Testing the water.

I popped down to Galloway’s Pier at the back of North Berwick Harbour at the weekend whilst Lillian and I were in the area. During the week, I’d heard that quite a lot of lesser weever had been caught there recently. 

Galloway's Pier. This was once the base of an old wooden pier. It was in a poor condition until it was extended in a few years ago. Boats use it when the tide is out and they cannot get into the harbour due to lack of water.

It was a little bit windy, so I fished about a metre out from the concrete structure’s edge. Small pieces of dried ragworm were soon being attacked and in about fifteen minutes I hooked four of the target species. The first three fell off as I was lifting them from the water. I find lesser weever sometimes just have a hold of the bait and let go when they are wound in. Fish number four was well hooked however, and was carefully unhooked and popped into my new photo tank. 

Lesser weever are actually a very pretty little fish in my opinion.

Having established that there were plenty around, mainly for an upcoming visit with my mate Ryan who wants to catch his first, and managing to not get stung in the process, we headed off to enjoy a spot of lunch on the town’s high street. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Under the weather.

At the end of May, I headed off to the Isle of Lewis for the first time with fellow species hunters, Mike and Mark, for two days of boat fishing. Hopes were high that we'd be able to catch some unusual fish out in the deep water off the island's north west coast. On the way there, whilst we waited to board the ferry at Ullapool, we fished for a couple of hours from the harbour. Small sections of ragworm and tiny strips of squid fished close to the bottom, both produced some poor cod and both the species of UK sea scorpion, a pretty even mix of long spined and short spined.

My first poor cod of the year.

The short spined sea scorpion were also my first of the year.

Most of them were sporting a spotty underside.

There were lots of people queuing up when we arrived at the harbour, and the reason became apparent when the only fully operational seagoing paddle steamer came into the bay to pick them all up.

The Waverley sails up and down the UK coastline. It passed by whilst I was fishing at Greenock last year.

Just before we left, I caught something quite unexpected, in the shape of a lesser weever. The ground we were fishing over was not really the type I'd expect to produce them. Usually, they can be found living in fine sand, but the ground we were fishing over was pretty mixed with lots of rocks and weed. I guess there must have been a few small sandy patches down there though!

Yet another addition to my 2025 species tally!

Heading back to the car, we boarded the ferry and made the crossing to Stornoway. After we disembarked, we met up with our skipper in the Stornoway Angling Club, right next to the ferry terminal. Angus is quite a character, and we spent an hour or so hearing about some of the more unusual captures he’s made over the years, and discussed where we would be fishing the following day. Conditions in the lead up to the trip had been fantastic, but the wind had picked up and would limit how far offshore we could go. 

In the morning, we headed to on the other side of the island, loaded our gear onto the boat, and set off. Our first task was of course catching some fresh bait. To begin with, we targeted greater sandeel and once we caught a few dozen of those, we headed to another spot to target mackerel.

A nice big launce. 

Unfortunately, the mackerel weren't around in any great numbers. Not a problem as Angus had backup supplies of frozen mackerel, so we headed to our next spot where we hoped to catch some cusk over some rocky ground. After a few ling were boated, I caught a nice spurdog, but winding it up, I started to feel quite unwell. I quickly unhooked the fish and returned it, before being violently sick over the side. Anyone who's suffered with sea sickness well tell you, it's absolutely brutal, and it rarely goes away until you get back onto dry land. I made a couple of attempts to fish again, but they only made me feel worse again, so that was me for the day. 

Since returning from Gran Canaria at the end of March, I’ve not really felt one hundred percent and when we returned to the harbour I continued to feel unwell, which had me wondering if it was this that had triggered the sea sickness. In the evening, after eating dinner, I had an early night, but in the morning I still felt rotten, so decided not to go out in the boat. The trip had turned into a bit of a disaster for me. Mike and Mark had a good day out, fishing inshore as the wind had picked up again, and they caught some specimen dab and plaice, as well as some spotted ray. I had some ultra light tackle with me but felt so terrible that I didn’t even feel up to fishing at all, instead going for a walk around the town and up Gallows Hill. The following day, Mike and I headed back to the mainland, whilst Mark stayed on the island an extra day, to do some shore fishing. Arriving in Ullapool, Mike had an hour fishing from the harbour. I just went for a stroll around the town to get some more fresh air. 

It was a dull day and my fishing mojo hadn’t returned. 

So, my first trip to the Isle of Lewis is one I'll remember for all the wrong reasons. It was great to meet up with Mike and Mark, and I wish I’d been able to spend more time fishing with them. Despite my first trip to the Isle of Lewis turning into a bit of a nightmare, I’d love to return in the future at some point!

Tight lines, Scott.

All the right fish in all the right places.

Species hunting is fairly straight forward, once you know where to go hunting. Over the years, I’ve built up a good knowledge of places where certain species can reliably be caught at certain times of the year. Sometimes however, I’ll be fishing a venue that I thought I was very familiar with and be pleasantly surprised when I catch something I’ve never caught there before. This happened to me on Tuesday. Fishing at Newhaven Harbour in Edinburgh, I caught a sand goby, a species I’ve never caught there before. 

My first ever sand goby at Newhaven Harbour.

Two days later, I was fishing at the inlet area at Torness Power Station. It was very windy and things were very slow. When I finally caught a fish, it was yet another goldsinny wrasse, so I decided to go catch something else. Heading around to the outflow area, I spent thirty minutes there sight fishing for common goby from a large rockpool. There were lots of them present, and using tanago hooks baited with tiny pieces of ragworm, I soon caught a few and popped them in my photo tank. I also caught a small common blenny and popped it in the tank too, using the white push plate as a divider to keep the two species separate.

Common by name…

…common by nature.

On my way back, I took a detour and decided to try to catch a lesser weever. The eastern end of Belhaven Bay produces this small venomous fish at the end of the summer, so I headed there. Fishing a scaled down three hook flapper rig, with 4lb short snoods, small sections of ragworm baited onto #12 hooks and using a 14g lead, I cast out just past where the waves were breaking. Holding my ultra light rod in hand, I slowly wound in my rig along the sandy bottom. After a few casts, I felt a rattle and after a brief pause, wound in a small flounder. 

There must be thousands of these along the length of the beach, feeding in just a few inches of water. 

With an easterly wind blowing, it was pretty cold, but I persevered, catching two more tiny flounder before a fourth bite produced what I was after, a lesser weever. Happy enough, and not wishing to further increase my chances of being stung, I carefully unhooked and returned it, called it a day and headed home having added another species to my 2024 tally.

The lesser weever, a nice looking little fish that lives in the sand. It has a nasty sting that causes a great deal of pain should its black dorsal fin or gill plate spines puncture your skin. 

The beach is popular with people who enjoy watersports including this large group of children who were learning to surf. No doubt barefoot!  I’m surprised more people don’t step on buried weever if I’m honest. I guess when they detect nearby movement, they simply wiggle up from where they’re hiding and swim away to safety.

On Thursday afternoon, I headed to fish in a drainage pond about an hour from Edinburgh. My mate Chris caught a lovely rudd there recently and was kind enough to share the location with me. He caught it on a dry fly, but I decided to fish a maggot under a puddle chucker float. It was a cold windy day, but thankfully the small body of water was low down in a depression, so I was slightly sheltered as I stood there fishing. Feeding a small amount of maggots fairly often, and casting my float repeatedly to try and induce a take “on the drop”, I missed a few very subtle knocks but after a few hours I’d had no luck catching my target for the day. A solitary small perch being the only thing preventing a blank. A reminder that just because you know where a species can be caught, doesn’t always mean you’ll catch it! 

The blank saver. 

Summer is gone. Autumn is here. Winter will follow. A slightly depressing thought. As the temperature continues to drop, the fishing is going to get more difficult. Opportunities to get out will no doubt start to thin out too as conditions deteriorate. Anyway, on a much more positive note, the weather on Malta looks great over the next week or so, and I’m flying out there early tomorrow morning. I can’t wait for some species hunting fun in the sun! I’m also going on a three week trip to Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand in November, so I’ve still got plenty of species hunting to look forward to. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Not more species hunting adventures on Crete?!: Part 4.

On the penultimate day of our trip I decided we should head all the way back up to the north coast again! Every time we've been on Crete we've visited the Aquaworld Aquarium & Reptile Rescue Centre. We both enjoy our visits there and I didn't really want to break that little tradition! I didn’t tell Lillian we were going there so it was a nice surprise when she figured out where we were driving to. The fish on display are awesome but if I'm honest it's the reptiles I enjoy seeing the most. I think Lillian prefers them too.

My old nemisis Bill was in one of the tanks! The crafty swine and this dusky grouper seemed to be the best of friends.

Out the back of the venue there were plenty of reptiles on display and the opportunity to handle some of them was not missed by myself or Lillian. We both got our hands on this small albino boa constrictor, or perhaps it had got its scales on us?

The quite adorable, very friendly and imaginatively named Albi.

After our visit, we grabbed a large slice of feta and spinach pie each from a nearby bakery then headed down to Hersonissos Harbour where I had a few hours to fish.

It was pretty slow to begin with, and I didn't have any bait with me, so I went with the next best thing, good old tried and tested Angleworm on a drop shot rig! I tried fishing from the seaward facing rocks out onto a sandy area on the outside of the harbour initially. I was hoping to catch a pearly razorfish, but the sea was a little bit coloured up and there was a lot of suspended dead seagrass in the water too from the last few days of stormy conditions, and I didn't catch anything at all. I then turned my attention to fishing straight down the inside of the harbour walls, having a seat while I waited for something to bite.

Patience required.

Eventually, I did start getting a few little rattles that I thought felt like wrasse. After missing a few bites I switched to half a piece of Angleworm on a smaller hook and caught a few of the culprits. The first few fish were indeed small wrasse, East Atlantic peacock wrasse, but moving along the wall towards the corner I caught a bigger one and a couple of other species too, that were unexpected, in the shape of a small barracuda and my first new species of the trip, a mottled grouper!

The largest of my first East Atlantic peacock wrasse of the trip.

I'm pretty sure this is a small European barracuda. It had some distinct barring all along its flanks that doesn't show up well in this photo. Not a species you'd expect to take a very small piece of Gulp fished in an almost static position!

This mottled grouper also took half an Angleworm! I was over the moon to catch this as it was my first new species of the trip! Visible in this photo, the small black saddle over the top of the tail root is a key identifying feature in juveniles of this species.

Feeling a little bit lucky at this point, I had another go trying to catch a pearly razorfish. The dead seagrass was a real pain though, and I didn't catch one, but I did manage to catch a nice Mediterranean rainbow wrasse closer in over rockier ground before Lillian finished her book and declared it was about time for us to go for dinner!

A colourful male Mediterranean rainbow wrasse.

Sometimes, I just can’t get out of species hunting mode and my eagle eyes spotted some reasonably sized thick lipped mullet as we walked back around the harbour to the car. Permission was grovellingly sought and grudgingly given to set up my rod again, and I quickly tied up a two hook freelining rig. Whilst I did that, Lillian grabbed a loaf of bread from the boot of the car and started throwing a few pieces in to get the fish feeding. Once the mullet were all competing for the free offerings I baited up my two hooks with bread flake, dipped them into the water to add a bit more weight, and flicked them out into the jostling fish. Working as a team, in no time at all I had hooked half a dozen thick lipped mullet and Lillian had netted them all for me! We were having a lot of fun, but the icing on the cake was a small sand smelt that grabbed a tiny piece of bread that was left on my hook as I wound it in to bait up my rig again. I didn't realise at the time, but it was my second new species of the trip!

Teamwork does make the dream work!

When I caught this I wrongly identified it as big scale sand smelt, a species I have caught before. Doing further research when I got home I realised I'd made an error. It is in fact a wide-banded hardyhead silverside, one of the very first recorded Lessepsian migrants having been discovered in the Mediterranean for the first time in 1902!

So, happy to have added five more species to my tally we headed off to have our last evening meal of the holiday in a lovely restaurant called Fabrica located in nearby Koutouloufari. We discovered it, and its eccentric/slightly mad owner Yiannis, the last time we visited Crete. The beef stifado there was superb, so we had it again as part of another very enjoyable meal. I then had to drink all the post meal raki, as Lillian was driving us back through the mountains south to Agia Galini.

The last day of our holiday had arrived. The wind had dropped off to a very gentle breeze and after checking out of our room we headed down to the harbour of Agia Galini armed with some bread. I wanted to try and catch a salema, having hooked and lost a few relatively big ones during a day trip there the last time we visited Crete. The harbour walls had received a lick of paint since then and some nice artwork had been installed too.

Nice new fishy tile art. I have no idea what the species are!

Lillian took on groundbaiting duty again and her efforts soon attracted a lot of fish. Damselfish, rabbitfish and puffer to begin with but eventually some salema showed up too. They are quite easily spooked so I tried to be as sneaky I could, staying out of their line of sight. They were hugging the harbour wall, swimming up it quickly, grabbing pieces of bread from the surface with a splash, then swimming back down the wall again.

Trying to be stealthy. Not easy when you’re a big chap.

For some reason, they seemed pretty adept at managing to successfully avoid taking the piece of bread that had my hook in it. When they did go for it they were also high skilled at stealing the bread and not getting hooked! Feeling rather frustrated, I added a couple of split shot to my line and tried to catch them subsurface. This saw me catching a few marbled rabbitfish that put up a good scrap and every time I hooked one for a moment I though I had caught my target species. After a while I took the split shot off again, switched back to fishing my bread on the surface and eventually hooked a nice salema. It tore off at a fair pace down the wall a couple of times and thrashed about a bit so I felt reasonably confident that I had a good hookset, but just as Lillian came over with the net, it thrashed on the surface and threw the hook. By this point I was quite frustrated and almost about to admit defeat, but shortly afterwards my efforts were finally rewarded when I tied on a smaller hook and a much smaller salema took my much smaller breadflake. It was very quickly swung up to hand.

Several hours of effort went into catching this small salema! If I had any hair it would have been pulled out for sure!

Mission accomplished, we jumped in the car and drove all the way to Kalyves on the north coast. I wanted to try and catch an Atlantic stargazer from the harbour there. I thought that would be a very cool species to end the trip on, if I could catch one!

Kalyves Harbour at the eastern end of the town's sandy beach.

The fishing inside the harbour was very tough. I slowly fished a small metal jig fitted with an assist hook along the sandy bottom, hoping I would land it in the vicinity of a buried fish, that was waiting to pounce. This didn’t produce any takes, so I tried bouncing a small Reins Rockvibe paddletail lure along the bottom rigged weedless on a cheburashka weight.

The weedless hook probably killed the action of this fantastic lure a little bit, but the sandy bottom of the harbour was also littered with ropes.

This did get hit by something, but I failed to get a hook up. Whatever had grabbed the tail of the lure had clamped on and when I struck it had pulled the lure all the way around the hook before letting it go. I reset the lure and had a few more casts over the same area but didn’t get any more bites sadly.

Slightly disappointed not to catch my desired species, after a while I switched my attention to fishing small plugs around the mouth of the harbour hoping to catch a bluefish or some other juvenile pelagic predator. This produced a couple of lazy follows from a small barracuda, but nothing else showed any interest, so I had one last throw of the dice with my old friend, a piece of Angleworm on a drop shot rig. Casting this out over the sandy beach next to the harbour, I had a few little taps almost every cast as soon as it hit the bottom. I had an idea what might be responsible, and after a few more casts managed to hook a small fish. Winding it in my suspicions were confirmed.

Not handled at all. The last thing you want at the end of a holiday is to be stung by a lesser weever. Not the weever species I really wanted to catch either, but it was the final fish of the holiday, and one last addition to my trip’s tally.

We still had a bit of time left before we had to drive east to Heraklion Airport, so we shared some delicious mousaka, chicken souvlaki and one last Greel salad in a restaurant by the beach. It had been another very enjoyable holiday on Crete. The weather had been a mixed bag, but I’d still managed to catch thirty seven species, adding thirty two to my 2023 tally, including the two new ones which are highlighted in bold below...

1. Annular Seabream
2. Atlantic Lizardfish
3. Black Goby*
4. Black Scorpionfish
5. Bogue
6. Boxlip Mullet
7. Cardinalfish
8. Common Comber
9. Common Two Banded Seabream
10. Damselfish
11. Derbio
12. East Atlantic Peacock Wrasse
13. European Barracuda
14. Giant Goby*
15. Goldblotch Grouper
16. Greater Amberjack
17. Incognito Goby
18. Lesser Weever*
19. Madeira Rockfish
20. Marbled Rabbitfish
21. Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse
22. Mottled Grouper
23. Ornate Wrasse
24. Painted Comber
25. Parrotfish
26. Peacock Blenny
27. Red Mullet
28. Reticulated Filefish
29. Rock Goby*
30. Rusty Blenny
31. Saddled Seabream
32. Salema
33. Thick Lipped Mullet*
34. White Seabream
35. Wide Eyed Flounder
36. Wide-banded Hardyhead Silverside
37. Yellow Spotted Puffer

* = already caught in the UK this year.

The amount of yellow spotted puffer I caught was probably the only disappointing aspect of the fishing. They’re a real problem as is Lessepsian migration in general. Also, I didn’t really make any kind of concerted effort to deliberately target lionfish, silver cheeked toadfish or moray eel. Three species I definitely intended to have a go for before we went. I even took a heavier setup and end tackle to use for those species but it never got used! On reflection, the weather was a factor in my fishing decisions and also once I’m in species hunting mode I find I focus on racking them up as quickly as I can!

Special mention yet again to Lillian who, as usual, was unbelievably tolerant of my obsessive behaviour. I often worry that she gets a bit bored when I’m fishing away! At one point during the holiday when I asked her if she was fed up with my fishing antics she told me that my passion was quite infectious and she enjoyed being a part of it!

Having been to Crete five times now, I’m not sure when Lillian and I will return, although I’m sure we will. In the meantime I might visit with some mates for a dedicated fishing trip! Lillian and I are thinking about visiting Corfu or Malta next year. Two islands that we've never been to. Hopefully there will be less yellow spotted puffer regardless of which destination we choose!

Tight lines, Scott.

Species hunting road trip: Cornwall calling.

After three nights in Dorset it was time to head west to Cornwall. Before leaving Weymouth I popped down to the Weymouth Angling Centre to pick up some fresh ragworm and then headed around to the marina nearby to try and catch a gilthead seabream, a thin lipped mullet and a common goby. The first target on my list was quickly caught. A whole small ragworm fished on the bottom on a running ledger saw me land two juveniles almost straight away. 

A nice little gilthead seabream. Another species added to my 2023 tally. 

There were plenty of thin lipped mullet swimming around so I rigged up a small spinner, removed the treble hook, replaced it with a small hook and baited it with a tail section of ragworm. Casting one of these around and slowly retrieving it usually attracts the mullet who then nip away at the worm section, but for some reason they just weren’t interested at all, and after an hour or so I gave up and headed to another spot nearby to try and catch a common goby. A split shot rig dropped down the wall with a tango hook baited with a pinkie produced two fish in two casts. The first was a tiny bass, the second my intended target. 

A little short of the minimum landing size!

Pinkie proving yet again to be a fantastic bait for saltwater mini species, including this common goby. 

Fairly happy with the start to the day, I visited Portland Marina for one last attempt at finding a black faced blenny. Upon arrival, I was confronted with several “No Fishing” signs, it was pretty windy, and taking a walk along the rocks I didn’t spot my target, so I decided just to head back to the car and continue my journey west. 

Spoilsports!

My next stop was Wembury in Devon, famous for its large rockpools. I have fished there before, many years ago, and was told recently that on a big sprig tide it was a good spot to try and catch Montagu’s blenny and also perhaps a clingfish. I arrived about an hour before low water, carefully made my way all the way down the exposed rocks and began my search. 

Wembury, a rockpooling angler’s Mecca. 

Tanago hook baited with a tiny pinkie was my weapon of choice. 

Due to the wind and overcast sky, I found it difficult to see any fish in some of the rockpools, so I speculatively dropped my rig in gaps in the submerged rocks and in front of cracks in the walls of the rockpools. This was fairly productive, and I was soon catching plenty of common blenny and the odd rock goby. Then I got a bite in a dark gap between three flat rocks and hooked the culprit. Lifting the small fish up and swinging it to hand, I could not believe my eyes when I realized it was a small clingfish!

A small cornish sucker, my second new species of the trip! The one I caught was very dark in colour, but you can just make out two dark spots on its head behind its eyes, a key distinguishing feature of the species.

I was over the moon with this capture, as I really didn't expect to catch one. I continued to fish for a while, exploring as many of the rockpools and likely looking fish holding spots as I could, but all I caught were more common blenny, rock goby and long spined sea scorpion. After a while, I decided to head back up to the car and hit the road again. My next stop was the small coastal village of Charlestown on the south coast of Cornwall. It was raining when I arrived, but a group of local anglers had braved the weather and were fishing together at the end of the outer breakwater. 

A few locals were out, suitably dressed for fishing in the rain.  

My target species at the mouth of Charlestown Harbour was a lesser weever. Small sections of ragworm were presented off the bottom and bites came every cast almost. After catching a couple of sand smelt, I caught a couple of lesser weever which were treated with great respect to avoid a potentially very painful sting.

Sand smelt. A few of these fried in flour make for a tasty meal. 

Lesser weever are venomous, so I carefully unhooked them using my forceps. They have a nasty reputation, but I actually think they're quite a pretty little fish. 

Having caught what I came for, I jumped in the car again and headed to Fowey to try and catch a topknot. They are a nocturnal feeder, so as I waited for darkness I fished over some rocky ground and caught a few small wrasse. 

Corkwing on a rainy day. 

The spot I intended to fish required a bit of dodgy climbing and as it got darker the rain got heavier, so I decided against fishing there. It had been a long day, I felt quite tired, and I didn't want to risk a fall in the dark in wet conditions whilst on my own. I was very happy with how my fishing had gone and didn't want to ruin it by having an accident! Another four species had been added to my 2023 tally and of course I was delighted to catch my first ever cornish sucker! Checking the forecast for the next two days when I arrived at my accommodation, it didn’t look very nice. I sent Adam a message to let him know. With weather warnings in place, my plans for the next two days in Cornwall were looking like they could be severely disrupted, and our plan to meet up again was also possibly in jeopardy. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the next part.

Species Hunting adventures on São Miguel: Part 2.

On day four of our trip Lee and Ross arrived. Lillian and I picked them up from the airport early in the evening and we headed back to the apartment. After they unpacked we all had a meal together and caught up a bit. Our friendship is one of those we just pick up where we left off and it really didn't feel like we hadn't seen each other for over two years! The lads were keen to do some fishing, so we headed out for a couple of hours after dark. We drove along the south coast to the harbour in Vila Franca do Campo, the most productive spot I'd fished so far. Surprisingly, the session was pretty slow, but we all persevered and caught a few small white seabream and some bastard grunt. Lee did hook into something big that stayed deep and started stripping line before heading under a large fishing boat and snapping him off. We could only guess what it was. I also caught a small fish that I initially thought was an Atlantic horse mackerel. It looked a little different though so I kept it so I could examine it further back at the apartment.

A bit of googling when we got back helped me confirm I'd caught my first blue jack mackerel. My forth new species of the trip. We'd see them for sale in the fishmongers the next morning, locally they are called Chicharros.

Apparently they're called bastard grunt from the Dutch word "bastaard" which means "hybrid". At one point biologists incorrectly believed they were not a species in their own right but a mixture of two others.

We headed back to Vila Franca do Campo harbour the next day so that Ross could catch a black faced blenny. I gave him a tanago hook to use and it didn't take him long to catch several, including some females. It was quite a productive session, although I'd caught most of the species already earlier in the trip. 

After a while we went for a drive around the western end of the island. Stopping off at a small pier in Mosteiros, where we caught endless wrasse from the fairly shallow rocky ground around it. This soon became a bit repetitive, so we jumped in the car again and drove east along the north coast to check out Rabo de Peixe harbour. After a quick walk around we decided to fish from a concrete plarform on the right hand side of its entrance. The water here was pretty deep but all we caught was endless wrasse again and the odd Guinean puffer. 

Keen to catch something else I suggested we head back to Ponta Delgada, to fish the slipway behind the fish restaurant. It turned out to be a good decision. Freelining bread and chunks of raw prawn produced plenty of thick lipped mullet, a few salema, the odd specimen rockpool blenny and you can probably guess what else, wrasse! The average size of the fish was a bit bigger though, some of them even bent our rods a little.

Unlike my failed attempts in Crete last year, I actually managed to land a few salema. They're  quite an attractive fish with those bright yellow stripes along their flanks. They're also supposed to be hallucinogenic if eaten. Never tried one myself to confirm this.

Lee and Ross both caught this specimen male blue wrasse within ten minutes of each other. We realised it was the same fish they'd both caught when we looked at their photos later on and noticed the slightly damaged top edge of its tail fin.

That evening after dinner Lee, Ross and I headed down to Praia das Milicias to ledger sardines for stingray with our heavy gear. While we waited for the sun to set I spent half an hour fishing in the surf with my trusty HTO Rock Rover and a piece of Angleworm on a drop shot rig. I only caught three lesser weever, but was happy enough as it was yet another species added to my tally. By the end of the session it also meant I was the only one of us who didn't blank on the beach that night as we had no joy catching anything on the heavy gear at all sadly.

Some fish can adapt their colouration to match their environment so they blend in. Black volcanic sand means a dark fish is harder for a predator to spot. Not sure what fish eats weever mind you as they live under the sand most of the time and are armed with several poisonous spines!

The following day, after popping into town and sorting out freshwater fishing licenses, we drove west to Sete Cidades. It's a small village located in the heart of the crater of an old volcano that also contains several bodies of water. After a nice walk around the side of the main lake we decided to fish from the bridge that crosses it. There were a few carp swimming around but we turned our attention instead to catching some perch on soft plastics. The resident pike had other ideas however and Lee caught two nice ones on his ultra light gear. Ross and I did catch a few small perch and I also caught a roach on a small piece of freelined bread.

Lagoa Verde and Lagoa Azul make up the largest body of water separated by a stone bridge.

The three amigos fishing away.

One of Lee's pike. Great sport on his ultra light rod and almost got under the bridge.

I was quite chuffed to catch this roach. My first one on freelined bread.

The following morning myself, Lee and Ross got up early and drove up to Porto Formoso harbour where I had booked us a four hour boat fishing trip with North Shore Sea Tours. We started off trolling for pelagic species but had no joy with those so we switched to fishing with jigs on the drift. Pretty quickly I caught a nice blacktailed comber close to the bottom. We also caught a few chub mackerel, blue jack mackerel and bonito higher up in the water column. It wasn't that rough, but despite taking some travel sickness pills in the morning just in case, my sea legs failed me, so I was quite glad when we headed back to dry land again. On the way back to port we spotted an angler fishing from a rock mark that looked pretty good so I marked the location on my phone.

The biggest blacktail comber I've ever caught.

Back at the apartment the lads had an afternoon nap and Lillian and I went down to the coast for a walk along Praia das Milicias, then carried on further along to Praia de São Roque. This spot looked like a potentially good stingray mark. The rocks to the right of it had deeper water in front of them and any large fish hooked could be landed over on the beach. When we got back I told Lee and Ross about the spot and later that evening we dropped the lads off there. Lillian and I went away and had dinner together and then met up with them again afterwards. Just after we arrived Lee caught a small stingray, which was the only one caught of the session.

Lee's stingray turned out to be the only one of the trip.

The following day in the afternoon we headed to the north coast again. This time we headed to Maia where we parked the car. Following the clifftop coastal path west, we then found steps leading down to the rocks where I'd marked the fishing spot the previous day. It turned out to be a great little session and the area was lovely too.

The view westward from the clifftop path was stunning.

The paths were lined with beautiful flowers.

Fenced paths and steps leading down to the sea made accessing the rocks down below very straight forward.

In no time at all the three of us were freelining chunks of raw prawn with a bit of split shot on the line to counter the wind and swell. 

It proved very effective and we had a lot of fun catching several of these hard fighting white seabream.

Ross caught the biggest one of the session.

Heading back to the car we decided to try our luck in freshwater again and drove south from Maia to Lagoa de São Brás, where we would try to catch some largemouth bass. The fishing was tough but eventually we caught a few small specimens.

Eyes bigger than its stomach.

In the evening we headed out locally and fished inside Ponta Delgada's huge harbour. Spotted rockling were the target species but we had no joy catching one. Instead we all managed to catch at least one greater forkbeard each, a new species for all of us and my fifth of the trip.

The greater forkbeard has elongated pelvic fins and a single barbule on its chin. It is the cousin of the tadpole fish, which is also known as the lesser forkbeard.

The next day we headed north yet again to the rocky shoreline to the east of Rabo de Peixe harbour where we spent an hour or so hunting in rockpools for spotted rockling. A few small crabs were found and used for bait on a split shot rig that was lowered into dark holes and in front of potential hiding places. A few dozen rockpool blennies later, we decided that trying to catch rockling during the day was a futile exercise and headed back to the south coast to fish the harbour in Villa Franca de Campo again. We tried a different area but the fishing was incredibly slow. I did catch my sixth new species of the trip though so that was a unexpected bonus.

A small red seabream. Also known as the blackspot seabream due to the small dark mark at the start of its lateral line.

The following day was our last together. Lillian and I were leaving a day before Lee and Ross and had to be at the airport in the afternoon. As we didn't have long before heading off we spent an hour or two fishing in the morning. Fishing in between the fishing boats in the working part of Ponta Delgada's harbour, the fishing was pretty poor sadly, but one species in particular was actively feeding. It was one I hadn't caught yet so I added one last species to my tally, taking my total to thirty one, before it started to rain and we headed back to the apartment.

We caught dozens of black gobies. My last fish of the trip was one.

Soon afterwards Lee and Ross dropped us off at the airport and we said our goodbyes. Lillian and I flew to Lisbon where we stayed for four nights before returning home to Edinburgh. Given the amount of fishing I was allowed to do on São Miguel I thought it might be a good idea if I didn't push my luck on that front whilst we were in the Portuguese capital, so there will be no species hunting adventures in Lisbon catch report to follow.

Anyway, despite the fishing being hit and miss, I was happy with my tally for the ten days and about catching a few new species too. Here's what I caught with new species in bold.

1. Atlantic Chub Mackerel
2. Axillary Seabream
3. Ballan Wrasse
4. Bastard Grunt
5. Black Faced Blenny
6. Black Goby
7. Blacktail Comber
8. Blacktail Rainbow Wrasse*
9. Blue Jack Mackerel
10. Blue Wrasse
11. Bogue
12. Common Two Banded Seabream
13. Damselfish
14. Derbio
15. Emerald Wrasse
    
16. Greater Forkbeard
17. Guinean Puffer
18. Largemouth Bass
19. Lesser Weever
20. Montagu’s Blenny
21. Ornate Wrasse
22. Parrotfish
23. Perch
24. Red Seabream/Blackspot Seabream
25. Roach
26. Rock Goby
27. Rockpool Blenny
28. Salema
29. Striped Red Mullet
30. Thick Lipped Mullet
31. White Seabream

*Unknowingly I'd already caught this species on previous trips to Madeira so not truly a new one.

Lillian and I really enjoyed São Miguel and we'd like to return to the Azores again, perhaps to explore some of the other islands there. I think a visit late in the summer might be better in terms of the weather and the fishing might be better then too, with some pelagic species coming in shore that time of year. It was great to catch up with and also to catch a few fish with Lee and Ross again. It always is, and on that subject, we all agreed that two years without a fishing holiday together was way too long, and we will be fishing abroad together at some point in 2023 hopefully. We haven't decided where yet but all agreed we need to do something special next time. I can't wait!

Tight lines, Scott.