More species hunting adventures on Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 5.

On the morning of our final day, we headed back to Playa de la Guirra, where I hunted for blennies and gobies around some rocks exposed at low tide. Gordon fished over the sand further out and caught a few wide eyed flounder. As well as catching a few pale black goby, my first of the trip, I also caught a few small rockpool blenny a tiny blenny that looked a little different. Popping one of the black goby and the tiny blenny into my photo tanks, I took a few photos of both.

Black goby caught over sand often have a much paler colouration. 

I haven’t been able to positively identify this juvenile blenny as of yet. 

After one last quick, but unsuccessful stop at the pond at the back of the Elba Sara Resort, to try and catch some golden grey mullet or flathead mullet, we drove all the way north to Corallejo, where we fished from the rocks at the back of the harbour’s ferry terminal. 

Plenty of deep water out in front of us and a nice view too, with Isla de Lobos to the east and Lanzarote off further in the distance. 

Casting out away from the rocks, it quickly became apparent that there was a large ravenous population of Guinean puffer present. They did their best to amuse us, but frankly by that point in the trip, we were sick of the sight of them. 

I've seen this party trick far too many times. It’s not even mildly amusing any more. Well, maybe just slightly amusing!

After catching literally dozens of Guinean puffers and the odd Canary damselfish, we then decided to cast a little shorter, trying to target the area at the base of the rocks in the hope that there would be a few more species there. From there I caught my first common two banded seabream of the trip and a wide eyed flounder. Gordon somehow managed to catch a crab! I think as he wound in his rig he must have let it rest on a rock near the surface and the crab had grabbed it. 

Usually I catch a few of these during a trip, but this ended up being the only common two banded seabream I caught on this one. Gordon had caught one earlier in the trip.

You don't need to be on the beach to catch a wide eyed flounder!

These normally scurry off when you get close, so you don't normally get this good a photo opportunity! I held this one down and quickly took a load of photos as I pulled my hand away!

As we continued to target the area closer in, Gordon eventually caught the first axillary seabream of the trip, and shortly afterwards, I caught one too. The inside of their mouth is bright pink, making them easily distinguishable from other seabream species. Really, the only other seabream that I think they could be mistaken for is the common pandora. Personally, I don't think they look similar at all, the common pandora had lots of bright blue spots over its body!

Also known as Spanish seabream. Species number forty four! One to go!

I then switched to dropping down into gaps in the boulders directly in front of me. Hoping to pull out a hairy blenny, the first fish out was an ornate wrasse and I thought it might be difficult to get through those if there were lots down there. I needn't have worried though, my next drop produced what I was after, and we'd hit our new improved target!

 A female hairy blenny. Species number forty five! Bonus mission accomplished!

Heading back to the car, we jokingly said that we'd try to catch another five species so we'd end up on fifty. Our next stop was the small, sheltered harbour of El Cotillo over on the north west coast, a spot that produced both sharpsnout seabream and zebra seabream the last time I was on the island. Unfortunately, upon arrival we found it was full up heavily coloured water containing tons of suspended weed, making it virtually unfishable. We briefly tried fishing from some rocks to the south of the harbour, but with a residual swell running as a result of strong winds that had been blowing the previous few days, and also the sea floor being very snaggy, we quickly decided to head back to Corallejo, so we could fish from the rocks behind the ferry terminal again. On the drive there however, I took the wrong turn at a split in the road, and we ended up headed south away from Corallejo. We could have carried on and turned around at the next junction, but it was quite far down the road, so instead we decided just to drive back to Caleta de Fuste and fish from the rocks there. Driving through the town to reach the rocky shore, we passed some cool fishy graffiti, stopping briefly, so I could take some photos of it.

The dusky grouper was my favourite. We'd both caught them during the trip.

Followed closely by this molly miller. Identifiable by the rows of cirri on the nape. A blenny species neither of us had caught.

After a short walk, we arrived at our final fishing spot of the trip, a fairly flat rock platform, with very deep water out in front of it. I knew that both Couch's seabream and blacktail comber were potential catches, so we fished two hook flapper rigs baited up with chunks of raw prawn, and cast out as far as we could. We were planning on having a nice meal in the evening, and with an early flight home the following day, we agreed to fish until the sun set. This gave us about two hours to fish.

I'd never fished this spot before and it was very deep out in front of us.

After a while, we hadn't caught anything unusual, just lots of damselfish, pufferfish and the odd ornate wrasse. I tried fishing with a metal jig for a while, but this only produced a solitary diamond lizardfish. Switching back to fishing on the bottom with bait, we were almost out of raw prawn chunks, when I caught a bogue, so we dispatched it and began using small strips of that, once the raw prawn had gone. This produced a lot less bites, but when mine did eventually get taken by something, it was a very aggressive take and my rod had a cracking bend in it, so I knew straight away it was something decent. After a decent scrap a nice Couch's seabream came to the surface, and after a bit of thrashing around, I nervously hoisted it up the rock face.

This small diamond lizardfish was a nice change to the damselfish, pufferfish and ornate wrasse.

This Couch's seabream, also known as a red porgy, was much more welcome! Gordon caught a couple of smaller specimens soon after I returned this one. A nice species for us both to catch during our final session of the trip! Species number forty six!

We fished on until the fish bait had all been used up. Most was just stripped from our hooks, leaving just the skin behind, and we didn't catch anything else of note. In the evening, we went out for an amazing steak dinner and a few beers. It had been a fantastic trip, and we'd both had a really enjoyable time. We'd caught a lot of fish and an impressive forty six different species between the two of us. I'd caught forty on my own, including five new ones!

Here's a list of the species I caught, with the new ones in bold...

1. Atlantic Lizardfish
2. Axillary Seabream
3. Azores Chromis
4. Bastard Grunt
5. Bermuda Sea Chub
6. Black Goby
7. Bogue
8. Butterfly Winged Comber
9. Canary Damselfish
10. Cardinalfish
11. Comber
12. Common Two Banded Seabream
13. Couch’s Seabream
14. Derbio
15. Diamond Lizardfish
16. Dusky Grouper
17. Gilthead Seabream
18. Greater Weever
19. Guinean Puffer
20. Hairy Blenny
21. Island Grouper
22. Macaranesian Sharpnose Puffer
23. Madeira Goby
24. Madeira Rockfish
25. Madeiran Sardinella
26. Moroccan White Seabream
27. Monkey Blenny
28. Mozambique Tilapia
29. Ornate Wrasse
30. Common Pandora
31. Parrotfish
32. Planehead Filefish
33. Redlip Blenny
34. Rockpool Blenny
35. Saddled Seabream
36. Sailfin Molly
37. Salema
38. Striped Seabream
39. Thick Lipped Mullet
40. Wide Eyed Flounder

Gordon also caught the following species that I did not...

41. Annular Seabream
42. Balao Halfbeak
43. Black Scorpionfish
44. Black Seabream
45. Goldblotch Grouper
46. Red Banded Seabream

This was my seventh trip to the Canary Islands, so it's safe to say I like it down there! I'd like to return at some point in the not too distant future, to have another go at catching a glasseye, and I'd probably take some heavy tackle next time as well, so I could to do some shore fishing for shark species too. The idea of visiting the three main islands of La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, that I've never been to, is also appealing, so I dare say I've not visited the Canary Islands for the last time!

Tight lines, Scott.

Even more species hunting adventures on Lanzarote: Part 1.

At the end of November, I flew down to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands with two of my mates, Nick and Ryan, for a week of species hunting. I've been twice before and Nick was with me the last time I visited the island, but for Ryan it was his first real foreign holiday. We were all looking forward to the trip, and three sets of tackle went with us. Ultralight gear would be used most of the time and would no doubt account for most of the species we would catch, but we also took heavy lure gear to use at dawn and dusk for barracuda and bonito and finally three heavy beachcasters, so we could fish after dark for stingrays and other shark species.

The day before we left we checked the weather and to be honest it left us feeling a little bit deflated. High winds building up over a number of days with a fair bit of rain also forecast and couple of days of thunderstorms thrown in to the mix as well. Certainly not the type of weather you expect when you fly down to that part of the world! Anyway, we were still determined to make the most of the trip even if we may have to temper our expectations. Arriving in the evening after the sun had set we quickly picked up the hire car from the airport, drove to a supermarket to get some food and bait, found our apartment, grabbed the ultralight gear out of our luggage and hit Playa Chica pier for a couple of hours.

It was a pleasant, warm evening and turned out to be a fairly busy if short session. We had raw prawns and squid to use as bait, with the latter proving much the more effective choice. Fishing the bottom few feet  of the water column, we caught a few bogue, common two banded seabream, white seabream, blue jack mackerel, axillary seabream, a Madeira rockfish and one of my favourite nocturnal mini species, cardinalfish.

The cardinalfish. These little red rubies come out to feed after dark.;

Catching seven different species was a good start to our species hunting. With over a hundred species possible, I’d set us a fairly ambitious group target of fifty species for the week, but given the weather that was coming our way we all agreed to forget that and just enjoy whatever fishing we managed to do as the conditions might restrict our opportunities during our stay. Back at the apartment we went straight to bed as we had an early start planned the following morning. We wanted to head down to the back of Puerto del Carmen harbour for a few hours, targeting primarily barracuda.

Down on the rocks before sunrise, we thrashed the deep water in front of us with various plugs, soft plastics and metal jigs. I think it's more a case of being in the right place at the right time than anything else, and sadly we had no luck in that respect. We decided to put the lure rods away once the sun had been up for a while and headed along to the rocks at the mouth of the harbour armed with our ultralight gear and some bait.

Not an entirely unproductive morning on the heavy lure rods, various new lures were tested and also got a thorough wash.

After scrambling down the rocks from the clifftop path, we got into some fish straight away. Nick fished in a deep gully fairly close in.

Ryan and I cast as far as we could out into the entrance of the harbour.

None of us were shocked when we all caught our first ornate wrasse of the trip. Unsurprisingly, they made up the bulk of our catches over the remainder of the week.

We added a few more species to our tally in the shape of a common pandora…

…a ringneck blenny…

…and a couch’s seabream.

We also caught a black goby, some Guinean puffer and a blacktail comber before we decided it was getting too hot and the action slowed right down, the fish obviously agreeing with our assessment of the rising temperature. A bit sweaty we headed back to the apartment for some lunch and a siesta.

At about 17:00 we put our beachcasters in the car and headed south to check out a couple of stingray marks. The wind had really started to blow and as a result the first mark, a long beach, was being battered by a large swell, making fishing virtually impossible. The second mark was slightly better as it offered some protection from the wind, but there was still a bit of swell running so it was far from ideal. We gave it a go anyway and three up and over rigs baited with sardine were cast out onto a sandy area beyond the rocks, but after a couple of hours the conditions deteriorated further and when it started raining we all got a bit of a soaking and decided pack up. Even if we hooked a fish it would have been a nightmare trying to land it. At least we had seen what the mark was like before the sun had set and if conditions improved we could return later in the week to that part of the island.

By the time we got back to Puerto del Carmen the wind had really picked up, and it rained heavily most of the rest of the evening, so we chilled out in the apartment and had a few beers with the intention of making another early start the next day. When our alarm clocks went off, it was raining heavily again, so we had a couple more hours in bed and waited for it to stop before heading down to Playa Chica pier for another session there. When we got down there it was absolutely mobbed with divers though, more divers than I’ve ever seen there in fact, so we headed west to fish from some rocks near the mouth of Puerto Calero Marina instead. It’s a spot that usually throws up a good variety of species, but all we caught were dozens of ornate wrasse, some puffer and a few Madeira goby. The Madeira goby did add another species to our group tally. The tally that, as the three of us had discussed, I definitely wasn't keeping a track of.

Living on the wrong island.

In the afternoon, we decided to try a new spot further up the eastern side of the island to hopefully stay out of the wind. A small stone pier in Punta Mujeres was chosen, and it proved to be a very good spot, comfortable to fish from, providing lots of ultralight sport and adding several species to our haul.

There were lots of puffer fish in the area. Mainly Guinean puffer…

…but also the odd Macaronesian sharpnose puffer too. They're more colourful with various shades of blue spots on them and are a little nicer to look at, but still a super aggressive, bait stripping pest.

One fairly small shallower area off to the right of the pier held quite a lot of annular seabream.

Nick and I both caught a single planehead filefish each.

Ryan also caught a wide eyed flounder.

We fished there until we ran out of bait, adding an Atlantic lizardfish, some Canary damsel, an Azores damsel and a couple of emerald wrasse to the species we’d already caught. We also watched several large stingray swim past the base of the pier and head out off into deeper water. So we had also stumbled upon another potential mark to fish for them if the conditions were right. On our way back to Puerto del Carmen we also checked out Playa de la Garita, a black sand beach not too far from Punta Mujeres, that we figured might also be a reasonably comfortable place to fish for stingray after dark. It had been a productive day and our trip tally, which we’d all completely forgotten about because we were all just focusing on having fun, was now a respectable twenty three.

After dinner, we discussed our options for the next few days after checking the weather forecast again. The following day it was due to improve a bit, with the wind dropping off slightly, so we decided to book seats on the first ferry to take us over to La Graciosa in the morning. There we planned to spend the day fishing into deep water with our heavy lure rods to see if we could catch some bigger fish.

Up early the next day, we drove up to Órzola on the north coast and took the thirty minute ferry over to La Graciosa. It's a very small island and has no proper roads, so 4x4 jeeps are the only means of transport available. Speaking to the drivers of these off road taxis, they warned us against fishing from the two marks I told them we were interested in going to, saying that the swell was too big on them both for us to fish safely, instead they helpfully suggested an alternative which we then drove to. It was a bumpy ride in the back of the old Land Rover, but after about twenty minutes we were dropped off and given directions to the mark, which required a short walk north along the rocky shoreline. Arriving at the small peninsula, it didn’t look anything special or particularly deep, but we got our gear set up and started fishing with various lures. The weather forecast had predicted a dry day, but the grey clouds overhead had other ideas, and we got soaked to the skin three times. Each time the rain stopped, it gave us the chance to dry off a bit before it started again, drenching us once more. To make matters worse, none of us had any interest in any lure from any fish that may have been around.

More jigs, plugs and soft plastics being cleaned until absolutely spotless. Shirt, shorts and trainers also got given a good wash too. Repeatedly.

Eventually the rain stopped and stayed off, and having tried various different types of lures with no success, I switched over to ultralight tackle and kicked a few whelks off the rocks to use as bait. This rather predictably produced endless ornate wrasse and puffer. Occasionally, a different species did manage to reach the bait first, breaking up the monotony.

I caught our first diamond lizardfish of the trip. They seem to prefer living in rocky habitat, unlike their cousin, the Atlantic lizardfish, which prefers clean sand.

I also caught a solitary common comber from the rocky bottom in front of us.

Switching to a split shot rig and dropping my whelk bait into rockpools that appeared as the tide dropped, produced some rockpool blenny.

Shortly before we had to leave, I also got broken off by what I suspect was a grey triggerfish. We saw one following an ornate wrasse up as I wound that in and on my next drop I hooked something that powered off when I set the hook. Heading underneath a ledge, I had no choice but to apply some pressure to try and bully it away from the snag. As soon as I did though, my rig failed at the loop knot that I had used to create my hooklength. Landing a grey triggerfish would have been a new species for me, so I was pretty gutted, but being busted up by larger fish is always a risk when you fish with ultralight tackle. 

To their credit, despite not getting any interest in their lures all day, Nick and Ryan both persisted with the heavy lure gear until it was time to head back to the dirt track road to get picked up to be taken back to Caleta del Sebo harbour. Another short bumpy ride later we arrived back at the port. As we had just under an hour or so to kill before our ferry left, we fished with our ultralight tackle from boulders at the back of the harbour breakwater, where we all caught some ornate wrasse and Guinean puffer. It had been a bit of a disappointing day trip really but at least none of us blanked on La Graciosa and the rain had stayed off too, so by the time we caught the ferry back to Lanzarote we were all fairly dry.

Arriving back in Puerto del Carmen we got freshened up and headed out that evening for a meal and a “few” drinks.

Things started a little messy when Ryan returned from the bar with these cocktails.

The meal was great and we had a great laugh visiting a few pubs before returning to the apartment where we carried on drinking for a few hours. As we didn’t go to bed until very late, there would be no early start the next day. This marked the midway point of the trip and whilst the weather hadn’t been great, we’d certainly tried to make the most of things and had caught twenty six species in the process. Not bad really, all things considered.

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for part 2. 

Even more species hunting adventures on Crete: Part 2.

As the second half of our holiday progressed, we continued to make the most of the hire car. On another day trip, we drove up through the mountains in the island's interior and back down from them again to the south coast's picturesque town of Agia Galini. I did a fair bit of fishing in the harbour there and added a few more species to my tally. I also had a lot of fun freelining bread for some pretty large salema that were coming up tight into the side before smashing my bait. I didn't manage to land any of them however, after stripping line off my reel as they bolted back down the harbour wall they all somehow managed to throw the hook sadly.

Perched on a bollard with my net at the ready, just in case a hook actually stayed in a salema's bony mouth.

Switching to raw prawn fished close to the bottom produced some small Couch's seabream...

...a few East Atlantic peacock wrasse....

...and this nice little goldblotch grouper.

A day or two later I fished a deep water rock mark near Boufos Cave, but the fishing was surprisingly poor. In fact other than some ornate wrasse and yellow spotted puffers closer in, I caught nothing else. Despite this, I think I'd try there again at dawn or dusk if I return to the area in the future. The spot just looked so fishy!

Fishing in the shade of the cliffs at my back, I enjoyed the view towards the uninhabited island of Dia, off in the distance.

On the recommendation of my mate Nick who had also been on Crete earlier in the year, we spent a morning exploring Sisi, a lovely village with a small harbour that cuts inland and is surrounded by cliffs. An onshore wind made fishing in the open sea with my ultralight tackle difficult, so after a stroll around the village, I had a short session fishing on the inside of the harbour's rocky breakwater.

Fishing was tough, but I eventually caught some ornate wrasse and some yellow spotted puffer. The number of puffers had definitely increased since my last holiday on Crete. They're a total pain as they bite your line and damage it.

Whilst I was fishing away, Lillian spotted a moray eel swimming close in amongst the rocks right at my feet and christened it Bill. I think Bill was drawn out by the smell of the scraps of raw prawn that I had been dropping there. I quickly tied on a heavier leader and a chinu hook. Dropping a chunk of prawn down, Bill took it straight away, and before I could fully load my rod and apply pressure, he had quickly swam backwards into a hole. I couldn't get him out again, and trying to bully him saw me eventually being broken off. Bill would have been my first new species of the trip, so I was gutted.

Here are some of Bill's relatives in CRETAquarium.

On the penultimate day of our stay, we headed east to Agios Nikolaos to spend a day there. In the morning we went out on the glass bottomed boat. While you're down below, the crew are up on deck, throwing in a steady supply of fish scraps to attract various species of fish to the boat. As well as spotting some of the more common ones, we also saw a couple of silver cheeked toadfish, and they weren't half greedy buggers. They've got a serious set of teeth and were devouring entire carcasses in seconds.

A silver cheeked toadfish chomping away.

On the way back to port, we went up onto the deck as the boat followed the coastline back. As well as enjoying some of the views, we were also lucky to see shoals of flying fish swimming/flying/gliding up out of the water, into and through the air as they got out of the way of the boat.

Flying fish. How cool. I'd love to catch one!

Back on dry land, we took a walk around Lake Voulismeni, stopping for lunch before I got the green light to grab my tackle from the car to do a bit of fishing.

"The Lake".

After a quick trip to a supermarket and fishmongers to grab some bait, I was soon catching lots of thick lipped mullet on freelined bread and some Bucchich's goby on small chunks of raw prawn on a split shot rig. As well as those two species, I also added another three additional species to my trip tally.

This small blue runner grabbed a chunk of prawn and powered off, almost making it under some boats and their mooring ropes. Great fun on my HTO Rock Rover.

As was this small, aggressive bluefish.

A small shoal of these Yellowtail barracuda, a migrant from the Red Sea, swam past the spot I was fishing and this one also took a chunk of raw prawn.

On the way back to Koutouloufari we took a detour and went to Plaka, grabbing some more bread and some tins of sardine from a supermarket on the way. After making up some ground bait, I started tossing in a small amount regularly.  This soon had some bream up in the water feeding on it, including some reasonably sized salema. Again, I managed to hook a few of them, but every single one managed to throw the hook after a brief tussle. I then switched over to a Gulp! Angleworm on a drop shot rig and cast out fishing close to the bottom.

From the rocks at the end of Plaka's small harbour, I caught...

...lots of painted combers...

... a few common two banded seabream...

...some Mediterranean rainbow wrasse...

...and a reticulated filefish.

I'd forgotten how good Plaka was for catching a wide variety of species. A fact that was demonstrated when we finally spotted our first lionfish in the open sea. It came up out of the submerged boulders in front of where I was fishing, probably drawn out by the groundbait. It lazily floated around for a while and then swam slowly around the area before vanishing again. I tried a few things to try and catch it, but it wasn't remotely interested in anything I put in front of it. Before we left, we also witnessed another angler catching a silver cheeked toadfish. If we return to Crete, I think we'll stay in Elounda again, so I can spend a bit of time fishing around Plaka again.

So, the end of the trip had arrived, and we'd had a great time. I didn't do any fishing on the last day, but I'd managed to catch thirty-six species over the two weeks, which I think is a fairly respectable effort. The only disappointment being I'd failed to catch any new species.

Here's a summary of the species I caught.

1. Annular Seabream
2. Atlantic Lizardfish
3. Axillary Seabream
4. Black Scorpionfish
5. Bluefish
6. Blue Runner
7. Bucchich’s Goby
8. Cardinalfish
9. Common Comber
10. Common Two Banded Seabream 
11. Couch’s Seabream
12. Damselfish
13. Derbio
14. East Atlantic Peacock Wrasse 
15. Giant Goby
16. Goldblotch Grouper
17. Golden Grey Mullet
18. Goldfish
19. Grey Wrasse
20. Madeira Rockfish
21. Marbled Rabbitfish
22. Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse 
23. Ornate Wrasse
24. Painted Comber
25. Pearly Razorfish
26. Reticulated Filefish
27. Rock Goby
28. Rusty Blenny
29. Salema
30. Slender Goby
31. Striped Seabream
32. Thick Lipped Mullet
33. White Seabream
34. Wide Eyed Flounder
35. Yellow Spotted Puffer
36. Yellowtail Barracuda

Lillian and I both love visiting Crete, and I dare say this won't be my last set of catch reports from there. I might however set out to deliberately focus my efforts on targetting new species if we do return, or perhaps do a spot of boat fishing. Lionfish, silvercheeked toadfish and Bill better look out!

Tight lines, Scott.