Even more species hunting adventures on Crete: Part 2.

As the second half of our holiday progressed, we continued to make the most of the hire car. On another day trip, we drove up through the mountains in the island's interior and back down from them again to the south coast's picturesque town of Agia Galini. I did a fair bit of fishing in the harbour there and added a few more species to my tally. I also had a lot of fun freelining bread for some pretty large salema that were coming up tight into the side before smashing my bait. I didn't manage to land any of them however, after stripping line off my reel as they bolted back down the harbour wall they all somehow managed to throw the hook sadly.

Perched on a bollard with my net at the ready, just in case a hook actually stayed in a salema's bony mouth.

Switching to raw prawn fished close to the bottom produced some small Couch's seabream...

...a few East Atlantic peacock wrasse....

...and this nice little goldblotch grouper.

A day or two later I fished a deep water rock mark near Boufos Cave, but the fishing was surprisingly poor. In fact other than some ornate wrasse and yellow spotted puffers closer in, I caught nothing else. Despite this, I think I'd try there again at dawn or dusk if I return to the area in the future. The spot just looked so fishy!

Fishing in the shade of the cliffs at my back, I enjoyed the view towards the uninhabited island of Dia, off in the distance.

On the recommendation of my mate Nick who had also been on Crete earlier in the year, we spent a morning exploring Sisi, a lovely village with a small harbour that cuts inland and is surrounded by cliffs. An onshore wind made fishing in the open sea with my ultralight tackle difficult, so after a stroll around the village, I had a short session fishing on the inside of the harbour's rocky breakwater.

Fishing was tough, but I eventually caught some ornate wrasse and some yellow spotted puffer. The number of puffers had definitely increased since my last holiday on Crete. They're a total pain as they bite your line and damage it.

Whilst I was fishing away, Lillian spotted a moray eel swimming close in amongst the rocks right at my feet and christened it Bill. I think Bill was drawn out by the smell of the scraps of raw prawn that I had been dropping there. I quickly tied on a heavier leader and a chinu hook. Dropping a chunk of prawn down, Bill took it straight away, and before I could fully load my rod and apply pressure, he had quickly swam backwards into a hole. I couldn't get him out again, and trying to bully him saw me eventually being broken off. Bill would have been my first new species of the trip, so I was gutted.

Here are some of Bill's relatives in CRETAquarium.

On the penultimate day of our stay, we headed east to Agios Nikolaos to spend a day there. In the morning we went out on the glass bottomed boat. While you're down below, the crew are up on deck, throwing in a steady supply of fish scraps to attract various species of fish to the boat. As well as spotting some of the more common ones, we also saw a couple of silver cheeked toadfish, and they weren't half greedy buggers. They've got a serious set of teeth and were devouring entire carcasses in seconds.

A silver cheeked toadfish chomping away.

On the way back to port, we went up onto the deck as the boat followed the coastline back. As well as enjoying some of the views, we were also lucky to see shoals of flying fish swimming/flying/gliding up out of the water, into and through the air as they got out of the way of the boat.

Flying fish. How cool. I'd love to catch one!

Back on dry land, we took a walk around Lake Voulismeni, stopping for lunch before I got the green light to grab my tackle from the car to do a bit of fishing.

"The Lake".

After a quick trip to a supermarket and fishmongers to grab some bait, I was soon catching lots of thick lipped mullet on freelined bread and some Bucchich's goby on small chunks of raw prawn on a split shot rig. As well as those two species, I also added another three additional species to my trip tally.

This small blue runner grabbed a chunk of prawn and powered off, almost making it under some boats and their mooring ropes. Great fun on my HTO Rock Rover.

As was this small, aggressive bluefish.

A small shoal of these Yellowtail barracuda, a migrant from the Red Sea, swam past the spot I was fishing and this one also took a chunk of raw prawn.

On the way back to Koutouloufari we took a detour and went to Plaka, grabbing some more bread and some tins of sardine from a supermarket on the way. After making up some ground bait, I started tossing in a small amount regularly.  This soon had some bream up in the water feeding on it, including some reasonably sized salema. Again, I managed to hook a few of them, but every single one managed to throw the hook after a brief tussle. I then switched over to a Gulp! Angleworm on a drop shot rig and cast out fishing close to the bottom.

From the rocks at the end of Plaka's small harbour, I caught...

...lots of painted combers...

... a few common two banded seabream...

...some Mediterranean rainbow wrasse...

...and a reticulated filefish.

I'd forgotten how good Plaka was for catching a wide variety of species. A fact that was demonstrated when we finally spotted our first lionfish in the open sea. It came up out of the submerged boulders in front of where I was fishing, probably drawn out by the groundbait. It lazily floated around for a while and then swam slowly around the area before vanishing again. I tried a few things to try and catch it, but it wasn't remotely interested in anything I put in front of it. Before we left, we also witnessed another angler catching a silver cheeked toadfish. If we return to Crete, I think we'll stay in Elounda again, so I can spend a bit of time fishing around Plaka again.

So, the end of the trip had arrived, and we'd had a great time. I didn't do any fishing on the last day, but I'd managed to catch thirty-six species over the two weeks, which I think is a fairly respectable effort. The only disappointment being I'd failed to catch any new species.

Here's a summary of the species I caught.

1. Annular Seabream
2. Atlantic Lizardfish
3. Axillary Seabream
4. Black Scorpionfish
5. Bluefish
6. Blue Runner
7. Bucchich’s Goby
8. Cardinalfish
9. Common Comber
10. Common Two Banded Seabream 
11. Couch’s Seabream
12. Damselfish
13. Derbio
14. East Atlantic Peacock Wrasse 
15. Giant Goby
16. Goldblotch Grouper
17. Golden Grey Mullet
18. Goldfish
19. Grey Wrasse
20. Madeira Rockfish
21. Marbled Rabbitfish
22. Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse 
23. Ornate Wrasse
24. Painted Comber
25. Pearly Razorfish
26. Reticulated Filefish
27. Rock Goby
28. Rusty Blenny
29. Salema
30. Slender Goby
31. Striped Seabream
32. Thick Lipped Mullet
33. White Seabream
34. Wide Eyed Flounder
35. Yellow Spotted Puffer
36. Yellowtail Barracuda

Lillian and I both love visiting Crete, and I dare say this won't be my last set of catch reports from there. I might however set out to deliberately focus my efforts on targetting new species if we do return, or perhaps do a spot of boat fishing. Lionfish, silvercheeked toadfish and Bill better look out!

Tight lines, Scott.

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.

Click here for the next part.

Blogging again.

So, it's been a while. Over two years in fact have passed since my last post on the blog. I've still been fishing with varying regularity during that time but just haven't felt inclined to write about it. As well as catching a few fish I also manged to catch Covid recently too, not a pleasant experience but I'm almost back to normal now. Over the summer I achieved a personal fishing milestone that I'm quite proud of so I've decided to start rambling on here again and will be posting a few reports covering a few trips I've done in the last two years and also sessions working towards the goal I reached. My trumpet isn't going to blow itself and I figure some fellow anglers out there may even like to see some photos of my captures or read about my exploits perhaps. Anyway, I'll get started...

At the end of August last year I headed to the west coast of Scotland with my mate Nick for a few day's relaxation, camping and fishing. We based ourselves in Auchindarroch Touring Park and headed out each day to various different spots to see how many species we could catch. We fished various styles, everything from jigs on light tackle to big baits on heavy ground beachcasters and it didn't take us long to start racking the species up. During the daytime we caught lots of fish, all five main UK wrasse species, most members of the cod family and various mini species. Those who know me or read this blog will already be aware that I love mini species!

A short session at Ganavan Sands beach saw us catching lots of sand gobies using a simple split shot rig, tiny hooks and tiny pieces of raw prawn.

Sticking with the small hooks and little chunks of raw prawn the next day, I caught this stunning rook cook wrasse when we visited Lochaline West Pier.

Lochaline West Pier is one of the best spots I know to catch an incredibly wide variety of mini species. Nick caught this leopard spotted goby while we fished there.

I also caught this large butterfish which was also tempted by some raw prawn on a small hook.

Heading out after dark a few times also saw us adding to our species hunt tally. I was hopeful that I might catch a three bearded rockling, a species I've caught before but never in Scotland. Unfortunately our night time sessions weren't as productive as our daylight ones. I caught a three bearded rockling sized ling which I briefly thought was a three bearded rockling when it surfaced but my excitement didn't last long when I realised what it actually was. Nick landed a couple of dogfish and he then caught a tadpole fish which he was over the moon about.

We were on the rocks, set up and fishing at close range into deep kelpy ground by sunset. Who needs a tripod?

Not Nick's first tadpole fish but still a great catch nonetheless. Probably the coolest fish of the trip.

All too soon though the day arrived when we had to get up, pack the tents away and make the drive home. The species hunting had been very enjoyable and we ended up catching just over twenty species between the two of us. On our way back to the east coast we stopped off at Loch Lubnaig for a couple of hours for a spot of ultralight sport targeting it's pristine perch.

Pink has always been a successful colour choice for me to dropshot for these lovely Loch Lubnaig perch.

It was also good to discover that the three big hairy beasts that live by the loch were still around. They must be getting on a bit now.

All in all it was a very enjoyable, much needed short break in good company in a beautiful part of Scotland, even if the pesky three bearded rockling had eluded me yet again. I was determined to add new species to my Scottish tally so I'd return again earlier this year to have another crack at catching one.

Tight lines, Scott.

In before the lock?

I popped down the A1 a couple of times a fortnight ago with two of my workmates. The first trip to St Abbs Head with Callum was all about catching some ballan wrasse and Callum had his heart set on catching "A big one." having already caught a few smaller ballan wrasse on previous outings he'd had. After walking up to the cliffs from the village we started the session by trying a new mark that proved to be a little tricky to access due to the slightly damp underfoot conditions. Clambering about on damp rocks isn't a great idea down there and the new spot turned out to be fairly shallow and hellishly snaggy, so we headed back up to the path and I took Callum to another mark where I've caught a few decent ballan wrasse in the past. After making our way down a grassy slope and hopping down a few rocks, we found a fairly flat ledge, got comfortable and set up our gear. Fishing light tackle was the approach taken with plan A being dropping blow lug down the side at close range on one hook paternoster rigs. I had my bait in the water first and before Callum had even finished getting setting up I was asking him to net the first ballan wrasse of the day, a nice fish just over a couple of pounds.

As well as their colourful markings and eyes, I love their big juicy lips.

I've never really fished for ballan wrasse on the east coast so late in the year so catching one straight away was a most welcome and pleasant surprise, and made me reasonably confident that we'd catch more. About twenty minutes later Callum got an aggressive bite and hooked the culprit. A big fish quickly had his rod bent over, his drag clicker screaming and his heart pounding. After a few spirited runs towards the kelp the fish was beaten and when it came to the surface I was in position with the net to help Callum land a new personal best ballan wrasse. 

"A big one!" We didn't have scales with us but at 46.5 cm Callum's new PB ballan wrasse was probably just over 4lb.

A cracking fish with some beautiful markings. A fantastic capture on a light rod rated 3-18g as well!

Having accomplished my guiding objective for the day I left Callum to target wrasse and turned my attention to scratching around on the bottom using small hooks baited with chunks of raw prawn to see if I could pick up something unusual. All I managed were about a dozen small coalfish however before a pod of dolphins swam by and after that all action, unsurprisingly, ground to a halt. After a couple of hours with nothing further being caught we headed back to the car. On our way back up the road we decided to pop into Torness Power Station's outflow to target bass and mullet, species Callum had never caught before. The water was pretty coloured up however, and sadly we didn't have any joy ledgering lug worm for bass or free lining bread flake for mullet.

The following day I headed to Coldingham Bay, St Abbs Harbour and then Torness Power Station's outflow with another workmate, Ruaridh. To begin with we scratched around using light gear and small hooks baited with raw prawn but at the first two venues things were pretty slow. At Coldingham Bay we didn't catch anything at all but when we visited St Abbs Harbour we did eventually manage to catch a few fish in the shape of some coalfish, a small cod and also Ruaridh's first ever blenny.

Ruaridh patiently fishing away.

Ruaridh's first ever blenny! I remember catching mine and whilst I've caught hundreds since it still seems like it was yesterday.

After trying a few different areas around the various parts of the harbour we switched to working lures along the bottom in an attempt to catch some flounders but this didn't produce any bites. I then decided to scale down and catch some sand gobies using tanago hooks and after catching a few I also caught a couple of tiny plaice as well on the tiny baits I was slowly twitching along the harbour's sandy floor.

The distinctive orange markings of an adult were absent on this tiny juvenile plaice but the bony nodules running along the head were not.

To finish the day we visited Torness Power Station's outflow. The water clarity had improved a lot over the previous twenty-four hours, and we decided to focus our efforts on catching mullet on freelined bread flake. This method was new to Ruaridh along with the frustrations of using it to try to catch our target. Things were made more difficult by the fact that neither of us had a pair of polarized sunglasses with us but eventually I managed to catch two thick lipped mullet that took my bread and pulled my rod tip over as they felt my hook and swam off into the current.

Frustrating and full of fight. Mullet are great fun.

Sadly, despite his perseverance Ruaridh didn't manage to catch one before it started to get dark, so we called it a day. To his credit he took the constant baiting up only for the fish to steal his bread pretty well and is keen to go back again for another attempt at catching his first mullet so a return trip will be made. Last week the weather wasn’t great for that but the mullet are there all year round so hopefully we'll get back down there at some point. That being said I'm not sure what fishing I'll be doing in the weeks ahead. I’ll have to do any fishing "locally" until the end of October due to the recent travel restrictions introduced in Scotland’s central belt but I have a horrible feeling that before too long some stricter travel restrictions may be put in place that will really  limit my opportunities. I really, really hope I’m wrong.

Tight lines, Scott.