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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Not more species hunting adventures on Crete?!: Part 1.

Yes, that's right! I’ve been to Crete again! At the end of last month, Lillian and I headed off there for a relaxing holiday. We’ve been to the Greek islands several times and love Crete in particular, this being our fifth holiday there! This time we decided to stay in Elounda and then Agia Gallini, both for four nights each. We didn’t arrive until very late in the evening, so after we got to our accommodation, we just went straight to bed. In the morning when we woke up the sun was shining, and I was keen to get my species hunting under way, so we went for a walk into town, stopping on some piers as we went. I had a brand new Nebula Rock Rover to break in, along with a new Daiwa Exceler reel, freshly loaded with some nicely colour coordinated grey Daiwa J-Braid Grand X8.

The nice view from our room balcony. 

Before long, I set about catching some fish. 

All shiny and new! Lovely. 

Fishing Angleworm on a drop shot rig, I soon caught a few black goby, rock goby, an annular seabream and a small painted comber. The black goby were all very light in colour, so I popped one in my photo tank just to check they were actually black goby.

The ability to examine fins is one of the great benefits of the tank. Identify confirmed! Just a black goby. Always worth checking!

No tank required to identify this small annular seabream, although it would probably have fit into it!

I was expecting to catch a few more painted comber, as in the past I’d caught lots of them there, but instead I began to catch a few yellow spotted puffer, one of many migrant species that have travelled from the Red Sea into the Eastern Mediterranean via the Suez Canal. Over the years, the number of these I catch when on Crete has been steadily increasing. They are super aggressive and don't seem to be in any way cautious, so they often get to lures and bait first before other fish get a chance. As a result, some of the native fish seem to be in decline. Ornate wrasse, Usually a common capture, were noticeably absent, and I didn’t catch any more painted comber either, another species that's normally present in big numbers. 

These yellow spotted puffers quickly became a real pain. They damage your line and can even just bite hooks off completely!

After a while, and following a quick visit to the local fishing tackle shop where I bought some small lures and some preserved shrimps in a small jar to try out, we headed back to the apartment complex, jumped in our hire car, and made the short drive north to Plaka. On the way there, we passed a roadside viewing point for Spinalonga, a small island and former leper colony out in the bay, and stopped briefly to take a photo or two. When we arrived in Plaka we had some lunch and afterwards I did a bit more fishing around its small harbour.

Having been over to Spinalonga by boat a couple of times in the past, we decided just to admire it off in the distance.

I started off fishing with tiny pieces of the preserved shrimp on tanago hooks to try and catch a damselfish. Their small mouths can make them tricky to catch, but I got one reasonably quickly, and a few other species were also caught whilst I tried.

A few bogue took my tiny pieces of prawn. Their scientific name is Boop boops, but it should be Poop poops if you ask me!

I also caught a couple of marbled rabbitfish. Covered in venomous spines, this is another well established invader from the Red Sea.

After a bit of persistence, I caught a damselfish.

The wind then suddenly changed direction causing a slight swell to kick up, so we moved over to fish from the rocks down the back of the harbour where it was fairly sheltered. At this point, I switched to the ever reliable Angleworm on a drop shot rig. The bottom was mainly rocky and produced a couple of combers, an Atlantic lizardfish, a few Mediterranean rainbow wrasse and lots of yellow spotted puffers. There were also a few sandy areas as well, and casting my rig onto these I caught a wide eyed flounder. 

This common comber was the first fish to munch my Angleworm. 

The beautifully patterned wide eyed flounder. I love catching these funky floral flatfish!

Before we called it a day, the wind switched back again, so we moved back to the inside of the harbour. Fishing down the harbour wall, I spotted a small group of reticulated filefish amongst the shoals of damselfish. Tying on a smaller hook and baiting it with a little piece of shrimp I eventually managed to get it close enough to one so that the damselfish didn't have a chance to strip off the bait and the weird looking fish took it straight away.

Yet another Lessepsian migrant. A lot less annoying than the puffer though! This fish was my 200th species of 2023 as well.

So, a fairly productive start to my holiday's species hunt, and I'd achieved my species hunting target for this year of catching two hundred species on day one of the trip. The amount of puffer I was catching and the slightly limited number of other species was a bit of a concern, but I was hopeful that some of the other venues I was planning to fish over the remainder of the trip might produce more native fish and hopefully some new ones as well!

Tight lines, Scott.

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Even more species hunting adventures on Crete: Part 1.

At the end of September last year, I headed off to Crete for a fortnight to chill out with my partner Lillian and do some fishing. After two years without a foreign holiday, we were both looking forward to getting away again immensely! We've visited the island three times together in the past, and I've been allowed to take my trusty HTO Rock Rover to do some species hunting the last two times. You can read about those two adventures by clicking on the links below.

Species hunting adventures on Crete

More species hunting adventures on Crete

As our accommodation was in Koutouloufari, up in the hills above Hersonissos, we stayed in that vicinity for the first few days of our holiday and explored on foot. As a result, my first few fishing sessions were all around Hersonissos Harbour. I've fished there before, so had a rough idea what I could expect to catch. A friend of mine, who'd been on holiday there a few months before me, had spotted a lionfish slowly cruising about in the rocks behind Hersonissos Harbour, so the whole time I was fishing there I was keeping an eye out for them.

A drop shot rig with a small hook baited up with Gulp! Angleworm being worked slowly back towards me along the bottom. It's my go to "catches most things that swim" rig.

Inside the harbour over the mixed ground, I caught my first species of the trip, a marbled rabbitfish.

This was followed by lots of yellow spotted puffer...

...and a solitary slender goby.

Over the mainly sandy areas just outside the mouth of the harbour, I caught a couple of pearly razorfish...

...and a small wide eyed flounder.

I also had one session after dark too, which produced some nocturnal species in the shape of...

...a salema...

...a black scorpionfish...

...and several ruby red cardinalfish.

Whilst sitting having lunch in Hersonissos a few days into the holiday, we experienced our first earthquake in the form of mild tremors that only lasted a few seconds. The epicentre had been on the south coast of the island, a distance of over 40km from us, so it was quite incredible to think that we had felt it from so far away!

On the way back to our accommodation, we passed this badly cracked road. Nothing to do with the recent seismic activity, but I couldn't resist a photo opportunity.

After a few days we picked up a hire car and hit the road, heading west to visit CRETAquarium, because catching lots of fish just wasn't enough, I love to look at them in tanks too! There were a couple of exhibits containing potentially dangerous fish that I was pretty keen on catching before the holiday was over. From the sea though!

Lots of highly poisonous lionfish have now moved into the waters around Crete. I really wanted to catch one!

So has another Red Sea migrant, the silver cheeked toadfish, a large species of puffer that has highly toxic flesh. I have a love/hate relationship with puffers, but catching one of these would also be awesome!

During our last trip to Crete, we visited Kournas Lake, the only freshwater lake on the island, where I made a failed attempt to catch a goldfish. We headed along there for a day trip, so I could have another go, stopping off in Giogioupoli on the way there to briefly annoy the resident fish in the river that meets the sea there.

Giogioupoli Harbour is a great little spot to catch a wide variety of different species.

Having caught a few of its residents already, I focused my efforts on adding to my trip tally and did so in the shape of a large rusty blenny...

...and a (not so giant) giant goby.

We then headed up to Kournas Lake, a very popular spot where you can swim, hire a pedalo and freeline bread for the resident goldfish.

Mission accomplished! The biggest of three that I caught.

The goldfish were easily my favourite captures of the trip at that point, not just because they are beautiful, but also because it was actually quite a challenge catching them. Trying to control your drift on a pedalo is tricky, especially whilst fishing at the same time. They're definitely not the most manoeuvrable of fishing platforms! The task was made even trickier by the hungry water fowl and terrapins that were also keen on eating my bread flake too!

By that point we were about midway through the holiday, having a nice time and my species hunt was going very well, although I'd not caught anything new. Perhaps I'd get lucky during the second half of the trip? Any new species would be very welcome, but most of all I really wanted to risk getting stung by a lionfish!

Tight lines, Scott.

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Species Hunting fun on Cyprus.

Earlier this month I had a week's holiday in Protaras on the island of Cyprus with my partner Lillian. My fishing expectations weren't very high as before I went I had been warned that the fishing wasn't as good as other parts of the Mediterranean. The chances of catching something new including a lionfish were good though so I was excited about that prospect at least. I only took a small amount of ultra light tackle with me to fish two styles, light rock fishing and to do a bit of bait fishing too. I treated myself to a new reel prior to the trip and loaded it up with fresh braid.

My new Daiwa Fuego LT 2500 loaded with 0.3PE Sunline Small Game. Lovely.

I fished for an hour or so every day and as I had been forewarned overall the fishing was pretty tough. During the first session it soon became apparent that there were a few puffers around. I wouldn't have minded these so much if I'd caught a silver cheeked toadfish but instead all I caught was a puffer species I'd caught before whilst on holiday on Crete.

The yellow spotted puffer. A species that's originally from the Red Sea. Known as Lessepsian migrants they are named after Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French diplomat who proposed the building of the Suez Canal, the commercial waterway they use to make their way north to the Mediterranean.

Over the first few days pretty much all I caught was yellow spotted puffers, with just a solitary rainbow wrasse and a couple of small parrotfish managing to find my lures and bait before them. Most of the coast was extremely shallow and the water was incredibly clear too. I'm not sure if this had anything to do with the lack of fish but I soldiered on trying several different spots.

The coast looked great but there didn't seem to be many fish around. Fishing in the sun is still hard to beat even when you're not catching much..

Eventually trying new spots paid off when I found an area that held loads of fish. Unfortunately it was a series of ponds full of koi carp outside a sushi restaurant. How annoying!

I've been known to carry out covert fishing operations in corporate ponds in the past and I was slightly tempted to carry out a dawn raid but they were just too cute and friendly so I let them be.

Despite the seeming lack of fish in the sea the locals were out having a go almost everywhere we went which was slightly encouraging and as ever Lillian was very generous allowing me to fish whenever I thought there might be a chance of catching something. At Ayia Napa harbour we saw a few bluespotted cornetfish as we walked around so I got permission to try and catch one.

A local float fishing at the mouth of Aiya Napa Harbour with a very long pole.

A tourist fishing at the mouth of Aiya Napa Harbour with lures on an ultra light setup.

Fishing small curly tail soft plastics on a 2.3g #10 jighead quickly near the surface I soon had several elongated fish following and having a go at my lure. After several hits I hooked up with a couple of small barracuda and then after a quiet spell where the fish seemed to loose interest I caught a small bluespotted cornetfish, a truly bizarre looking fish and a very slimy one too. I was very pleased to catch my first new species of the trip.

My first ever bluespotted cornetfish.

Midway through our holiday I decided to use the depth charts on Navionics' website to locate some deeper water, something I probably should have done sooner to be honest. I located a mark with good depth close in down the coast towards Cape Greco and had a few sessions there in the evenings as it got cooler. I was hoping to catch a lionfish there but had no luck sadly. The mark was a bit more productive though and I caught quite a lot of combers. Mostly the common variety but I also caught a few painted comber too, with the odd Atlantic lizardfish and some more yellow spotted puffers taking my drop shotted scented lures too. I also hooked something a little larger that I suspect was a bream but it managed to throw the hook unfortunately so I didn't find out what it was.

A nice colourful painted comber.

On the morning of our final day on the island we stopped at a small harbour on our way to Larnaca so I could have a few final casts. Unsurprisingly it was full of yellow spotted puffers although I did manage to add a couple of goby species to my trip tally as well. I also spotted a small wrasse that I couldn't positively identify but the puffers and gobies were way more aggressive and repeatedly beat the wrasse to my bait. Just before we left to get some lunch I fished over a very shallow sandy area and was pleasantly surprised when I caught my second new species of the trip.

My first Red Sea goatfish, yet another Lessepsian migrant.

Incredibly I picked a restaurant for lunch that was right next to Larnaca harbour and as we had an hour or so to kill after we had eaten before having to make the short drive to the airport I got the green light for a few more final casts. This proved fruitful and saw me adding a few more species to my tally in the shape of a few rock gobies, some axillary seabream, a plain red mullet and a marbled rabbitfish. From under the shade of the pontoon I was fishing on I then caught my final new species of the trip, another little invader from the Red Sea.

I knew this was a cardinalfish but I had to do some Googling in the airport departure lounge to discover it was a pharaoh cardinalfish.

So the fishing had been tough but I still managed to catch seventeen species including three new ones which are in bold below. Also worth noting that just over a third of the species caught are Lessepsian migrants and I've underlined these below.

1. Atlantic Lizardfish
2. Axillary Seabream
3. Black Goby
4. Blue Spotted Cornetfish
5. Bucchich's Goby 
6. Common Comber
7. Marbled Rabbitfish
8. Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse
9. Ornate Wrasse
10. Painted Comber 
11. Parrotfish
12. Pharaoh Cardinalfish
13. Plain Red Mullet
14. Red Sea Goatfish
15. Rock Goby
16. Yellow Spotted Puffer
17. Yellowtail Barracuda

So whilst we had an enjoyable holiday on the beautiful island of Cyprus I'm not sure I could recommend it for the saltwater shore fishing. I think if I were to return I'd have a go fishing in the islands freshwater instead.

Tight lines, Scott.