Last month I flew down to the Canary Islands for the second time this year after Lillian and I decided earlier this year to have a holiday on Gran Canaria. I’ve visited the island for fishing trips with my mates three times over the years, but for Lillian it was her first time visiting Gran Canaria. Our accommodation in the small fishing village of Castillo del Romeral was next to the sea and had a small harbour, but was well away from the main tourist areas, so we were really looking forward to a relaxing vacation. When we arrived in the afternoon, we unpacked our bags and then went for a walk around. A strong wind was blowing and a slight swell was eviden with waves crashing on the shore, but thankfully this was forecast to drop off over the coming days. In the evening after dinner we visited the pier in the nearby town of Arinaga. For some reason it's the place I always fish first when I visit Gran Canaria, perhaps because it’s usually close to where I've stayed and is very sheltered from the prevailing wind. I was pleased to see that the statue of the angler located on it has been given a new rod. The last time I visited he only had half of a butt section!
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A nice new rod for this local fisherman.
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Work was being carried
out on the pier, and as a result we couldn’t get along to the end as most of it was fenced off, so I
fished from the steps at the side, next to the slipway. The water was slightly coloured up and there was a bit of suspended weed in it, which was a bit of a pain when I tried to cast out into deeper water. Dropping pieces of raw prawn straight down the side over rocky ground, there are no prizes for
guessing what species I caught first.
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My first fish of the trip was this ornate wrasse.
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It was followed by a treble shot of Canary damselfish. Maybe a three hook rig wasn’t a great idea?
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A Madeira rockfish was the third species to get to my bait first.
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As it got dark, I was expecting a few cardinalfish to start feeding, but the three species I'd already caught weren't giving anything else much of a chance, either getting themselves hooked or stripping the bait in no time. That was until I caught a rather large blenny, which I was pleasantly surprised to discover was a Molly Miller.
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The first time I've caught a Molly Miller fishing blind and it was the biggest I've ever caught by a distance.
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The next day, we drove around the southern side of the island to the end of the CG-1 and down into the picturesque town of Puerto de Mogan. After a visit to the local Spar supermarket to get a small sliced white loaf, I spent an hour or so fishing in the canal that runs up into the town. The tide was in and there were plenty of mullet swimming around. Fishing from a small bridge over the canal, Lillian fed in a constant supply of free offerings and once the fish were feeding confidently and competing with each other, I soon caught a few freelining bread on my favourite presentation, a two hook rig.
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All the mullet I caught at this first spot turned out to be the thick lipped variety.
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Seeing a few salema swimming about underneath the mullet, I added a split shot to get my rig down below most of the mullet where they could get to it. This worked perfectly and I caught a couple before we went for a stroll around the town's streets and marina.
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Salema love a bit of bread too!
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The area around the marina is very nice, with immaculately painted houses, lots of lush plants and colourful flowers.
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Walking back in the direction of where we had parked the car, I got permission to spend another hour pestering the mullet again, this time at a second spot a little further down the canal. Again Lillian did a great job of getting the resident fish fighting over free offerings and I caught another dozen or so. Most of them were thick lipped mullet, but I also caught a couple of golden grey mullet in amongst them. Sadly, I didn’t spot any flathead mullet in amongst the shoals, a species I caught there for the first time during a trip last year.
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| One of two golden grey mullet. |
In the evening after dinner, I headed down to the harbour in Castllo del Romeral for a quick session after dark. Poking around in the rocks I caught a few fish, but again the water was slightly coloured up and as a result the bites were strangely few and far between.
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| I caught this small dusky grouper down in a dark hole. |
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| Pufferfish normally switch off after dark. I guess this Macaronesian sharpnose puffer fancied a bedtime snack. |
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| Cardinalfish normally switch on after dark. Hiding down in dark areas down in rocks during the day. |
Ten species in just over twenty four hours wasn’t a bad start to my species hunt, especially given I hadn’t been fishing all the time like I would on a dedicated fishing trip. I was a little bit concerned about the wind and also reports that a Calima, a large dust storm from the Sahara Desert, was on its way. It was also obvious that the water clarity wasnt as good as it usually is in the Canary Islands and seemed to be effecting amount of fish that were present and biting. I didn’t have a target in mind for the number of species I'd like to catch during the trip though, and really, I just wanted to enjoy whatever short sessions I could do as the holiday progressed. That said, a new species or two would have been nice, but my options on that front were quite limited.
Tight lines, Scott.
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