More species hunting adventures on Tenerife: Part 1.

At the end of last year, I booked a trip to the Canary Island of Tenerife for myself and two mates, Nick and Ryan. It's always good to get some winter sun and the weather conditions here in the UK over the last couple of months have been absolutely dreadful, so when we headed to Edinburgh Airport earlier this month we were really looking forward to getting away! Also, it had been just over ten years since I last visited Tenerife, and that was a family holiday, so I was keen to return to see what I could catch on a dedicated fishing trip. We had plenty of tackle packed, from ultra light all the way to very heavy beachcasters, and we planned to target a wide variety of species. I was hopeful I’d catch some species for the first time too and had researched a list of potential targets, some more likely than others!

It was an early morning flight, so we arrived just before noon. As soon as we'd picked up our hire car and dropped off our luggage at our apartment, we drove down to San Juan Harbour and went fishing at the end of its outer breakwater. Fishing in Spanish harbours and marinas is normally forbidden, but there's an area at the end of San Juan's large port where fishing is authorized and it’s popular with locals and tourists alike. Fishing with light tackle, using small pieces of raw prawn, it didn't take us long at all to catch a few fish. To begin with, I focused on the submerged rocks straight down the end of the breakwater. We were all expecting ornate wrasse to be the first species to be caught, but surprisingly, a few others grabbed our bait before they did.

My first fish of the trip was this small Madeira rockfish. These have poisonous spines, so handle carefully!

It was followed by a few Canary damselfish,...

...and a solitary parrotfish.

At one point my rig must have dropped into a gap in the boulders and up came a cardinalfish. They hide in dark places during the day and come out after dark.

Eventually we all caught ornate wrasse. Ryan somehow managed to avoid them for a lot longer than Nick and I did, but eventually, this one took his bait.

After a while, I began casting my rig out as far as I could to see if I could catch a few different species from the deep water out from the end of the breakwater. The bottom was mostly clean, with the odd rocky area. I caught a wide eyed flounder, a few more ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish, and then my first puffers of the trip. They wouldn't be my last!

Wide eyed flounder are fairly common over sand in the Canary Islands, but they don't get that big and have relatively small mouths.

Puffer are a pain, but at least the Macaronesian sharpnose puffer has some beautiful markings.

The following day, we headed to the outskirts of Los Cristianos, where we fished from a small concrete platform. Ornate wrasse, Canary damselfish and puffers were all we caught to begin with. The venue was pretty busy, with most anglers float fishing, so we were restricted to fishing in the gaps between them initially, but in the afternoon a group of them packed up and left, so we then had a bit more freedom to cast our baits into some new areas. Eventually, I found a small sandy patch diagonally out from the corner of the structure, and this produced a couple of Atlantic lizardfish, and a solitary greater weever.

Like the wide eyed flounder, the Atlantic lizardfish is commonly found over sandy areas.

As is the greater weever! Both similar in colouration, with browns and electric blues, confirm what you’ve caught before you grab to unhook!

In an attempt to catch a needlefish, I then switched to fishing a small bait under a float. There are two species of needlefish present in the Canary Islands that I have never caught before, so I was hopeful that at least one of those would be in the vicinity. Nick also switched to fishing with a float, although he opted for a heavy spinning rod so he could fish a larger bait under a much bigger float. I didn’t have any luck with my target species sadly, but after a while Nick’s rig drifted over a shallow reef and his float disappeared. He got a bit of a surprise when he wound in an eight legged culprit. 

Probably not what Nick was hoping would grab his big fish bait. 

Having no luck adding anything else to our trip’s species tally from the open sea, I decided to wander over to the nearby rocks where I was confident I could quickly pull out a couple of species from the small rockpools.

Intertidal rockpools should not be ignored on a species hunt! I wasn’t expecting anything unusual and only caught the two species I suspected I would. 

There were lots of super aggressive rockpool blenny and I caught one almost immediately.

In their midst were a few Madeira goby. Still aggressive but not as fast to attack my bait as their rockpool companion, it took me a little bit longer to catch one of them.

Our trip had gotten off to a fairly productive start, but having only visited spots that I had fished the last time I was on the island, I was keen to explore some new spots. There was one slight problem however. We may have left the cold and rain behind in the UK, but the wind was blowing strongly from the north east and this could perhaps throw a spanner in the works. We decided to go for a drive around the island the following day to find out how bad the swell was on the eastern and northern coasts. I was hopeful we’d be able to wet a line somewhere, but if not we could just drive back to the south west and find some shelter there. 

Tight lines, Scott.

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Even more species hunting adventures on Gran Canaria: Part 3.

Keen to try fishing somewhere new, the next day we headed to a spot I'd seen other anglers fishing from in a YouTube video. Isla de Anfi is an artificial island that sits between Puerto de Anfi del Mar and Playa Anfi del Mar. Obviously, fishing in the marina, or from the beach, is prohibited, and as it turns out, fishing on the small island is not permitted either. A local who was fishing when we got down there, came over and told us that the police sometimes patrol the area, and whilst we wouldn't get into serious trouble, they would politely ask us to leave if they found us fishing. We only fished for thirty minutes before he approached us, and as the fishing was very poor, this information made the decision to leave a pretty easy one. I added one new species to our tally before we headed back up the hill to where we had parked the car, meaning the visit hadn't been a complete waste of time.

Isla de Anfi. No fishing allowed. We only spotted a sign as we left. If you decide to try here yourself, I'd visit at first light for a couple of hours.

A solitary small comber made our visit worthwhile.

We then headed west to Playa de Amadores to fish from its eastern breakwater again, but both the car parks were full, so we decided to head back to Puerto de Mogan once again. Having fished there twice already, we knew what to expect. The fishing had been reasonably consistent, and the draw of catching a red banded seabream, or something else unusual, was too hard to resist!

We just couldn't stay away!

Like previous sessions at the venue, we caught a reasonable amount of fish and in amongst the usual suspects we also added a few more species to our tally.

I knew it was a seabream when I hooked this common two banded seabream, but it wasn't the red banded seabream I was hoping would snaffle my squid strip.

I caught the first butterfly winged comber of the trip.

This diamond lizardfish also munched a strip of squid.

As the sun began to get fairly low in the sky, and the beach behind us began to empty, we decided to head around to target mullet for an hour or so in the channel. Ed wanted to catch his first flathead mullet, but there were a lot more mullet present and this made catching them very difficult. Numerous thick lipped mullet were around, and all we caught were those and some small golden grey mullet.

Our first thick lipped mullet of the trip.

Their thick upper lip with its rows of papillae make the species easy to identify.

The following day, we got up early and headed back to Playa de Amadores to ensure we got a parking space. First order of the day was a bit of fun in the rockpools at the end of the eastern breakwater.

I caught a few Madeira goby. They're not shy!

After catching a few fish from the rockpools, we turned our attention to fishing in the sea. I spent a bit of time trying to target garfish using a metal jig. I added a few pieces of thread from my fish handling towel to its treble hook to improve my chances of landed one should I get take, but despite getting a few hits, I didn't connect with any of the culprits. Switching back to fishing on the bottom out in the deep water, I caught a few bogue, as did Ed.

Bogue are quite a pretty seabream species in my opinion, in a sort of subtle way.

In the evening, we headed back to the bright glasseye spot. In my heart, I knew it was almost certainly a waste of time, as the condition were pretty much the same as they had been for the duration of the trip, but we went anyway. Whilst waiting for the security guard to leave and the sun to set, we fished from the beach nearby. The bites were few and far between, but came eventually and we both caught a few fish. I caught a bastard grunt and Ed caught his first Atlantic lizard fish and a greater weever. I caught a small wide eyed flounder and Ed caught his first one too, shortly afterwards.

A small bastard grunt. Much more common after dark in my experience, but you do catch some during the day as well.

Always love catching these pretty little flatfish. Ed was over the moon catching his first one too.

In the end, the conditions inside the glasseye spot were still very poor, so we decided just to head up to Arinaga to fish the pier there for an hour or so. We were both feeling pretty tired at this point, so we didn't stay for that long.

I ticked off a greater weever, just before we decided to call it a day.

We had been fishing pretty hard from the moment we arrived, and being honest, it had caught up with us. In the evening, we decided just to relax. I treated myself to a steak and a few cold beers, and we watched some videos on YouTube about the island and also some fishing videos too. We had two days left to reach our target of forty species, and I wasn't sure if we would do it. Hopefully we'd be suitably refreshed the following day to refocus and get the remaining species we needed.

Tight lines, Scott.

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More species hunting adventures on Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 2.

The next stop on our first full day on Gran Canaria was quite similar to the one before, another breakwater for a busy beach. This time, it was the eastern breakwater of Playa de Amadores. Also constructed from very large boulders, the end section is lower down that the start and concrete has been poured in between the boulders, making for a comfortable fishing experience, with no risk of tackle boxes going down into gaps, never to be seen again. After finding a spot, we began fishing, and quickly caught a few puffers, Canary damselfish and our first ornate wrasse of the trip.

I remember catching an ornate wrasse for the first time and how excited I was! They are still a beautiful species, but over a decade and several hundred ornate wrasse later, I don't quite get the same buzz.

After a while, I took a short break from fishing in the sea to quickly raid some small man made “concrete and rock” pools behind us. You can't ignore small bodies of water and the species they hold when you're on a species hunt.

It didn’t take more than five minutes for me to tempt a few Madeira goby..

...and rockpool blenny, taking our tally into double figures.

Returning to fishing in the sea, I turned my attention to the numerous redlip blenny that were sitting on submerged boulders all along the edge of the breakwater. Predominantly an algae eater, I find them difficult to catch. They generally either ignore your bait, or simply swim off as it lands in their vicinity. Eventually, I dropped my prawn down in front of one large specimen that actually seemed interested/agitated by its sudden arrival in its proximity. The only problem being that a large swarm of other, much more aggressive species, would dart over and fight over the bait, spooking my target in the process. I persisted for well over an hour. Failing to hook the fish a few times in between catching several other "pest" species. I thought it might lose interest, but I think it was acting out of aggression, defending its territory, rather than trying to eat my bait. Eventually my perseverance paid off though, and I managed to strike fast enough to hook only my second ever redlip blenny. It was wound in rapidly and quickly swing up into my waiting hand! I was so excited to catch it, Gordon asked me if it was a new species!

One of my favourite blenny species. Big and chunky, they're up there with the tompot blenny in terms of character, in my opinion anyway. 

Their top lip is a large flap that it drags along rocks to harvest the algae from them. A very fussy eater. 

Such a funky face and their eyes move independently too, making for some entertaining expressions. 

To end the day, we headed to a small harbour back up the east coast of the island, reasonably close to our accommodation. The main target species there was glasseye, a member of the bigeye family. They are a nocturnal fish ,that lives in caves and down in amongst breakwater boulders during the day, coming out to feed at night.

Our target species, the glasseye.

We fished for a couple of hours, most of which I spent shining my headtorch around, hoping to catch the reflections from the large eyes of our target species. Sadly, they didn’t seem to be present, so we turned our attention to fishing on the bottom over a sandy area. We caught a few bastard grunt and greater weever. Gordon also caught a solitary black goby.

The electric blue markings of this greater weever were particularly vivid under the intense light of my headtorch.

Before we left, a couple of huge stingray arrived and cruised around the bottom, hunting for prey. It was a cool sight at the end a fairly long day's fishing, so we called it a night and headed back to our apartment. 

The next day we decided to head all the way up to Sardina on the northwest coast of the island, to a spot I visited several times the last time I visited Gran Canaria and caught a good variety of species there. On the way, we stopped at a supermarket and bought some raw prawns, squid and bread to use as bait and also a few extra loaves to make up a bucket of groundbait. Arriving in the town and walking down to its small pier, we were soon spooning in our groundbait and had attracted a few fish. Freelining small pieces of bait down through the feeding fish, we soon caught a few bogue.

Fairly large as far as bogue go.

A few derbio also arrived, along with quite a lot of another species that I didn’t quite recognise. I spent a fair bit of time trying to catch one of those and briefly hooked a few, but after a few seconds they would come off. Occasionally, when my bait got closer to the bottom, I’d catch a Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse or a Madeira rockfish. Then I caught a small blenny from the rocky sea floor, that took the tip of a small squid tentacle. Unsure of its identity, I began to carefully examine it.

Initially I thought this could be either a ringneck blenny or a mystery blenny.

Checking its neck it certainly had a couple of rings, but I wanted to check the cirri too, so I popped it into my photo tank. 

The fish’s cirri were relatively long and very thin. They were branched too. On a ringneck blenny, they all begin from a common base, so it wasn’t one of those. They didn't look like the cirri of a mystery blenny however, being much too thin. So, what species had I caught?

Doing further research when I got home, I discovered that there was a third similar species found in the Canary Islands, the monkey blenny. Studying photographs of this species, its cirri much better matched those on my specimen, being branched and very thin. So this turned out to be my second new species of the trip, although it is quite possible that I've caught one before on Lanzarote and misidentified it as a ringneck blenny. In future, I'll be carefully examining the cirri of all blennies I catch in that part of the world! I think this is the best way to confidently identify them to species level.

Meanwhile, Gordon had been fishing further out from the pier with slightly larger baits and was rewarded with a nicely bent rod. After going to ground, he managed to get a nice goldblotch grouper free again, and after a decent scrap, I netted it for him. I then returned my focus to catching the odd fish that were appearing every time I tossed in a few spoonfuls of groundbait. After hooking and loosing a few more, I was just about to run out of groundbait, when I eventually got a decent hookset on one and landed my third new species of the trip.

Again, a bit of research was required later on before I was able to positively identify this as a Madeiran sardinella. The black spot behind the gill plate and the grey tail fin with black tips being the key distinguishing features.

Towards the end of the session, Gordon stuck with fishing slightly larger baits a bit further out, whilst I decided to switch to targeting some predatory fish. I started off fishing some small soft plastic lures on cheburashka weights close to the bottom. This surprisingly didn't produce anything, so I switched to a small metal jig, which also didn't tempt any fish. It wasn't until I tried twitching a small sinking pencil lure over a shallow rocky area to the right of the pier, that I caught a few lizardfish. Not long after that, the sun set and we decided to call it a day.

An Atlantic lizardfish. I also caught it's cousin the diamond lizardfish too. They are super aggressive ambush predtors, and few small prey fish escape from all those inward facing teeth!

As we walked up the hill to the car we were treated to stunning vies to the north of Spain's highest peak, Mt Teide, off in the distance on neighbouring Tenerife.

Our last day on Gran Canaria had quickly arrived. We decided to head back to Puerto de Mogan again, so that I could spend a few hours trying to catch a red banded seabream. Sadly, neither of us caught one, but we did add a few more species to our tally whilst trying.

There were a few planehead filefish around.

We also both caught our first common comber of the trip. Gordon also caught a butterfly winged comber as well.

Late in the afternoon we headed back to the venue where some species hunters I know caught glasseye. For a couple of hours before the sun set, we fished from the rocks at the end the venue's breakwater. Gordon chose to cast baits out onto a sandy area and was rewarded with a few lizardfish and dozens of greater weever, which he had lots of fun unhooking! I suggested he change tactics before he got stung, but he decided to persist with what he was doing! All the while, I had been clambering about on the boulders, dropping small baits into the gaps between them into dark areas, hoping a glasseye would be hiding down in one. This produced a lot of Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse and Madeira rockfish. After a while I caught a few cardinalfish, a dusky grouper and then my fourth new species of the trip in the shape of an island grouper.

Another nocturnal species, Cardnalfish also like to hide down in dark areas amongst boulders during the day.

Gordon had already caught one but this was my first dusky grouper of the trip.

I knew these we also a potential catch but I was still over the moon when I caught my first ever island grouper.

After it got dark, we moved to a different area along from the boulders and turning my headtorch on, I spotted some glasseye! About a dozen of them had appeared from their hiding places and were swimming around incredibly slowly, about a foot below the surface in a fairly shallow area. Some of them were pretty big, and I was excited to see them. Sadly, despite trying several different approaches, I really struggled to induce a take, only hooking one very briefly from down behind a rock, but it came off after only a few seconds. I spent an hour or so trying to hook another, but for whatever reason they just weren't in a feeding mood, so I eventually admitted defeat.

Heading back to the town where we were staying, we went out to a local bar to watch some football, enjoy some food and a few beers. Back at the apartment, we packed up our stuff in preparation for our flight to Fuerteventura the following morning. Halfway into our trip, we were more than halfway to reaching our target of forty species. Normally adding species gets harder the more you catch, but there were quite a few species of seabream that we hadn't caught yet, and I was confident we'd get a few of them before the end of the trip as well as a few other species too.

Tight lines, Scott.

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More species hunting adventures on Crete : Part 2.

On the forth day of our stay in Kissamos we decided to head to one of the spectacularly beautiful beaches of western Crete. We could have taken a boat to Balos beach from nearby Kavonisi Port but instead we decided to head south through the mountains by road to Elafonisi beach instead. Once there we headed away from the crowds at the beginning of the beach and walked along to a quieter area nearer the island of Elafonisi that the beach connects to the mainland. This was a good choice as with nobody around it allowed me to fish for a little while and then we had a swim.

Looking back towards the mainland. Well worth walking out towards the island to get away from the crowds.

The beach is famous for its pink sands. These are most apparent where the waves gently lap the shore.

The dunes behind the beach are a nature reserve and are off limits. They are home to these very rare flowers. They reminded me of our Daffodil.

Fishing from some rocks I caught a few wide eyed flounders slowly twitching angleworm along the bottom on a simple split shot rig over a clean sandy area.

After enjoying a relaxing swim we walked back along the pink sands to the car and took a coastal road back north so we could head to Sfinari on the west coast for an evening meal. We'd been told by the receptionist at our accommodation that there was a restaurant there where we could enjoy a nice meal as the sun set. With an hour or so before the sun started to dip down towards the horizon we headed to some rocks at the end of the beach that looked like a promising fishing spot. This was a good decision and saw me catching a few fish, adding some more species to my tally in the process.

Quite a nice spot at the southern end of the beach with a rocky area close in and a clean sandy seabed further out. Fishing out on the sand proved more productive but wasn't without risk in the shape of poisonous fish.

The last greater weever I caught stung me so I was extra careful with this one.

As well as weevers, sandy areas often produce another ambush predator. At least you can handle Atlantic lizardfish without worrying about any venomous spines.

Pearly razorfish are another fish found over sandy areas. They bury themselves in it when threatened. I caught a few of these.

I think this rather plump specimen had been feeding hard and might have struggled to get its rather full gut under the sand.

Lovely markings on this species and the colours around the eyes are stunning.

Happy to have added a few more species to my tally we headed back to the restaurant to enjoy our meal and the amazing sunset. The clouds had other ideas however, rolling in to blot out the sun so whilst the meal was nice the view was pretty disappointing.

Could be Scotland.

The next day Lillian decreed that we were heading back up into the mountains yet again. This time to spend a few hours wandering around Crete's botanical gardens. Stopping to admire lots of colourful flowers and the shade provided by various trees overhead made the walking up and down the hills of the gardens bearable and when we got back to the start a nice lunch made from produce grown on site was a nice way to end the visit.

Strange purple flowers.

Pretty pink flowers.

Delicate looking flowers.

Bright red and yellow flowers.

Lots of insect life to see too including some large swallowtail butterflies.

There was an aviary with nice finches as well.

After lunch we headed back to the north coast so I could fish for a bit. First we visited the ferry port in Souda, a venue I fancied returning to at dawn one morning later in the holiday, so it was more of a reconnaissance visit. There was a huge cruise ship moored and I did get the gear out of the car briefly but fishing was quite poor so we headed east to Kalyves Harbour so I could have another go for a stargazer. I went with the same approach as I had the first time, a small metal jig fitted with an assist hook slowly jigged along the sand. After half a dozen casts I thought I had got snagged on a mooring rope lying on the bottom but applying some pressure I realised that I had a fish on. It didn't fight much and reeling in I got rather excited when the unmistakable shape of a stargazer with its raised black dorsal fin came into view. It swam right towards me and was quickly swung up onto a waiting towel.

What a cool fish. I was over the moon. Caught on a jig my mate Lee gave me and fitted with an assist hook I made myself.

After this exciting capture I decided to spend the rest of the session freelining bread for the mullet in the harbour. Lillian gave me a hand, throwing in small pieces to get them all feeding, and lots of mullet soon appeared but the bigger ones were very cautious. In an attempt to catch some of the smaller ones I changed to a setup with two smaller hooks and fished smaller flakes of bread on them. Just after setting up this new presentation however a shoal of bogue arrived and they were much more gung ho in their feeding approach. After a while we gave up on the mullet and headed off. I'd have another go at the mullet later in the holiday.

One of the bread munching bogue.

On our last full day in Kissamos Lillian again dictated the itinerary and we headed off to the Akrotiri peninsula for what would turn into a monastery crawl. Exciting stuff! The first stop was Tzagaroli Monastery and we spent a while walking around the grounds before visiting a small museum and browsing religious gifts in the shop.  

I'm not a fan of religion but I can appreciate the beauty in some old religious buildings.

Driving north up into the mountainous national park at the north of the peninsula we soon arrived at the second monastery on our tour. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your perspective) we weren't allowed in. Basically because Lillian was dressed like a filthy whore bound for an eternity of suffering in the raging fires of hell. Not really, even I didn't meet their strict dress code because I had shorts on! Anyway, there was a gate in the wall surrounding the monastery so being curious we decided to see what was on the other side. It turned out to be a gorge walk that included another monastery!

It was the middle of the day, we only had one bottle of water and Lillian wasn't overly keen on the idea but as she loves monasteries I insisted we head down and then continue the walk all the way to the sea.

Here's the monastery situated in the gorge. Not as pleasing on the eye as the other two but with no one around and no dress code in place we were free to look around and it didn't take too long.

*Carrying on down the gorge we found the odd bit of shade to catch our breath...

..and eventually made it to the sea. I thought it was worth the effort and wished I had taken my fishing gear down.

Of course the climb back up was pretty hard going! Gorge walks are probably best undertaken in the morning or late afternoon when it's not so hot! Feeling quite tired we got ourselves some water to rehydrate and drove west to nearby Stavros for a spot of lunch. It was a nice place and several scenes in the 1964 film "Zorba the Greek" were filmed there. It's not a film that I think I've seen but I'll be making a point of watching it now. I didn't do any fishing there but on the way back to Kissamos we stopped for an hour at Kolymvari harbour. It was quite a big harbour and it looked like it had potential but sadly the fishing was very poor. All I managed to catch was two fish, a white seabream and a wide eyed flounder.

The halfway point in our holiday had arrived and I got up early on our last day in Kissamos and fished Kavonisi Harbour one last time. Yet again the fishing was disappointing although I did add another species to my tally when I caught a small goldblotch grouper.

Small groupers scrap hard for their size. I thought I'd hooked something much larger when this took my small jighead mounted paddletail.

Heading back to our accommodation we packed up, checked out of our room and drove east to the coastal village of  Geogioupolis to begin the second week of our holiday. The fishing had been hit and miss but I'd caught over twenty species including two new ones and was hopeful that a change of location might see me add a few more.

Tight lines, Scott.

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