Not more species hunting adventures on Gran Canaria?!: Part 3.

The following day, we visited Palmitos Park where we watched a bird of prey show, then spent a few hours seeing various other birds, animals, butterflies and fish. I felt the entrance price was a little on the expensive side, but overall we enjoyed the time we spent there.

Who doesn't love a meerkat?

This green aracari, with it massive bill, was very cool.

In the afternoon, we headed to the easten breakwater of the incredibly popular Playa de Amadores, where I spend an hour or so struggling to catch any fish from the rocks on the outside of it! Apart from a few Guinean puffer nothing at all was interested in a piece of raw prawn in the deep water further out. In close, all I caught were a few ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish. It was easily the most disappointing session I'd had of the trip at that point.

The first Guinean puffer of the trip. Quite strange given I caught hundreds of them on Tenerife in February. Where we all the fish?

Waiting patiently for something else to bite...

Feeling slightly frustrated,I didn't bother fishing that evening. In the morning, we drove north to visit several small towns up in the mountains. In the village of Cruz de Pineda, we spent some time trying to locate a population of guppy in the roadside irrigation ditches, but failed to find them. We did see a monarch butterfly, the first one I've ever seen in the wild and it landed so I could take some photos of it. 

A very large butterfly, it was really nice to see one!

In the afternoon, we drove further up into the mountains to visit Arugas, Firgas and Teror, where we spent some time wandering around each of the three towns. There seemed to be a music festival taking place in all three with several bands performing in the streets and there were also market stalls set up selling a variety of traditional products too. 

The neo-Gothic stone cathedral in Arucas was quite impressive.

The Paseo de Canarias in Firgas is home to a series of seven artworks depicting all seven of the Canary Islands. Each has a photo depicting the typical features of that island along with a scale model and its coat of arms. Can you name all seven of main Canary Islands?

Later that afternoon, we drove to Sardina, where I spent some time fishing from its small pier. A bit of a swell was running and not much was biting other than ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish at close range, but casting out onto a sandy area I did finally catch a couple of pearly razorfish. One of my favourite European wrasse species, they are incredibly flexible and can be tricky to unhook, actively tryng to contort themselves into a position to bite you with their strangely articulated jaws and sharp little teeth! I now unhook them in my net and use foreceps the shake them from my hook if possible.

The first one I caught was this small red female.

It was followed by a larger green male.

The pastel colours on them, particularly around the eye, are stunning.

The next day, we spent the morning wandering around Maspalomas. The tide was out, so I did a spot of fishing in some shallow rockpools to the west of the town’s incredibly tall lighthouse. It didn’t take me long to add two more species to my tally. 

You can almost guarantee to catch two species from rockpools in the Canary Islands…

The Madeira goby, which usually sits on the bottom in plain sight. Normally they are very aggressive and will swim straight over and gobble a bait no problem. 

The rockpool blenny is a little bit more skittish in shallower water and will disappear under rocks and into cracks when they detect your presence. A bait placed close to their hiding place can usually tempt them to come out and grab it though.

Walking along past the lighthouse, we soon arrived at the side of La Charca, a large pond of brackish water that is full of Mozambique tilapia. This body of water is inside the area’s protected nature reserve, which is mainly made up of the expansive sand dunes to the east of the pond. There are multiple no fishing signs around La Charca, so we carried on walking up past it. We carried on, wandering up towards the north west corner of the reserve, so we could then explore the dunes along one of its designated paths. Just before we reached the start of this, we crossed a bridge over the town’s large drainage canal where I spotted a few Mozambique tilapia in a pool in the small amount of water that was flowing down it. A piece of prawn flicked out in their vicinity quickly resulted in a few being caught.

A Mozambique tilapia. My first freshwater species of the year. 

Packing my gear away into my rucksack, we then went walking along the paths in the dunes before doubling back and making our way back to where we had parked the hire car.

The dunes of Maspalomas. Look at all those footprints! You’re supposed to stay on the designated paths!

Heading back to Castillo del Romeral, I spend some time later that afternoon fishing at the end of the harbour’s breakwater. When I fished there last year with my mate Gordon, we caught lots of Atlantic lizardfish and greater weever, so I was surprised when I didn’t catch either. In fact, I only caught a single wide eyed flounder!

My only reward in a couple of hours. 

With three days left, I’d caught twenty three species despite the fishing, on the whole, being quite challenging. I’d not caught anything new, but had arranged to meet up with a local angler the following morning to try and remedy that!

Tight lines, Scott.

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Even more species hunting adventures on Gran Canaria: Part 1.

Only five weeks after visiting the Canary Islands, I flew back down there again for another fishing trip. Returning to Gran Canaria for a week, this time I was accompanied by my mate Ed, who also enjoys a spot of species hunting. He brought with him a handwritten list of thirty-five species that he’d never caught before that he was keen catch. His target for the trip was to catch ten new species, which I was very confident he'd achieve. As I've fished in the Canary Islands a lot over the years, I’ve caught many of the species found there already, but was still hopeful that I’d perhaps catch some new ones myself, so set myself a target of three, with a bright glasseye being my number one target new species for the trip. Perhaps that doesn’t sound very ambitious, but I felt it was important to be realistic. No point setting unachievable goals after all. As an additional challenge, we also decided to set an objective of catching forty species between the two of us over the duration of our trip. 

After arriving in the evening, and dropping off our luggage at our apartment in Arinaga, we headed down to the town’s pier for our first after dark session. This was the exact same spot I’d fished at the beginning of my trip last month with my mate Gordon, so a feeling of déjà vu quickly kicked in. Fishing small pieces of prawn down the side, we quickly caught four of the species I had caught the last time I fished there. We caught a few Canary damselfish close to the pier, as well as lots of Madeira rockfish from the rocky bottom. The two main targets for the session were bastard grunt and cardinalfish, as Ed had never caught either before. Before too long, he'd caught them both.

There were plenty of aggressive Madeira rockfish hard on the bottom.

We both caught plenty of cardinalfish.

The following morning, checking the weather forecast for the rest of our trip, strong winds from the north were predicted, so we decided to head south. Stopping in Maspalomas, we quickly visited a small pond and caught a few Mozambique tilapia, Ed's third new species of the trip. Walking around the venue before we left, I thought I spotted some very small convict cichlids, so we decided to return later in the trip to find out if I was correct.

We quickly got a few dozen of these Mozambique tilapia before leaving. Strictly speaking, I don't think fishing for the invasive species is allowed, although the signs around the venue aren't exactly clear.

Drivingfurther west to Puerto de Mogan, we headed to the rocks that make up its beach's breakwater and fished from them into the deep water out in front of it. Last month, my mate Gordon caught a red banded seabream there, so I was hoping to catch one of those myself. The action wasn't great, with some quiet spells, but we caught a few fish and in amongst them Ed caught his first ever derbio. I didn't get what I was after, but my morning efforts were rewarded with a lovely parrotfish.

I'm not a massive fan of brown damselfish generally. They can be a real pain to identify, but that can't be said about the Canary damselfish, with its intense violet accents.

It had been a while since I caught a female parrotfish. It would end up being the only one of the trip.

In the afternoon, we visited the eastern breakwater of Playa de Amadores. Again, the fishing wasn't anything spectacular, and the action was sporadic, but we ticked off a few more species before we moved on again.

There were plenty of rockpool blenny in the rockpools. Another new species for Ed.

Casting out into the deep water on the outside of the breakwater, I caught quite a few Azores chromis.

Our final stop for the day was the small harbour that has the resident bright glasseye population. Fishing isn't technically allowed, but when Gordon and I visited last month, the security on site saw us entering with our tackle and let us fish anyway. This time however, the guard on duty immediately approached and bluntly told us that fishing was not permitted. This was a bit of a blow. I really wanted to catch a bright glasseye. Their presence was sort of the inspiration for my return to the island! Heading to a small beach nearby, we had a few casts over the sandy bottom. I pulled out a few Atlantic lizardfish, a species Ed had never caught before, but he didn't manage to get one, sadly.

The Atlantic lizardfish prefers a sandy environment. It's cousin the diamond lizardfish is usually found over rocky ground.

In the evening, at exactly 18:00, the security guard left the site. We waited a while, to see if they would return, then entered once it began to get dark to see if we could see any bright glasseye. Due to the windy conditions, the water was slightly coloured up, and the surface had a lot of ripples on it. I shone my head torch around, trying to catch the reflection of the bright glasseye's huge eyes, but we didn't see any. Given the forecast for the rest of the trip was to get slightly worse, I was concerned we wouldn't get an opportunity to fish for them.

The next day, we decided to head all the way up to Sardina and Puerto de las Nieves located on the northwest coast of the island. With the wind coming from the northeast, I thought they might be slightly sheltered. Arriving in Sardina, a slow constant swell was rolling in, and making our way out onto the pier, a strong wind was howling through, so we headed to the small harbour further along the base of the cliffs. Fishing there provided us with a bit of shelter, but the action wasn't great, with ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish out in force. I did manage a nice parrotfish and a Moroccan white seabream.

In calmer conditions, the pier is a great spot that throws up lots of different species.

This male parrotfish almost broke me off when my line came into contact with the corner of one of the concrete cubes we were fishing from. I've started fishing with 11lb braid, previously I used 6lb, and this probably made a difference. My line was damaged, but it didn't fail.

This nice Moroccan white seabream also went straight for the refuge of the concrete blocks, but I managed to bully it away from them. 

Late in the afternoon, we headed further south to fish from the end of Puerto de las Nieves' ferry terminal. It was quite an effort to reach it, traversing rocks and concrete block for hundreds of yards. To be honest, other than getting a workout getting along there and enjoying the views of the cliffs to the south once we did, it was a very disappointing end to a pretty poor day's fishing. All we caught were ornate wrasse, Canary damselfish and Madera rockfish!

The impressive cliffs to the south of Puerto de las Nieves.

So, one evening session and two full days into our holiday, we had enjoyed some mixed results. Species wise we were into double figures and Ed had caught a few new ones, so that was promising. It was obvious that unless the weather forecast improved, our choice of venues would be restricted to those on the south coast, so that's exactly where we opted to fish the following day.

Tight lines, Scott.

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More species hunting adventures on Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 1.

Winter sucks. There's no getting away from the fact that the fishing locally is pretty hard going this time of year. It’s not that there aren’t any fish around, it’s just not much fun catching what is available in very cold, wet and also often windy conditions. Only dedicated cod anglers enjoy going out in such miserable conditions! Having only managed three fishing sessions since I returned from Asia in November, I decided I needed to get some winter sun, and after speaking to my mate Gordon, we decided to head down to the Canary Islands. I thought it would be interesting to split our trip across two islands, and after checking out ferry and flight options between the various constituents of the archipelago, we settled for Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura.

Minimal fishing tackle, at the ultra light end of the spectrum, was packed into my suitcase, and after arriving in Gran Canaria in the evening, we visited a supermarket to get some food for later on, as well as some bait in the form of a packet of frozen raw prawns. After reaching our accommodation and removing the required fishing gear from my suitcase, we jumped back into our hire car and headed to a spot nearby to open our account. We set ourselves what we felt was a fairly ambitious target of forty species for the week, and dropping small pieces of prawns on split shot rigs down the side at the end of Arinaga’s pier, we quickly caught our first few species of the trip.

There were lots of these Madeira rockfish out hunting after dark. Gordon also caught a solitary black scorpionfish. 

Gordon caught a nice dusky grouper that swam straight into a snag, but being patient and applying just the right amount of pressure, he managed to coax it out again.

Casting further out onto cleaner ground, we both caught a few bastard grunt.

Before we knew it a couple of hours had passed, it was quite late, and we were feeling quite hungry, so we called it a night and headed back to our accommodation for some tasty Spanish tapas, sliced meats, hard cheese, olives and tortilla all washed down with some red wine and few beers. A most pleasant end to our first few hours on holiday. 

The following day, we headed to the southern side of the island. At our first stop, the main target was a Mozambique tilapia. There are lots of them in the coastal nature reserve in Maspalomas, in a body of water next to the sand dunes called La Charca. No fishing is allowed in there though, with lots of signs along the esplanade running alongside it making sure this is abundantly clear. Instead, we went to check out another body of water further inland, away from the coast. At this venue, there were also a few signs around the pond, but they didn't mention fishing!

Feeding the animals is not permitted. Not a problem. I brought some Gulp Angleworm!

There were hundreds of Mozambique tilapia swimming around, so I knew straight away that catching them would be very easy. Using only a piece of line, a single split shot and the heavily scented worm like lure on a small hook, I quickly caught a couple of them, and then we headed off, just in case anything had been lost in my translation of the signs!

Rules circumvented with the aid of an artificial bait, I’d caught my first Mozambique tilapia and also my first new species of the trip!

We then drove further west along the southern side of the island until we reached the village of Puerto de Mogan, where we made our way out onto the rocky breakwater of its golden sandy beach.  

The busy resort of Puerto de Mogan. Fishing is permitted from the seaward side of Playa Mogan's relatively short rocky breakwater. 

The steep cliffs of the south coast of Gran Canaria are home to a few small villages and also large holiday resorts. 

There was a good depth of water in front of us, but our prawn chunks were being quickly stripped from our hooks. Often without any bites registering. This could mean only one thing. That there were lots of pufferfish around. Mainly Guinean puffer, with the odd Macaronesian sharpnose puffer in amongst them. Canary damsel fish were also abundant. These three species are super aggressive and are also adept at rapidly nibbling small pieces of prawn from a hook, meaning that other species which may be present in the area get caught much less often.

A Guinean puffer, by far the most common pufferfish we caught, and we caught lots of them!

The prettier Macaronesian sharpnose puffer with its nice blue spots. An equally annoying bait stealer!

Canary damselfish were also around in plentiful numbers. Their indigo markings are quite incredible, making them instantly recognisable.

After a while, Gordon hooked into something that definitely wasn’t any of the three species above. I got the net ready and hopped down the rocks into a position to land whatever it was that had put a better bend in his rod. I had my suspicions about what it could be, but got a huge surprise when a red banded seabream appeared from the depths.  

Gordon's red banded seabream. Such a cool looking fish! I was very jealous of this capture and wanted one myself badly! It's a species I’ve wanted to catch for over a decade but have never been lucky enough to over numerous trips to that part of the world.

Hoping there were more around, we carried on fishing for a couple more hours, pulling in more of the other, less desirable species. After that we decided to head off to try another spot, but I knew before we left Gran Canaria that we’d have to return to have another session on Playa Mogan’s breakwater so I could try to catch a red banded seabream myself!

Tight lines, Scott.

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