Species hunting advetures on Sardinia: Part 2.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The impressive Torre di Longonsardo lookout tower is over five hundred years old.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

The picturesque town of Castelsardo.

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. 

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!

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. 

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. 

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.

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…

Hundreds of goldfish swimming around waiting to be fed was an opportunity too good to miss. 

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. 

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. 

Portobello di Gallura was our next stop. Another beautiful stretch of coastline.

It also had a small harbour. We decided to fish at the outside of its inner breakwater.

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. 

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. 

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.

My biggest East Atlantic peacock wrasse of the trip. 

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.

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!

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.

My last fish of the trip was an annular seabream.

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...

1. Annular Seabream
2. Big Scale Sand Smelt
3. Black Goby
4. Common Two Banded Seabream
5. Damselfish 
6. Dusky Grouper 
7. East Atlantic Peacock Wrasse
8. European Barracuda
9. Five Spotted Wrasse
10. Goldfish
11. Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse
12. Mystery Blenny
13. Ornate Wrasse
14. Painted Comber
15. Peacock Blenny
16. Pumpkinseed
17. Red-Mouthed Goby
18. Rock Goby
19. Rusty Blenny 
20. Saddled Seabream
21. Salema
22. Sharpsnout Seabream 
23. White Seabream

Lee also caught...

24. Black Scorpionfish
25. 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.

Species hunting adventures on Malta: Part 2.

On the morning of the third day of our trip, I woke up to find a text message from Gordon letting me know that he was feeling ill, had been up all night coughing, and as a result had endured a pretty sleepless night. He told me he was going to stay in his hotel to try to get some sleep and later on visit a pharmacy to get a Covid test. I decided to have a lie in, and in the afternoon fished locally around Balluta Bay, just in case Gordon felt better and wanted to wander down to join me. Sadly, he didn’t, so I ended up fishing solo until the sun set. It turned out to be quite a productive session, using small chunks of raw prawn as bait, that I bought from a supermarket and transferred into a wide mouthed flask to prolong their frozen state. Fishing both in close, and then at range out in the bay, I added a few more species to our tally and caught my first Mediterranean rainbow wrasse of the trip.

I caught a couple of small salema, dropping my bait straight down the wall of the platform I was fishing from.

I caught a couple of cardinalfish from down in amongst some rocks on the bottom. A nocturnal fish, they hide away in dark places during the day, but still be caught.

This small blue runner also fell for a piece of prawn and gave a great account of itself on my Rock Rover rod.

I was expecting the Mediterranean rainbow wrasse or the ornate wrasse to be the most common wrasse species we would catch, but that was not the case. East Atlantic peacock wrasse were the wrasse species we caught most often.

The following day, Gordon still wasn’t feeling great, so I headed out on my own again. I stayed local, walking down to Balluta Bay again, fishing with small pieces of raw prawn once more. I tried a new spot around the back of the waterpolo pool, but didn’t catch anything new. Painted comber, damselfish and seabream species making up my catch.

A particularly colourful painted comber.

A common two banded seabream. One of several small seabream I caught.

Gordon came down to join me early in the afternoon, but said he didn’t feel up to doing any fishing. He’d tested negative for Covid, which was obviously good news, said he was feeling a little bit better, and would hopefully be back species hunting with me the following day. He also said he didn’t want to give me whatever he did have, but I told him the chances were if I was going to catch it, I probably had already, given we’d been together for two days and had been sharing fishing tackle, bait and a small bait towel during that time! Rather than Gordon just standing around watching me fish, I suggested I pack up, and that we drive north so we could spend a few hours at the Malta National Aquarium. I’m a sucker for a good aquarium, and it was an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours out of the sun. The aquarium had many impressive displays, but my favourite was a relatively small tank with some mudskipper in it, one of my favourite groups of fish!

Mudskipper are awesome! I’ll be fishing for them when I visit Asia next month!

After driving back and dropping Gordon off at his hotel so he could try to catch up on lost sleep, I walked down to a fishing tackle shop to see if they sold live worms. Located near the small stone bridge over to Manoel Island, after confirming that they did stock small boxes of live worm, I went over the road to see what fish I could see hanging around in the shallow water around the bridge. Lots of mullet were present, so I bought a small loaf of bread and set up a two hook rig that I fished under a 1g Avon float. Throwing in some free offerings, they were soon eagerly attacking them and becoming confident. Casting my rig into the chaos, I hooked about half a dozen fish fairly quickly, successfully landing three of them. 

The first I successfully landed was a small thick lipped mullet.

This was followed by two golden grey mullet. Another two species added to our trip tally!

Thankfully, the following day, Gordon was feeling better, and was ready to start pulling his weight in our species hunt! We headed to get a couple of boxes of live worms, and then drove to Senglea, where we fished from a small platform next to the car park beneath Gardjola Gardens. It was a nice spot with panoramic views across the bay. 

Valletta across the water to our left.

Directly out in front of us was fairly deep water that I thought could perhaps produce some different species for us. Looking straight down though as we set up our rods, I spotted lots of juvenile saddled seabream, so we quickly dropped down our rigs down into them caught a few, adding another species to our tally in the process.

There were several small shoals of these juvenile saddled seabream directly below the platform we were fishing from.

A positive start to the session! Casting further out, all we caught initially were lots of painted comber and seabream species, until I finally caught a tiny brown comber. It was so small I didn't even feel it biting!

The brown comber is the smallest of the comber species in the Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Atlantic. Even so, this was a tiny specimen.

An absolutely massive cruise ship then arrived. As it moored opposite us on the southern shore of Valletta, its manoeuvring thrusters stirred up the sea floor. Slowly, the water in front of us went from a lovely clear blue to a slightly murky, pea green colour. The action further out slowed down as a result, so we tried closer in again. This saw us catching some wrasse, a few seabream and I also caught a tiny goldblotch grouper.

The third new addition to our tally of the session was yet another juvenile in the shape of this tiny goldblotch grouper. They all count where you're species hunting!

After that, the bites dried up completely, so we decided to head south to fish Birżebbuġa again. Revisiting the concrete slipway there to begin with, I quickly ticked off a parrotfish, the reason I wanted to fish there again.

Gordon had caught a few on day one, but I still wanted a parrotfish for this year's species tally.

Some local anglers soon turned up to float fish, so we left, letting them have the spot to themselves. Heading back along to the large rockpool by the waterpolo centre, I set about trying to tempt the fussy blenny we had seen during our previous session there. Sure enough, it was out enjoying the sunshine again, sitting on its favourite rock on the bottom. Dropping a tasty fresh piece of worm down in its vicinity, the previously stubborn fish showed immediate interest and moved over, eagerly taking the bait into its mouth. I quickly struck, but pulled the hook straight out of it again! The startled fish swam off across the bottom of the rockpool, disappearing under a large flat rock. Meanwhile, Gordon had spotted a small bass in the rockpool swimming around with a group of small mullet and focused his attention on catching that. Freelining a whole worm, it didn’t take him long at all to successfully do so, adding yet another species to our tally. Patiently waiting for the blenny to reappear, I repeatedly checked to see if it had whilst fishing in the open sea to the right of the rockpool. After catching a lot of painted comber, a few wrasse and seabream species we’d caught already, I caught the first ornate wrasse of the trip.

Another species closer to our target. I never thought I’d be so happy to catch an ornate wrasse!

After a while, the blenny finally came back out again. Lowering a section of worm down near it, the fish greedily snaffled it up again, and this time I managed to set the hook firmly in its top lip. Quickly swinging it up into my hand, I was hoping that it would be perhaps a species I'd never caught before, but it turned out to be a rusty blenny, a species I've caught many times over the years.

Only the freshest, juiciest worms will do! This fussy eater would end up being the only blenny of the entire trip.

To end the day's species hunting, we headed back around to fish over the sand at Pretty Bay. We spent thirty minutes fishing small metals out into the open sea, letting them sink before retrieving them fairly quickly,  using lots of small jerks to try and imitate a panicking bait fish. This saw a tiny barracuda have a go at my lure right at the end of one of my retrieves, and shortly afterwards I caught my second blue runner of the trip, when it smashed my metal as it got about halfway back in. Just before we left, we both caught some juvenile gilthead seabream from shallow water, drawing them out into gaps in a large seagrass bed on the inside of the small pier we were fishing from with small sections of worm.

Without a doubt, the smallest gilthead seabream I've ever caught. Like I said, size doesn't matter when species hunting. Big, small or tiny, they all count!

With two days left of our trip, we were well on our way to achieving our goal, having passed the twenty species mark. On the last two days of our trip, we planned to visit Valletta and take the ferry over to Gozo. We were looking forward to visiting both and hopefully catching the remaining species we needed to achieve our objective.

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the last part.

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.