Species hunting adventures on Rhodes: Part 2.

The following morning, we headed to a local bakery for some tasty pastries and some iced coffee. Driving south, we visited Charaki, where upon arrival we scrambled over a rocky peninsula so that I could fish the deep water out in front of it. Finding a comfortable spot, a large shoal of baitfish was taking shelter in a gully to our right, so I set about catching one. To begin with I baited a tanago hook with a minuscule piece of isome, but they didn’t show much interest in that, so I decided to try something different!

Perhaps a tiny piece of dough from inside one of our pasties would do the trick?

The result was an immediate increase in bites, and with a bit of patience, I caught a tiny widebanded hardyhead silverside! This fish was dispatched and kept to use as bait.

Turning my attention to fishing in the deeper water, I caught a few yellow spotted puffer, but sadly nothing else. I persevered for longer than I should have and tried isome close to the bottom as well as small sinking hard baits and metal jigs. As the temperature began to creep up, Lillian gave me a look that told me I was wasting my time and that we should leave.

I gave it a good go!

To escape from the midday heat, we drove north and inland to visit the Valley of Butterflies. It was nice to hike up the valley, mostly in the shade, and there were thousands of insects flying around.

The star of the show are these Jersey tiger moths. Yes, that’s right, moths! Not butterflies!

One Jersey tiger.

Dozens of Jersey tigers.

Hundreds of Jersey tigers!

We also spotted a few of these whiptail lizards with their metallic green tails. 

This Aegean meadow brown was the only bona fide butterfly we seen on our 5km hike!

In the evening, after popping to a supermarket where I picked up some raw prawns, we headed back to Stegna to fish in its two harbours again. At the first, I ledgered small pieces of prawn on its sandy bottom and added two more species to my trip tally.

The Red Sea goatfish is another species that I first encountered on Cyprus a few years ago.

I think the common two banded seabream is becoming less common in the western Mediterranean Sea as more invaders from the Red Sea increase their numbers. This would end up being the only one I caught during the trip.

Turning my attention to fishing from the boulders at the back of the harbour, I caught a few ornate wrasse and some yellow spotted puffer. I also lost a couple of rigs to the rocky sea floor and some hooks to the puffer!

Shallow, snaggy and full of two nuisance species. Time to return to the inside of the harbour!

Ornate wrasse are another pest, though they seem to be on the decline also.

Fishing down the inside of the harbour again, searching in cracks and holes to see if I could locate some goby, blenny or scorpionfish, I caught a small giant goby and whilst unhooking it, we both spotted a Mediterranean moray eel slowly snaking its way through the rocks. Tossing the giant goby back, I quickly tied up a much stronger rig and lowered a big chunk of prawn down. The moray picked it up three times, but each time I struck, I pulled the hook straight out of its mouth. Now suspecting that something wasn’t quite right, the moray disappeared into the rocks and didn’t come out again. By this point it was getting dark so we headed along to the other harbour to look for the Atlantic tripletail.

Much to my delight, it was skulking around in pretty much the exact same spot. Lillian kept an eye on it while I baited up my chinu hook with the small baitfish I had caught earlier in the day. Having kept it in water in my wide mouth flask, it was in very good condition. Passing my hook in through its mouth and out through the top of its head, so that plenty of hook was showing, I gently lowered it into the water a short distance away from the fish and slowly pulled it into the fish’s view. As soon as the tripletail spotted the bait, it slowly moved towards it. I was expecting an explosive take, but to my surprise, it gently took it into its mouth. Pausing for a second, I struck, but somehow pulled the hook from the fishes mouth! Incredibly however, my bait had come with it so I tried again. I wasn’t sure how the fish would react, but much to my delight it slowly swam over and gently took the bait again. This time I waited a little longer, and this time my hook set was good. After a short fight Lillian was ready with my net and my third new species of the trip was inside it!

I believe the Atlantic tripletail is a very rare fish in Greek waters. Another angler caught one recently and it made the Athens Times! I was over the moon to catch one myself and it’s right up there with some of the coolest fish I’ve caught in the Mediterranean Sea or anywhere else for that matter.

Still on a high, I fished on for a short while, but there wasn’t much else biting. A black scorpionfish completely ignored my bait before charging off out of sight, but a rock goby was much more obliging and greedily gobbled it as soon as it got a whiff of freshly peeled shellfish!

It always feels a bit strange catching species that we have in the UK in such a different environment!

In the morning the following day, we drove down the coast to visit St Paul’s Bay so that I could spend an hour or so fishing from the rocks there. Sadly, the fishing was dreadful, and when a group of divers arrived and proceeded to explore the area right in front of me, I gave up and we headed to nearby Lindos to explore the town and hike up to its acropolis.

St Paul’s Bay. I fished from the rocks on the right hand side. It wasn't worth clambering out to them!

The picturesque town of Lindos and its acropolis.

The town's bell tower.

Many of the town's streets are very tourist orientated, but we wandered away from them to find some quiet back streets.

It was a very hot day, but we did hike up to the acropolis.

In the afternoon, we drove all the way across the island to the west coast. Ending up in the small port town of Kamiros Skala, where I spent and hour or so fishing. Yet again the fishing was very poor, but I added two more species to my tally before we left.

Another deep and dissapointing spot.

Casting out onto a sandy area, I caught a few wide eyed flounder.

Dropping to smaller hooks and dropping a bait tight down the side, I caught this solitary damselfish.

As we drove back to Archangelos, I told Lillian I was feeling a bit frustrated about how poor the fishing had been all day, so in the evening I had a night off from species hunting and Lillian and I walked down into town where we enjoyed an incredible meal and a few cold beers. Tomorrow would be another day and hopefully the fishing would be better!

Tight lines, Scott.