The following day, we visited Palmitos Park where we watched a bird of prey show, then spent a few hours seeing various other birds, animals, butterflies and fish. I felt the entrance price was a little on the expensive side, but overall we enjoyed the time we spent there.
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Who doesn't love a meerkat?
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This green aracari, with it massive bill, was very cool.
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In the afternoon, we headed to the easten breakwater of the incredibly popular Playa de Amadores, where I spend an hour or so struggling to catch any fish from the rocks on the outside of it! Apart from a few Guinean puffer nothing at all was interested in a piece of raw prawn in the deep water further out. In close, all I caught were a few ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish. It was easily the most disappointing session I'd had of the trip at that point.
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The first Guinean puffer of the trip. Quite strange given I caught hundreds of them on Tenerife in February. Where we all the fish?
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Waiting patiently for something else to bite...
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Feeling slightly frustrated,I didn't bother fishing that evening. In the morning, we drove north to visit several small towns up in the mountains. In the village of Cruz de Pineda, we spent some time trying to locate a population of guppy in the roadside irrigation ditches, but failed to find them. We did see a monarch butterfly, the first one I've ever seen in the wild and it landed so I could take some photos of it.
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| A very large butterfly, it was really nice to see one! |
In the afternoon, we drove further up into the mountains to visit Arugas, Firgas and Teror, where we spent some time wandering around each of the three towns. There seemed to be a music festival taking place in all three with several bands performing in the streets and there were also market stalls set up selling a variety of traditional products too.
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The neo-Gothic stone cathedral in Arucas was quite impressive.
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The Paseo de Canarias in Firgas is home to a series of seven artworks depicting all seven of the Canary Islands. Each has a photo depicting the typical features of that island along with a scale model and its coat of arms. Can you name all seven of main Canary Islands?
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Later that afternoon, we drove to Sardina, where I spent some time fishing from its small pier. A bit of a swell was running and not much was biting other than ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish at close range, but casting out onto a sandy area I did finally catch a couple of pearly razorfish. One of my favourite European wrasse species, they are incredibly flexible and can be tricky to unhook, actively tryng to contort themselves into a position to bite you with their strangely articulated jaws and sharp little teeth! I now unhook them in my net and use foreceps the shake them from my hook if possible.
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| The first one I caught was this small red female. |
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It was followed by a larger green male.
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The pastel colours on them, particularly around the eye, are stunning.
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The next day, we spent the morning wandering around Maspalomas. The tide was out, so I did a spot of fishing in some shallow rockpools to the west of the town’s incredibly tall lighthouse. It didn’t take me long to add two more species to my tally.
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| You can almost guarantee to catch two species from rockpools in the Canary Islands… |
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| The Madeira goby, which usually sits on the bottom in plain sight. Normally they are very aggressive and will swim straight over and gobble a bait no problem. |
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| The rockpool blenny is a little bit more skittish in shallower water and will disappear under rocks and into cracks when they detect your presence. A bait placed close to their hiding place can usually tempt them to come out and grab it though. |
Walking along past the lighthouse, we soon arrived at the side of La Charca, a large pond of brackish water that is full of Mozambique tilapia. This body of water is inside the area’s protected nature reserve, which is mainly made up of the expansive sand dunes to the east of the pond. There are multiple no fishing signs around La Charca, so we carried on walking up past it. We carried on, wandering up towards the north west corner of the reserve, so we could then explore the dunes along one of its designated paths. Just before we reached the start of this, we crossed a bridge over the town’s large drainage canal where I spotted a few Mozambique tilapia in a pool in the small amount of water that was flowing down it. A piece of prawn flicked out in their vicinity quickly resulted in a few being caught.
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| A Mozambique tilapia. My first freshwater species of the year. |
Packing my gear away into my rucksack, we then went walking along the paths in the dunes before doubling back and making our way back to where we had parked the hire car.
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| The dunes of Maspalomas. Look at all those footprints! You’re supposed to stay on the designated paths! |
Heading back to Castillo del Romeral, I spend some time later that afternoon fishing at the end of the harbour’s breakwater. When I fished there last year with my mate Gordon, we caught lots of Atlantic lizardfish and greater weever, so I was surprised when I didn’t catch either. In fact, I only caught a single wide eyed flounder!
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| My only reward in a couple of hours. |
With three days left I’d caught twenty three species despite the fishing, on the whole being quite challenging. I’d not caught anything new, but had arranged to meet up with a local the following morning to try and remedy that!
Tight lines, Scott.
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