Not more species hunting adventures on Gran Canaria?!: Part 2.

On day three of our holiday, we visited a few spots up the east coast to the north of where we were staying. Our first stop was the pier at the northern end of Playa de Melanura, to see the statue of Neptune that is located on a submerged rock out in the sea. I also planned on doing some fishing there, but it was completely closed off for repairs unfortuntately. April must be small pier repair month on Gran Canaria.

The Roman god Neptune emerging from the sea.

Heading south, we eventually found a spot at the end of Playa de Salinetas where I could have a few casts. I was expecting to catch a few sand dwelling species, but much to my surprise nothing was biting at all further out. Stupidly winding my rig in to some rocks at the water’s edge immediately remedied that problem, but only in the most predictable way possible!

A treble shot of ornate wrasse! Time to head somewhere else!

Driving up the coast to El Bufdero, I wasn't too shocked to find that the swell was too big and fishing from the rocks there was pretty much out of the question. Going for a stroll along the coastal path we quickly discovered that the area was home to a large population of Cran Canaria giant lizard, which we spent some time observing as they lazed in the sun, and scrambled around the boulders, dissapearing down in between them when we got too close. At one point two large individuals had a stand off and a brief fight which was quite a sight!

With the sea breaking over the rocks, I'd just have to return when the swell died down.

There were lots of these Gran Canaria giant lizard around. They can grow to 80cm long, although we didn't see any that big.

Driving north, we visited the small fishing town of San Critóbal. I fished for an hour or so from the sea defence cubes at the end of the harbour's breakwater. There was a fair amount of weed in the water, but the fishing was quite productive and I caught a steady stream of fish from a sandy area.

There were lots of bastard grunt around.

I also caught a few small bogue,...

...and a solitary striped seabream.

Casting further out, I found a few rockier patches. This initially produced a few Canary damselfish and ornate wrasse, but in amongst them, I caught two other species in the shape of a couple of hairy blenny and a nice common two banded seabream.

I normally catch hairy blenny from down in the rocks. This was the first time I've caught them at range from the open sea.

This common two banded seabream had a deep golden colour to it and put up a good scrap.

Just before we left, a spear fisherman swam by with a few parrotfish attached to his belt.

In the afternoon we drove inland to visit Cuatro Puertas, a complex of caves at the top of a mountain in the south of the municipality of Telde. There was a road most of the way up and then an easy footpath led up a few different sets of caves around the peak of the mountain.

Cuatro Puertas means four doors in English. All of them lead to the same large cave inside.

Gran Canaria Airport and the coast off in the distance.

More caves can be found on the southern side of the mountain along a narrow path.

In the evening after dinner, we popped down to the harbour in Castello del Romeral. Yet again, there weren't many fish biting, but I did manage to add two more species to my tally. Firstly, I annoyed a large redlip blenny enough by aggressively twitching a small lure on a jighead right in front of its face to enduce an aggresive reactionary attack. Striking quickly, I managed to hook the fish in its fleshy top lip and quickly hoisted him out. Shortly afterwards, the light from my headtorch was reflected back towards me by the large eyes of a couple of bright glasseye. A very cool species, I spent a bit of time fishing around the three large submerged rocks where they were lurking to try and tempt one, but wasn't successful. I was however rewarded with couple of island grouper.

Algae eating fish like redlip blenny usually need to be annoyed if you're gong to get one to "bite".

A couple of these small island smashed my small straight lures as I worked them close to some large boulders.

Before we left, we had the priveldge of watching a couple of large stingray swim into and then back out of the harbour a few times. Speaking to a local, we learned that at least eight different individuals have been regularly visiting the harbour for several years.

The stingray were huge and fairly easy to see despite the relatively poor water clarity.

Another half a dozen species added to my tally wasn't too bad a result given the conditions. The wind was due to drop off over the next few days, so I was looking forward to visiting some places that would become safe to fish. Hopefully the fishing would pick up as well!

Tight lines, Scott.

Not more species hunting adventures on Gran Canaria?!: Part 1.

Last month I flew down to the Canary Islands for the second time this year after Lillian and I decided a couple of months ago 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!

A nice new rod for this local fisherman.

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.

My first fish of the trip was this ornate wrasse.

It was followed by a treble shot of Canary damselfish. Maybe a three hook rig wasn’t a great idea?

A Madeira rockfish was the third species to get to my bait first.

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.

The first time I've caught a Molly Miller fishing blind and it was the biggest I've ever caught by a distance.

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. 

All the mullet I caught at this first spot turned out to be the thick lipped variety.

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.

Salema love a bit of bread too!

The area around the marina is very nice, with immaculately painted houses, lots of lush plants and colourful flowers. 

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.

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. 

I caught this small dusky grouper down in a dark hole. 

Pufferfish normally switch off after dark. I guess this Macaronesian sharpnose puffer fancied a bedtime snack. 

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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It's grim up north.

The fishing is usually pretty tough locally at this time of year and the weather so far in 2026 has been nothing short of dreadful, especially the wind. As a result, I've not been out that much. Before my mate Ben came up to Scotland at the end of last month, I had a second session at Newhaven Harbour. One of his target species whilst up here was a viviparous blenny and after catching a small cod, I caught a small one, but the session was very slow apart from those two fish and a few tiny whiting.

This juvenile cod hovered up a tiny piece of ragworm. 

My second viviparous blenny of the year.

When Ben did come up, he visited Hartlepool on his way from Wales and caught his first ever viviparous blenny there, so there was no need for him to visit Edinburgh. Instead, he drove up to the Scottish Highlands and spent a week fishing there in some pretty terrible, wet and windy conditions. Keen to try and meet up towards the end of his trip, we discussed a session in Dundee to target smelt on the Tay Estuary, but the conditions were poor, so sadly we didn't end up fishing together. In the end, Ben's first ever viviparous blenny, his 80th saltwater species in a calander year, was enough to see him crowned champion of the Angling Trust's year long species hunt again, so his trip north and a week of tough fishing had been worth the effort!

On Wednesday, I headed down to Torness Power Station, where I spent a couple of hours fishing with two of my mates, Nick and Ryan. A neap tide and coloured water made for a very slow session, but the sun was out, and with little wind for a change it was a nice day, quite a contrast from the severe gales, rain and snow that Storm Dave brought over the weekend! Nothing was biting as we chatted away, but eventually something ate my piece of ragworm and I wound in a small dab which ended up being the only fish from our time at the lifeboat station platform.    

The only fish we caught for the first couple of hours!

None of us were that surprised to be honest, but hoping to catch a few more fish, the three of us headed around to the hot water outflow area. Things weren't much better there sadly. Nick and I managed to catch a couple of blenny from the water between the sea defence boulders, whilst Ryan fished a soft plastic mounted on a jighead for a while hoping a bass would grab it, but he didn't get any takers. We discussed staying for a bit longer so that we could fish bread for mullet once the tide came in, but decided against it.

My second fish of the day!

So, despite the arrival of spring, the fishing locally remains pretty tough and the constantly changing weather certainly isn't helping either. Thankfully, I've got a week on Gran Canaria coming up soon, and I’m really looking forward to that! Hopefully when I return, the fishing here will be better and the weather will have improved a bit too! 

Tight lines, Scott.

Pre-trip reconnaissance.

I popped out with my mate Ryan on Sunday evening, for a couple of hours’ fishing at Newhaven Harbour. Ryan had never caught a viviparous blenny before, so that was our main target for the session. I also had another motive for trying to catch my second viviparous blenny of the week. My species hunting mate Ben is heading up to Scotland soon, and a viviparous blenny is high on his list of targets, so I promised him I would get out to see if any were around! 

Ryan brought a box of ragworm with him, but fishing small pieces of it straight down the side of the harbour wall didn’t produce any bites to begin with. Moving our rigs around, I eventually caught the first fish of the session, but it wasn’t the species we were hoping to catch.

A greedy long spined sea scorpion was the first fish to munch a bit of ragworm. 

Things continued to be very tough, with nothing else biting, and as the sun set it got pretty chilly. Ryan eventually got off the mark with a small codling, and once it was dark I caught a pin whiting. Almost all of the viviparous blenny that get caught there, seem to reside within a fairly concentrated area, and Ryan’s rig was right in the middle of it. Not long before we were about to pack up, he hooked a small fish and wound it in to find it was the species we were after. 

Ryan’s first ever viviparous blenny was small but very lively, making getting a photo of it challenging! Mission accomplished for Ryan and confirmation for Ben that viviparous blenny were around for his upcoming trip.  

We carried on fishing for a little while longer, but when I caught a few more pin whiting in quick succession, we decided to call it a night. Once they start feeding, often hitting the bait as soon as it touches the bottom, not much else is getting a chance! I’m looking forward to hopefully meeting up with Ben locally to target viviparous blenny when he comes up from Wales. I think he’ll be spending the bulk of his time in the highlands and perhaps I’ll be able to do some fishing with him up there too. 

Tight lines, Scott.

I got more than what I came for.

Over the years, I've met quite a lot of other species hunting anglers, and many of them have helped me out enormously. As a result my fishing knowledge has improved greatly and my success as a species hunter too. I now try my best to give back to this branch of fishing whenever I can. Knowing that I'm still keen to add more species to my Scottish and UK life lists, fellow Scottish and UK species hunters often get in touch when they hear about anything unusual being caught or even seen. This is exactly what happened on Monday evening, when I received a screengrab from a Facebook group chat discussing the recent sighting of some lumpsucker in Hartlepool Marina. Checking the weather forecast, it looked very good, so I found myself some cheap accommodation, booked it for two nights and drove down there the following morning. Arriving early in the afternoon, I had a look around and paid a quick visit to the bronze statue of the infamous Hartlepool Monkey to make a wish.

Hartlepool Marina on a pleasant March afternoon.

You can probably guess what wish I made!

Returning to the area where I had been told the lumpsucker had been spotted, I set up two rods and fished fairly long three hook flapper rigs straight down the side of the Marina wall. With my hooklengths spread out at different depths I was hopeful that should my target swim past it would find one of my six raw prawn chunks! The water in the marina had a bit of a green tinge to it and I wondered if the nice weather had caused an algae bloom. Things were very slow for the first couple of hours, and I was beginning to think the trip might turn out to be a waste of time, when some interest was registered on one of my rods. Picking it up I felt a couple of very subtle knocks and lifting the rod I was pleasantly surprised to feel the weight of a good fish. It turned out to be a nice plaice that had taken my bottom bait. Not too long afterwards, this scenario played out again almost exactly, and with the aid of my extendable net, a second much bigger plaice was landed!

At 47.5cm this is the biggest plaice I've ever caught from the shore!

Over the next few hours my rods sat pretty much motionless. I was hopeful that darkness would bring some action, but things didn't really improve much. Occasionally, I was getting strange little indications, so I wound up one of my rigs and swapped out the hooklengths for some coarse fishing #26 hooks to nylon. Baiting them with miniscule flecks of raw prawn, I dropped them down expecting the next bite to result in a tiny goby or some other micro species I'd caught before, but you never know! More time passed, with nothing happening, not even the little taps, and to be honest I was contemplating calling it a night, when my tiny hook rigged rod began twitching away. Picking it up, whatever was on the end felt bigger than a small goby and was putting up a strange fight. As it came up to the surface, I got quite a shock when I realised that it was a rather big pipefish! My first ever, it turned out to be a specimen greater pipefish.

What a bizarre fish! Cousin of the seahorse, they have a bony armoured body, but are surprisingly flexible. While trying to get some photos it kept moving its long tail around in a circling motion!

With a long straw like snout, they slurp up their food. I'm not sure what they normally eat to be honest, but was certainly glad this one had taken a tiny piece of raw prawn!

A totally unexpected bonus species, I was over the moon to catch my first ever species of pipefish. It was also my 90th saltwater species in the UK, so I now only require ten more to hit my target of one hundred. I carried on fishing for a couple more hours but nothing else was biting, so I packed up and headed along the coast to my accommodation, happy in the knowledge that regardless of what happened during the rest of the trip, it most certainly had been worthwhile visiting Hartlepool Marina!

The next day, I didn't get up too early and after breakfast I decided to visit the exposed intertidal rocks on the shoreline between Pilot Pier and Heugh Breakwater. I wasn't expecting anything unusual there, but it was a lovely day, and I was still in a high spirits after the previous day's specimen plaice and greater pipefish. Carefully making my way down over the bladderwrack covered rocks, I eventually found a few rockpools that looked quite promising and spending some time dangling tiny pieces of prawn into potential hiding spots eventually produced a few fish.

My playground for a few hours of rockpooling fun.

Slightly deeper rockpools with large rocks in them provide perfect hiding places for small ambush predators and highly territorial species.

I caught a few tiny long spined sea scorpions. They're super aggressive, and if present, quickly rush out to gobble a tiny bait.

Common blenny are a bit more cautious. They won't dart out and prefer the bait put inside their hiding place or at least right next to it, so they can grab it and retreat to safety. Once caught they like to bite you, which I still find very amusing.

Walking back to the car, feeling quite relaxed and enjoying the sun, I passed a mural featuring a local angler who seemed to be struggling to catch anything.

Andy Capp wasn't having much luck with the lumpsucker either.

After some lunch, I headed back to Hartlepool Marina for another session. Hoping that lightning would strike twice, and I'd somehow catch my second new species of the trip in the shape of a lumpsucker, it was very slow. Towards the end of the session, Bill, the local angler who had spotted the lumpsucker last week, came down to say hello, so at least I had someone to talk to for the last hour or two. It was great chatting to him and the info he shared on the lumpsucker and their behaviour was very interesting. A few have been seen and some of those caught over the last few years in Hartlepool Marina, in fact only one person that he knew of had caught one fishing blind. As we chatted away, my rods sat still, and by the time I threw in the towel the only thing that I'd landed was a solitary large common prawn.

Crustaceans do not count! I'd suffered my first blank of 2026.

The following morning, I met up with Bill and another local angler named Kev. Meeting up near the marina, we walked out across Middleton Beach to fish in some rockpools next to Middleton Pier that were about to be exposed over low tide. They were both fairly confident that we'd be able to catch viviparous blenny, a species I normally target in the open sea, so the prospect of catching them from rockpools was a fairly novel concept to me.

Bill & Kev patiently searching for our target species.

One of several long spined sea scorpion I kicked the session off with.

Eventually I caught a common blenny from a deeper hole.

The rockpool that Bill had caught nine viviparous blenny from during one session a previous year, sadly didn't produce any, and left us wondering if there were any around. The lads explained that recent storms had moved a lot of the boulders around and sand had also filled in some of the cracks underneath some of the larger rocks too, limiting likely spots somewhat. Working our way along the base of the pier, Kev found a dark recess and dropping a piece of isome in, pulled out the first viviparous blenny of the session.

I think this is the first viviparous blenny time I've seen caught from a rockpool.

As we carried on exploring all the nooks and crannies we could find, a few more long spined sea scorpion were caught. The deeper and darker the hole, the bigger they got. Some also had some beautiful spots on the back sides of their pectoral fins.

The colour variations in long spined sea scorpions are diverse, but these marking are pretty awesome too.

The biggest long spined sea scorpion I caught.

As the tide turned and began to flood, we doubled back and made our way back towards the shore. When we reached the spot where Kev had caught the viviparous blenny, I dropped my bait into the same spot. It wasn't in there long before a fish was pulling my rod tip down and the second viviparous blenny of the session was quickly pulled out.

My first viviparous blenny from a rockpool. A new way to target them that I might try locally.

Bill then encouraged me to drop my split shot rig down into a small but particularly deep hole. Rather than a gap in rocks in a rockpool, it was part of the foundations of the pier and the hole went down a few feet. Again, it didn't take too long for a fish to take my bait and pull my rod tip down. Pulling it out, I could tell it was a bigger fish and was quite surprised when a shore rockling appeared!

My first shore rockling from a rockpool too!

Three beards does not always make it a three bearded rockling!

By that point, the tide was about to cut us off, so we made our way back up onto the sea coal covered sands of Middleton Beach. It had been great fishing with Bill and Kev, I'd really enjoyed their company and had learned a new approach for targeting viviparous blenny that may prove to be useful in the future at similar venues.

Middleton beach is covered in a layer of sea coal giving it a jet black appearance.

Heading back to our cars, I thanked Bill and Kev for inviting me to join them, sharing their knowledge, and then we said our goodbyes. After some lunch, I decided to make the three hour drive back up the road. It had turned out to be a very enjoyable trip. The specimen plaice and the unexpected bonus capture of the greater pipefish made the tough fishing in the marina well worth the effort and the time spent rockpooling had also been very enjoyable too. I'd gone to try to catch a lumpsucker, but despite having failed to do that, it felt like I'd gained a lot more out of the trip. A new PB plaice, a new species, and I'd also met two local anglers who had given me valuable information and shown me a new way to target viviparous blenny. All that being said, the draw of catching a lumpsucker might see me returning to Hartlepool again very soon!

Tight lines, Scott.