger coming into contact with you is neglegable unless you get really close to it. Regardless, I exercised caution and stayed in front of the fish whilst I carefully unhooked it. The debarbed circle hook was easy to remove having worked perfectly, ending up in the corner of the fish’s mouth. After a couple of quick photos, we carefully lifted it back down to the water’s edge and released it again.

I was over the moon to catch my first ever spiny butterfly ray. It was also my second new species of the trip.

After watching it disappear from sight, I took a few moments to catch my breath before carefully heading back along to where I’d started. Using a good amount of bait elastic, I prepared my second bait of the night. Lashing two sides of mackerel taken from the tail end of the fish together, flesh side facing outward around my dongle. Casting this back out to roughly the same spot, it didn’t take a great deal of time for my rod to show signs of interest again. Much smaller indications, but they were clearly out of sync with the breaking waves. After letting the bite develop, I lifted my rod to feel the weight of a much smaller fish. This time it was easily wound in, and thankfully I didn’t have to scramble about on the stones too much.

My first ever common stingray was a very small specimen. They can reach weights of several hundred pounds! Despite being so small, I took great care unhooking it due to its stinger. Holding its tail by the tip using a wet towel, again the circle hook was nicely placed and removal was very straightforward.

With such a good start to the evening, I was sure that Nick and Ryan would soon get in on the action too. Ryan and I were sharing a tripod, whilst Nick was located about twenty yards to our left. He seemed to have a few snags directly in front of him though and had lost a couple of rigs. Then, whilst winding in to put on a fresh bait, his lead had got stuck in the stones down in front of him where the waves were coming up the beach. Trying to release it, the lead suddenly came free and flew straight back towards him, striking him hard in the face. The first Ryan and knew about this was when he came along towards us with blood pouring out of his nose and over his face. I thought perhaps he had lost his footing, fallen and hit his face on the ground, but then he explained what had happened. Ryan and I were obviously concerned about his well-being, but he assured us he was fine, so we helped him clean up his face and kept a close eye on him for the rest of the session.

Despite taking a 7oz gripper straight to his face and being bloodied and sore, Nick managed to crack a bit of a smile!

A couple of hours went by with no further action, despite fairly regular bait changes, until Ryan’s rod started nodding away. Lifting it from the tripod he had a fish on. Unfortunately after a short fight it somehow managed to throw the hook just before we caught sight of it, which he was very upset about. Not long afterwards we ran out of bait and called an end to a quite eventful session.

The next day the wind had dropped off, so we decided to try a couple of spots up the east coast near the island’s capital Santa Cruz. Rather than taking the quickest route, directly via the TF-1 motorway, we took a leisurely drive up into the island’s interior and through the Teide National Park. Stopping at various spots to take in the incredible views and alien lava field landscapes as we headed north.

Driving through strange volcanic landscapes,…

…eventually you find yourself almost 3km above sea level, up above the clouds,…

…where you can take in stunning views of the majestic snow capped Mount Teide, Spain's tallest mountain.

Driving back down to sea level, we spent an hour or so fishing from the sea defence boulders near the Castillo de San Juan Bautista. Again it looked like a promising spot, but it didn't seem to matter where we cast, all we caught from the open sea were Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse and puffers. I spent half an hour dropping baits down into gaps in the boulders, hoping to pull out a hairy blenny but all I caught were even more ornate wrasse and a couple of Madeira rockfish.

The Castillo de San Juan Bautista is almost four hundred years old. The modern concrete builing in the background is the Auditorio de Tenerife Adán Martín. Build at the start of this century, I'm not sure that'll last as long.

By that point in the trip we were all quite fed up of catching ornate wrasse.

Heading back to the car and making a short drive slightly north of the capital, we parked up and made our way to the Muelle de Cory, one of two small stone piers that run parallel to each other with a slipway between them. It was quite windy, but there were a few locals float fishing and they were catching a few fish, mainly bogue. Heading to the end of the structure, we tried fishing down the side and casting around in various directions, but our efforts only produced endless puffers.

Guinean puffer were also beyond annoying by that stage. Bait stealing pests with razor sharp beak like teeth that damage line. They can also bite hooks clean off.

Again feeling a little frustrated, we decided to head along to a concrete platform situated near the edge of a public swimming area. As we made our way there, we reached a point where we had to scamble up some rocks to reach the platform. Just before we went up, I had a look down the side to see if I could spot any fish. In amongst the Canary damselfish and ornate wrasse I spotted a few Azores damselfish, so I quickly tied on a small hook and caught a couple of them.

Another species added to our trip’s tally and a very welcome change to the repetitive catches we’d suffered all day.

There were a couple of women fishing on the platform, but we didn't see them catch anything. The three of us caught some fish, but there are no prizes for guessing what they were! Heading up the east coast to try out luck had proved to be very unproductive. All three of us were thoroughly bored of catching ornate wrasse, Canary damselfish and puffers. It wouldn't be so bad if occassionally other species got to your bait first, but it didn't seem like there were any other species around!

Tight lines, Scott.