For our third evening session fishing around Isola Rossa's marina, I turned my attention, initially, to fishing for small species straight down the inner wall of the breakwater. This produced a few damselfish and some small annular seabream. After a while, I caught a mystery blenny.
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| The mystery blenny is very similar to the ringneck blenny. Examining the cirri is the easiest way to tell them apart. Luckily, I had a new photo tank with me, which makes this task much easier! |
As the sun was about to fade, I tied on a heavier leader and clipped on a small lipless sinking pencil lure. Lee was already targeting barracuda, so I joined him and did likewise near the end of the breakwater. The rocks there seemed like a perfect ambush point, and there were plenty of tiny baitfish around, so our hopes were high. Giving the lure a good jerk and then pausing briefly before winding up the slack line and repeating was my chosen approach, and much to my delight, it only took about half a dozen casts to tempt the target species. After a short scrap, a small barracuda was successfully landed.
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| This small European barracuda was great fun on my ultralight setup! |
Seeing me get one, Lee was even more determined to catch one too, so he carried on trying. Having ticked it off, I decided to switch my attention back to fishing straight down the harbour walls again, hoping to catch some nocturnal species like cardinalfish or black scorpionfish. Once it got dark, I shone my headtorch over towards Lee to see his rod was bent over. He'd hooked a barracuda, on a Halco twisty of all things, so I went along to help him land it and take a photo for him.
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| Target acquired. Another nice fish for Lee. |
Us both catching a barracuda felt well deserved given the difficult time we'd had over the first few days of the trip. Fairly pleased about how the session had gone, we headed back to the apartment.
In the morning we drove up to Santa Teresa Gallura, where we fished around the headland where the Torre di Longonsaro is located. The views up and down the from around the tower of the coastline were spectacular.
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The impressive Torre di Longonsardo lookout tower is over five hundred years old.
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| The beach to the west of the tower looked amazing, but we weren’t there to swim. |
Following the path around the headland, we tried fishing at a couple of spots. The ground was fairly shallow and very rocky, so it didn’t come as a great surprise when all we caught was a few wrasse.
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| A nice example of a male Mediterrranean rainbow wrasse. |
After a while, we decided to try another spot and headed back to the car. On the way up from the rocks, we spotted a lizard sunbathing on a wall. Usually, they run off when you get too close, but this one happily posed for a few photos.
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| This Tyrrhenian wall lizard wasn’t too bothered by me, or my iPhone. |
A short drive later, we arrived at a small pier in the middle of the town’s port. Again, it looked promising but for some reason there weren’t too many fish around. Casting over towards a few rocks at the opposite side of the port, I did manage to catch a few small white seabream.
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| Another species added to my tally. |
The following day, we returned to Castelsardo to have a wander around the town’s narrow streets and to climb the steep hill to explore the walled fortress at its top.
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| The picturesque town of Castelsardo. |
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| We had a casual stroll around its steep narrow streets. |
Before we left, we had a quick session fishing from some rocks to the east of the town. Tucked away in a bay out of the wind, it was fairly shallow rocky ground and didn’t look very promising. Yet again, the fishing was pretty slow and all we caught were a few juvenile Mediterranean rainbow wrasse and a couple of small white seabream.
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| Our effort certainly couldn’t be faulted. |
The following day, we decided to head to the north east coast again. We visited a few potential fishing spots, but the strong wind either made them unfishable or fishing simply wasn’t allowed. In short, beautiful scenery aside, the morning had been a bit of a waste of time. In the end, we ended up revisiting the black goby infested area in Olbia again!
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| At least we were out of the wind, but would we catch anything other than black goby?! |
Almost as soon as we began fishing, Lee hooked into a nice fish that definitely wasn't a black goby. It shot off under a nearby yacht, but he managed to get it away from the mooring ropes, and a nice salema soon came into view. Sadly, we'd left the net in the boot of the car, and it threw the hook on the surface. We were hopeful there would be more of them around, but all we caught at that spot after that was black goby. Moving to an area with some rocks at the water’s edge, I tied on a tanago hook and targeted some small silver fish. They turned out to be big scale sand smelt.
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| A lateral line scale count was used to positively identify this species. |
Switching to a split shot rig and dropping my bait into gaps in the rocks, I caught a few more black goby. After a while, I eventually caught something slightly different in the shape of a rock goby.
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| A third goby species added to my tally! |
Working my way along the rocks, I spotted what I was confident was a peacock blenny. The second I put my rig in its vicinity however, it swam off under a large flat rock. Despite my best efforts, I could not tempt it out again, so I moved slowly along the rocks, speculatively putting my bait into likely looking holding spots. Eventually, this paid off when I caught a rather large peacock blenny from down behind a large rock.
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| Probably the biggest peacock blenny I’ve ever caught. |
On the way back to Isola Rossa, we stopped briefly at a park up in the mountains. In the park, a small river has been dammed to create a series of ponds. As well as ducks, geese and terrapins, the largest pond also contains a few carp and lots of goldfish. No one else was around, so…
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| Hundreds of goldfish swimming around waiting to be fed was an opportunity too good to miss. |
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| A piece of line, a split shot and a hook baited with a piece of bread, immediately produced a few of the colourful fish. |
The following day, our last full day of the trip, it was very windy again. We were pretty much resigned to the fact that fishing in the sea was either going to be very challenging, pretty unproductive, or both! Regardless, we decided to visit a few places on the north coast. Our first stop was Costa Paradiso. Whilst having an espresso in the morning, a local spearfisherman had told Lee that the sea surrounding it contained more fish, so we went to check it out.
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| Costa Paradiso. A stunning location, but a fair swell was crashing over the rocks, so we had a quick stroll and then headed further up the coast. |
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| Portobello di Gallura was our next stop. Another beautiful stretch of coastline. |
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| It also had a small harbour. We decided to fish at the outside of its inner breakwater. |
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| We gave it a go, but all we caught before throwing in the towel were a few juvenile wrasse and seabream. |
After enjoying some lunch, we decided to get away from the coast. Opting to be a little bit naughty and visiting a freshwater venue again. This time we headed to a stretch of the Coghinas river, which has lots of hot springs. As a result, there were lots of people around enjoying the warm water, but we found a quiet spot downstream from them and quietly wet a line.
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| The rivers of Sardinia contain several species. I was hoping to catch a Mediterranean trout, but spotting some pumpkinseed in the margin, I quickly caught some using a small piece of worm. |
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| Such a nice looking fish. I love catching pumpkinseed! |
Lee quickly caught one too, his first ever, in fact. Shortly afterwards, he caught a couple of juvenile largemouth bass on soft plastics. I spent ten minutes trying to get one myself, but as we didn't have the required licences to fish in freshwater, we didn't want to push our luck and left.
In the evening, we had one last session in Isola Rossa marina. Lee spent his time trying to catch another barracuda, whilst I focused on fishing down the side again. This produced a few damselfish, small seabream and an East Atlantic peacock wrasse before the sun set. After dark, the bites dried up until I caught a small dusky grouper.
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| My biggest East Atlantic peacock wrasse of the trip. |
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| This juvenile dusky grouper brought a smile to my face. Even the small ones are fiesty! |
Our last day on Sardinia had arrived. As we had a few hours spare in the morning before our flight back to the UK, we had one last go fishing around Olbia. Revisiting the rocky areas, Lee quickly spotted a few small salema in amongst some other seabream in a corner. Dropping a small section of ragworm in amongst them, I managed to catch one fairly quickly.
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| This small salema was my last species of the trip, taking our joint tally to twenty five. |
In amongst some rocks slightly further along from where I caught the salema, I spotted a small peacock blenny. It couldn't resist a piece of ragworm either!
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| Male peacock blenny have a rather impressive forehead! |
We carried on walking along the boardwalk, ending up underneath in the shade of a road bridge crossing the estuary. There we found a shoal of annular seabream, and having used up my ragworm, I caught a few more on Gulp! Angleworm before it was time to head to the airport.
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My last fish of the trip was an annular seabream.
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My third trip in three months had come to an end. It was nice to go away on holiday with Lillian again, and it was nice for us both to catch up with Lee again. The wind had been blowing strongly most of the time, and the fishing had been hard going, but we still caught a few fish. Here's a summary of what I caught with my only new species of the trip in bold...
- Annular Seabream
- Big Scale Sand Smelt
- Black Goby
- Common Two Banded Seabream
- Damselfish
- Dusky Grouper
- East Atlantic Peacock Wrasse
- European Barracuda
- Five Spotted Wrasse
- Goldfish
- Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse
- Mystery Blenny
- Ornate Wrasse
- Painted Comber
- Peacock Blenny
- Pumpkinseed
- Red-Mouthed Goby
- Rock Goby
- Rusty Blenny
- Saddled Seabream
- Salema
- Sharpsnout Seabream
- White Seabream
Lee also caught...
- Black Scorpionfish
- Largemouth Bass
Sardinia was a beautiful place, lush and green with wild flowers everywhere and some incredible breathtaking scenery. The fishing was very dissapointing though. Perhaps it would be better in less windy conditions or later in the year? Perhaps the fishing around Cagliari and the southern end of the island is better. Will I return to Sardinia at some point in the future to find out? You never know!
Tight lines, Scott.
