Species hunting adventures on Rhodes: Part 1.

Last week, Lillian and I were supposed to fly to the Greek island of Rhodes, but our flight ended up being a casualty of the chaos caused by an issue with the UK’s Air Traffic Control System. A full day at Edinburgh Airport, checking in luggage, going through security, waiting in departures, being boarded, sitting on the plane for two hours, being removed from the plane again, waiting around in departures again, finally finding out our flight had been cancelled and waiting to collect our suitcase before heading home, wasn’t much fun to say the least. Somehow, using my phone on the tram back into town, I managed to get us on another Ryanair flight two days later. Our original holiday was nine nights, so we still had a week long trip to look forward to.

Arriving last Thursday afternoon, we picked up our luggage, collected our hire car and drove to our accommodation, located in the small inland town of Archangelos. It was great to be away again! Keen to do a spot of fishing, we drove down to the nearby coastal village of Stegna where I spent an hour or so scratching around with small hooks using small pieces of isome. I was soon catching a few fish.

The northern beach in Stegna, a popular little tourist spot.

Further south there was a second harbour that we'd visit later in the evening.

This tiny white seabream was the first fish of the trip.

It was soon followed by a fish that I didn’t recognise. A new species! How exciting! This is the strangely named striped piggy. Perhaps it’s called that because it’s a type of grunt.

Before too long, the resident yellow spotted puffer began destroying my scented worm imitation. They’re a real pain to be honest. Turning my attention to fishing down the harbour’s walls I caught a couple of ornate wrasse and a slender goby.

These really are a total nuisance!

I popped the slender goby into my photo tank to aid identification.

Working our way around to the mouth of the harbour, I spotted some tiny fish hiding under a boat. Taking a closer look when they came out to nibble at my isome, I realised that they were sweeper, a group of fish I had never seen in real life before. They were tiny, so I switched to a split shot rig with a tanago hook and baited it up with a tiny piece of isome. Jigging this up and down generated the most interest, and eventually I caught one of them and popped it into my photo tank.

Targeting tiny fish can be very challenging!

Sweeper are a strange looking group of fish and this was my first ever. I'm fairly confident this is a rhomboid sweeper, but if you think otherwise please get in touch!

Having caught two new species within an hour or so, it was a fantastic start to the trip. I had a few species in mind before flying out that I had never caught before, but these two had not really been in my thoughts, so were most welcome captures!

Stegna has two small harbours, and I was keen to see what the second was like, but by that point we were both quite hungry, so we went for some gyros and Greek salad in a nearby taverna first.

Arriving at the second harbour, along at the southern end of the village, we had a look around before I started fishing. It was very shallow, and there were lots of boats, all moored very closely together. Ropes everywhere would also make for tricky fishing but we found a gap and in it Lillian spotted a very odd fish just below the surface that she thought was dead. It looked like a leaf!

That's not a leaf and it’s not dead either!

Floating on its side, it was slowly moving around, and I vaguely remembered seeing a video about the species, but couldn’t remember its name. I’d later do some digging and discover what we had spotted was a juvenile Atlantic tripletail. They exhibit some clever behaviour, pretend to be a dead leaf in order to avoid predation themselves whilst using this tactic to stealthily hunt prey of their own.

Quickly rigging up a piece of isome, I slowly lowered it down in the vicinity of the fish and gave it a few twitches, but it showed no interest at all. My efforts only served to annoy the fish, and eventually it swam off down under the boats. Still on its side, it looked like a flatfish as it made its escape.

Slightly disappointed, I continued fishing and we made our way to the harbour’s narrow entrance. It was much deeper there and I added a couple more species to my tally.

First to munch a piece of isome was this pharaoh cardinalfish. Only my second ever, I caught my first on Cyprus.

Next was a redcoat squirrelfish. My first in the Mediterranean Sea, having caught them in Singapore and Okinawa.

It was getting late, and we were both pretty tired, but we had another look for the tripletail before we headed back up the hill to Archangelos. Sadly we didn’t see it, but I was hopeful it might not go to far and I may get another, better opportunity to catch it, if I returned with a small fish to use as bait! It had been a very interesting start to the trip and I was looking forward to finding out what other odd species might turn up!

Tight lines, Scott.

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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 1.

A couple of weeks ago, whilst I was in the Edinburgh Angling Centre picking up some bits and pieces, my former workmate Gordon asked me if I had ever been to, and fished on, the islands of Malta. He was thinking about booking a last minute holiday there. I hadn’t been, but told him what I thought he could expect to catch if he decided to go and took some fishing tackle with him. A week or so later, I sent him a message to see if he was going. He told me he had booked up and was going on his own at the end of September. I’ve always fancied visiting Malta, so I thought about it briefly and asked him if he wanted some company! He said yes, that would be great, so I booked my flights, accommodation and a hire car for us to explore Malta in. Easily the most impulsive, last minute foreign holiday I’d ever decided to go on, we flew out from Edinburgh and arrived in Malta early in the afternoon. On the flight down there, as we passed over Sicily, I spotted something off in the distance.

Smoke rising from Mount Etna off in the distance. Other budget flights are available.

After picking up our hire car and dropping off our luggage at our hotels, we were on our way to wet our lines. The standard of driving on display during the short twenty odd minute drive was a real test of my patience and hazard perception to say the least! Thankfully, we made it to the south coast town of Birżebbuġa in one piece and parked the car next to a large rusty statue.

This artwork celebrates the end of The Cold War.

Fishing with small pieces of dehydrated ragworm, we were both quickly catching a few small fish. As we did so, I suggested we set ourselves a target of thirty species for the week. As is usually the case at the beginning of a trip, we got our species hunt off to a good start. Within an hour or so, we’d caught nine between us. I caught damselfish, painted comber, East Atlantic peacock wrasse, common two banded seabream and annular seabream. Gordon caught some five spotted wrasse, parrotfish, Mediterranean rainbow wrasse and a solitary ocellated wrasse. Somehow, neither of us had caught any of the species that the other had!

There were lots of damselfish around. Expert bait strippers!

One of the larger East Atlantic peacock wrasse I caught.

Further out there were a few annular seabream.

After a while, the bites dried up considerably, and we were struggling a bit in the heat too, so we headed around to the side of the Birżebbuġa Waterpolo Club, a few hundred meters away from where we had started our first session, where we were able to fish in the shade. There, we found a large rockpool and set about catching a few mini species from the bottom of it. There were lots of goby on the sandy bottom and a couple of large blenny sitting on rocks. The goby proved very straight forward to catch, but the blenny weren’t so easily tempted by our small pieces of dried worm. 

There were two species present. The majority were incognito goby.

Amongst them, usually hiding, was the odd rock goby.

Next, we switched our focus to fishing in the sea next to the rockpool, where as well as a few more of the species we'd already caught, I managed to add a few five spotted wrasse to my own tally.

The five spotted wrasse, so named due to the five spots on its dorsal fin. These aren't always well-defined. It belongs to the same genus as the corkwing wrasse.

Before we left, we walked around the outside of the waterpolo pool to the end of the beach in Pretty Bay. After taking a short break on a bench, where we enjoyed some fried chicken, chips and some cold drinks, we spent some time fishing over the sand as the sun set. Surprisingly, this wasn’t very productive and only produced a couple of small white seabream. Still, it had been a fairly fruitful start to our species hunting. We were into double figures after only a few hours fishing!

These small white seabream were caught by casting back towards the shoreline, very close to the beach.

On day two, I picked Gordon up from his hotel and we headed west, to fish from the rocks near Zurrieq Valley. The sea inlet there is where all the boats leave from to take their passengers to see the famous Blue Grotto, one of the most popular tourist attractions on the island. Gordon and I stopped briefly at the cliff top view point on our way there and took in this stunning geological feature from above.

Perhaps the most visited tourist spot in Malta.

Once we made our way down, parked the car and clambered down on to our chosen spot on the rocks, the never ending boat traffic, and also multiple groups of divers passing by, made fishing very difficult. We quickly used up the small amount of dried ragworm we had left and switched over to using Gulp! Angleworm, but neither hook bait produced a single fish! Breaking for lunch in a small restaurant, we decided to head south in the afternoon to fish from a small breakwater near Delimara Power Station. Before we paid the bill, we asked the chef for a small portion of raw squid, so we could cut it into little strips to use as bait. Unfortunately, the fishing there also turned out to be very challenging. The bottom was very snaggy, and we lost a fair amount of end tackle. It felt like we spent more time tying up rigs than we spent fishing, but eventually our persistence paid off when I caught a small wide eyed flounder.

I love catching wide eyed flounder. I'd love to catch a bigger one, having only ever caught palm sized specimens.

After losing a few more rigs, we moved to a second spot right next to the power station’s gates where the bottom was much cleaner, but this only produced a few small painted comber and seabream species that we had caught already. It had been a difficult morning’s fishing, and we’d only added one species to our tally. We decided to head to a third venue, the pier on the left hand side of the entrance to Portomaso Marina.

The entrance to Potromaso Marina with the Hilton towering over it.

In terms of numbers this turned out to be a great spot, but the species were fairly limited, and we didn't add any new species to our tally sadly. As well as the occasional damselfish and annular seabream, the odd Mediteranean rainbow wrasse for Gordon, which were proving elusive for me for some reason, all we caught were lots of common two banded seabream and even more painted comber.

The area held lots of these little common two banded seabream.

Painted comber are plentiful around Malta. This colourful, aggressive, toothy predator was by far the most common catch from the pier.

So, day two had very much been a game of two halves, a tough morning during which we had only added one new species to our tally, and an action packed afternoon that had failed to produce anything we hadn't caught already during the trip. Fitting then, that in the evening we went out for a meal, then enjoyed a few drinks whilst we watched some football in a bar down in St Julian's by Spinola Bay. We were still on track to reach our target of thirty species, and with plenty of venues for us to try during the coming days, I was quietly confident that we'd be able to hit it.

Tight lines, Scott.

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