More light game fun on Madeira.

I enjoyed a week's holiday down on Madeira last month. It was a family holiday but as ever I managed to squeeze some tackle into my suitcase and did a spot of light game fishing. Conditions varied throughout the week but as the island is small and we had a hire car I always managed to find some shelter and did a bit of fishing. There were no real surprises in what was caught although I did catch a few sand smelt that looked quite different to the ones I've caught before in the UK and I'd later discover they were a new species.

The first day it was pretty wet. Especially up in the valley where we were staying.

For my first session I started off fishing inside Porto Moniz's deep harbour. Things were pretty slow but I eventually caught some ornate wrasse which were present at short range amongst rocks and close to the harbour's walls.

Aggressive and toothy lizardfish were caught further out. Both the diamond and Atlantic varieties were in their usual full on kamikaze mood and I caught both.

Canary damselfish were another species I caught. Pretty little things.

Towards the end of my first session I tried fishing from a new spot on the rocks at the back of the large swimming pools at Porto Moniz. It was a nice mark and after catching a few more small fish I hooked something bigger straight down the side which had my rod bend over and tried its best to get into the rocks. After a couple of hairy moments a dusky grouper appeared on the surface, beaten I thought, but it managed to throw the hook with one last thrash as I got into position to land it.

A nice spot but a change in the wind's direction during the night would prevent me returning due to the swell which was a shame.

The following afternoon we drove up onto the plains at the western end of the island and then back down the winding cliffside roads where we had lunch in Porto Moniz. On the way back to Sao Vincente we stopped and I had an hour or so to fish.

The apartment had a lovely garden and when the sun came out so did the lizards.

Considering it is basically a large lump of volcanic rock Madeira is an incredibly lush island.

As well as revisiting places I fished the last time I was on the island I tried a few new spots as well. This spot near Seixal looked good on Google Maps and access was pretty easy too as there was a road all the way down leading to a swimming pool at the bottom.

Looked quite promising.

Drop shot rigs were the main method I employed during the trip. In deep water and windy conditions they offer great control and a lot of the fish are near the bottom anyway.

I fished at the end of a strange twisted lava rock formation. Again though the fishing was tough and most bites came at close range from the usual suspects.

Puffers are cool fish but generally are a bit of a pain. They bite soft plastics to pieces with their razor sharp teeth often damaging your line in the process. Occasionally I'd manage to hook one.

Half way through the trip the girls spent a day walking in the forests around the valley where we were staying and I got the use of the car. I headed to the South coast of the island to fish a few spots there hoping for flatter seas as the wind was now coming from a northerly direction. The harbour at Ribeira Brava was my first stop and it had a big shoal of small fish taking shelter in it. Rigging up a 3g jig with a tiny treble hook and twitching it through them soon saw me discovering what they were. Most were tiny Atlantic chub mackerel but I also caught what I'd later discover were my first ever big scale sand smelt. 

The big scale sand smelt has a much shorter snout and less scales along its lateral line than the variety that is found in the UK.

Afterwards I headed further west to explore some more new spots but overall the fishing was really pretty poor and I ended up heading back up the west coast to Porto Moniz again where I sought shelter inside the harbour. Ornate wrasse, lizardfish  and Canary damselfish again made up the bulk of the fish caught but I also added a few more species to my tally in the shape of a Madeira rockfish and parrotfish.

Small but...

...perfectly formed.

Before I left to head back for dinner I tried a new spot further round inside the harbour which was much shallower and had a bit more structure on the bottom in the form of some rocky areas. This held a few common two banded seabream.

Good fun on my ultra light tackle..

On the way back to Sao Vincente I couldn't resist popping down to revisit the harbour in Seixal. The last time I was on the island and briefly fished it the water inside was very dirty but on this occasion it was very clear and this made it much easier to quickly catch a few of my target species. After shaking a few off the hook I decided not to risk being stung any longer and called an end to catching poisonous fish.

Siexal harbour is full of fine black sand. The lesser weevers that spend most of their time buried in it have adapted to match.

Towards the end of our trip we headed all the way up into the island's mountains again to visit the small village of Santana. There we saw some examples of what typical houses on the island looked like in the past.

Quaint little dwellings.

After visiting Santana we went down to the coastal town of Porto da Cruz for lunch. Before we left I did have a few chucks here from the rocks at the western end of the beach but sadly all they produced were a solitary ornate wrasse.

On the last full day of the trip the girls wanted to spend the day shopping and exploring the capital Funchal. After dropping them off I headed east and tried a final new spot, a small concrete pier below the cliffs at Porto Novo. The water there was very deep and I enjoyed my most productive session of the trip in terms of the number of fish caught. I added two more species to my tally in the shape of a few saddled seabream and common pandora. I also saw some very brief surface activity at one point but by the time I had rigged up a jig and cast it towards the area it had all ceased again.

My last few fish of the trip were common pandora.

Fishing in the winter can be tough and I think the fishing on Madeira, relatively speaking, is the same. Both times I've visited the island in February and I really need to visit in the summer as I think the fishing will be so much better and I now have a fairly good knowledge of different marks to fish. Maybe next year I'll do just that but in the mean time I've got a few more holidays booked this year to look forward to. I'm off to Lanzarote with my mate Nick at the start of May for a week's fishing and we might pop over to La Graciosa to see what the fishing is like over there as well. At the end of August I'm off to the western end of Crete with Lillian for a fortnight and some tackle will be going too. You an't beat some foreign light game fun. Even when it's poor it's still better than going out in the freezing cold here! That being said, I've not been out fishing in the UK for way too long and that is something I plan on rectifying soon.

Tight lines, Scott.

2016. Mixing business with pleasure.

I've not been out fishing yet this year, mainly due to catching every bug that seems to have been going around and also hurting my foot. Whilst recovering I've had plenty of time to look back at the fishing I did in 2016, think about the year ahead and ponder what direction my fishing might take.

The weather at the start of last year was truly dreadful. By the end of January I hadn't been fishing at all and badly needed a fix. To try and escape the harsh UK winter I took advantage of some very cheap flights and headed to Santander on the north coast of Spain for a few days with my girlfriend Lillian. Conditions there were not, shall we say, exactly conducive for using the light game tackle I'd taken with me. Still, we enjoyed our short stay and I managed to find an hour or two here and there, along with some shelter up the estuary away from the open coast, where I successfully winkled out a few small fish.

The conditions on the coast weren't ideal for the tackle I had with me.

My first fish of 2016 was this feisty common comber.

Luckily I didn't have to wait long to escape the miserable UK weather again. In March I was off abroad again for a week's fishing on Fuertaventura with two of my mates, Lee and Nick. The windy conditions hampered our lure fishing for larger species but we found some sheltered spots, caught lots of fish on our light game tackle and had a great time. As well as enjoying fishing in the sun all over the island, eating plenty of tasty seafood washed down with cold cerveza and rum, the trip also had some memorable pain related moments. Lee and I endured some epic sunburn whilst Nick experienced a slightly painful greater weever sting and accidentally fell down a hole in a breakwater we were fishing from after dark. No lasting damage was done and amongst over thirty species by the three of us I managed to tempt my first redlip blenny out of a harbour wall crack after much persistence. A species I've had several frustrating failed attempts at catching during past visits to the Canary Islands.

It was good to finally get this blenny off of my back. I've seen lots of them in the past but find the species to be a rather fussy little buggers.

They have quite an odd upper lip and a big set of fangs too.

Back in the UK again things began warming up and I enjoyed a surprise capture when my mate Dan and I visited Greenock in April to target wrasse. While we were setting up our tackle another angler told us that he had caught a tadpole fish there a few days previously. Very interesting we thought but were still quite shocked when Dan caught one shortly after we started fishing. It was very cool to see one in the flesh but to say I was a little jealous would be an understatement and I thought catching two in one day was a bit of a tall order. Towards the end of the session however I got lucky too and caught one as well which I was over the moon about.

The aptly named tadpole fish.

They have a huge cavernous mouth filled with lots of little sharp teeth.

In May I left the UK yet again and headed over to Ireland with my mate Martin for a few days, to have a go fishing for shad in St Mullins. I've been saying I'd go over for the shad's arrival for a few years now so it was good to finally go there to join the dozens of anglers who line the banks of the River Barrow to try and catch these rare fish as they head upstream to spawn. It was a fairly wet but enjoyable trip, we both caught our first shad and I'd love to go back and do it again.

Tazmanian devils ready to go. These are the lure of choice for most who turn up to target the shad.

Shad are a beautiful fish whose scales reflect the light in a multitude of iridescent colours. Photos just don't do them justice at all.

Martin with one of his many shad. He caught over fifty.

In June I got myself a new job in the soon to open Edinburgh Angling Centre. Getting the shop ready for its opening in August was a big task and this meant there was plenty of overtime available. Whilst this meant I had lots of money to spend on fishing tackle at a discounted price it also resulted in less time for me to go fishing sadly. Come the end of July I was glad to get a break from setting up the shop and went on holiday for a fortnight to Croatia with my girlfriend Lillian. Light game tackle went too and I enjoyed a fair amount of fun fishing in the Adriatic for the first time as we travelled up the county's stunning coastline from Cavtat all the way up to Pula. The highlight of the fishing I did during the trip was a session catching several gilthead seabream that gave my reel's drag a vigorous work out.

These give a great scrap on light game tackle. Awesome.

One of my targets for 2016 was to try and catch a dozen new species of fish. By October I had caught eleven and headed to Loch Etive to try and complete this little personal challenge by catching a twelfth. My target was the diminutive fifteen spined stickleback and I had an enjoyable few hours wading in the bladderwrack hunting them, eventually tempting one out of its weedy lair with a tiny piece of ragworm fished under a pole float which it eagerly shot out and attacked in a most aggressive manner.

Such a cool little fish.

Later that month my mate Lee came up to visit me for a week and we headed up to the Highlands for four days. We enjoyed the scenery, tested my car's breaks to avoid wildlife that had strayed on the road, had some great food and drink and some varied fishing too. For me the highlight of the trip was meeting up with my mate Dimitrios over on Skye and us both witnessing Lee catching a ling on a slow jig whilst we were targeting big pollock below the iconic lighthouse at Neist Point.

Highland cow roadblock. Can't get much more Scottish can you?

Lee's first ever ling was a cracker. Probably my favourite fish of the year and I didn't even catch it.

In November I tried to add a thirteenth new species to my 2016 tally. I drove all the way down to Nottingham on my day off after receiving some information about a venue that I was informed held a health population of the UK's smallest freshwater fish species, the nine spined stickleback. A long way to go for a tiny fish but I caught my target and had a lot of fun micro fishing so it was well worth the effort made.

I drove over 500 miles in one day to catch this little chap. Nurse!

As last year drew to a close I managed to get out a few times to trot maggots for grayling. After a few sessions where all I caught were out of season brown trout I managed to catch some lovely ladies of the stream. I love fishing with a centrepin. I finding it rather relaxing and during these sessions I also improved my casting technique a lot too. I'll be doing more of it before winter is over hopefully.

A perfect way to end the year.

So whilst I did less fishing last year than the previous few, mainly due to working more hours, 2016 still produced some enjoyable sessions, a few interesting new species and provided me with a few more great fishing memories. As I mentioned at the start of this post, this year hasn't got off to a great start and I've yet to wet a line in 2017.  I'm off to Madeira in a fortnight for a week long holiday though so I'm looking forward to that enormously. I've also been thinking about what other destinations I'd like to visit later in the year and I might travel further afield. I turn forty this year as well so I think a big fishy adventure of some description is on the cards. Closer to home, I'm not quite sure where I want to take my UK fishing this year if I'm honest. Whilst I'm enjoying my new job it will no doubt limit my fishing opportunities again this year and that's something I'll just have to get used to I suppose. Target wise I don't think I'll bother setting myself any goals this year and will just try and get out there and enjoy my fishing when I can.

Tight lines, Scott.

Lots of lovely ladies.

Maybe it was one of the slight changes I made to my end tackle, the larger float, the swivel between my mainline and hooklength, the new fluorocarbon hooklength or maybe the new hook pattern I went with? Maybe the stretch of the Cylde I decided to try for the first time just happened to hold a shoal of my target species on the day? Maybe the ladies simply couldn't resist me any longer? Who knows? To be honest I didn't really care. Stood in the river up to my waist slowly trotting my float down a nice pool with my centrepin last Sunday was a relaxing way to spend a few hours. I enjoyed a wonderful day's fishing, catching and releasing my first ladies of the stream of the year.

The grayling really is a stunning fish. Perhaps the most beautiful of all UK freshwater fish?

I really hope the coming months provide good conditions for me to do more trotting for grayling as I'm really enjoying it. I plan on heading out to target them again tomorrow and I might have a go for them locally on the North Esk. On a related note I'm also toying with the idea of getting a tenkara rod and using it to give fishing nymphs for grayling a go as well. Maybe another special lady in my life will treat me for Christmas?

Tight lines, Scott.

Not very lady like?

Two sessions trotting maggots for grayling on the River Annan last Sunday and the River Clyde today have sadly only produced a blank and a couple of out of season brown trout respectively. The lady of the stream is proving elusive.

On the way back to the car today I had to pass this lump. I was glad there was a fence to separate me from perhaps the biggest highland cow I've ever seen with an impressive set of horns to match. Males and females both have horns so I'm not sure if the hairy beast was a lady or a gent. Anyway, my search for lovely ladies will continue over the coming months.

Playing the numbers game.

Last weekend I had a message from my mate Nick about an interesting talk he had attended about Scottish freshwater fish species. He mentioned that the person giving the talk had covered nine spined sticklebacks and this sparked my interest in the species and potential locations that may hold populations. After a bit of Googling and sending off some emails I received a reply from wildlife photographer Jack Perks who very kindly pointed me in the direction of a small pond in the East Midlands that he assured me contained a lot of them. It was a long way to go to catch a tiny fish but I decided to head down there and went early last Monday morning to see if I could catch one. Five and a half hour's driving later I arrived at the venue, a lovely little pond full of lilies, reeds and weedy areas. Keen to start catching little spiky fish I quickly set up my micro fishing tackle.

Stuffed with sticklebacks according to Jack.

 I used a super sensitive pole float and shotted it right down.

A tiny section of pinky maggot on a tanago hook. Ideal for tiny mouths.

Dropping my micro fishing rig down in to a gap in some lily pads in the margin the tip of my chianti pole float soon registered the interest of a little fish and after a few more tiny dips it went right under. The culprit was quickly lifted out and swung to hand but whilst it was a stickleback it wasn't the one I was after being six spines short. This set the tone for the next hour or so with my float barely having a chance to settle before being pulled under by a succession of my target's hungry cousins.

These three spined sticklebacks weren't shy and the pond was full of them.

I slowly moved around the edge of the pond trying different spots but after catching several dozen three spined sticklebacks and nothing else I began to wonder if Jack had been mistaken about the presence of the nine spined sticklebacks or if I was fishng in the wrong pond. I was still having fun though and eventually I caught a tiny fish that had a completely different profile and colouration to all the others I caught so far. As soon as the fish raised its spines it revealed its identity and confirmed that I'd hit the jackpot.

Eventually my persistence paid off and I'd caught a new species as well as the smallest freshwater fish in the UK.

One of each in my observation tank. Very different in appearance.

I carried on fishing for another couple of hours before headed back up the road, having had lots of fun catching the diminutive fish. In amongst a few more dozen three spined sticklebacks I managed to catch a few more nine spine sticklebacks as well. Micro fishing is good fun and with doing more of it in mind I've treated myself to a 6" tanago rod that will be perfect for targeting a whole host of little fish so I'm looking forward to getting out and using it in the not too distant future. 

Tight lines, Scott.