More Species Hunting Adventues On Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 4.

The following day, we decided to fish a few marks around the southern end of the Fuerteventura. Our first stop was the pier at Las Playitas. During my last visit to the island, I caught a golden grey mullet whilst fishing at this venue, so I made up some groundbait and started trying to catch one fishing bread flake under a float. They were present, but the sea was pretty flat, and they were being very cautious, holding their position further out, waiting for my groundbait to drift out towards them. I struggled for a couple of hours, only managing to hook two briefly before they got off, and in the end I failed to catch one.

To begin with, we had the pier all to ourselves, but that didn't last long.

Gordon and I did both catch our first salema of the trip before the constant arrival of people on the pier and a procession of kayakers launching from the slipway and paddling right over where were fishing, made the decision to head off to the next venue a pretty easy one to make. 

Salema love a bit of bread too.

Next, we headed to the rocks on the outside of the eastern breakwater of Puerto Gran Tarajal harbour. Carefully making our way along to the end of them, we decided to have a few casts then move back along them towards the start, stopping at different spots to see what we could catch. We didn’t catch anything right at the end, but a move of about twenty yards saw us locate a large shoal of striped seabream. 

We enjoyed some great sport, catching dozens of these striped seabream.

Gordon into a striped seabream.

As we continued to make our way along the boulders, we continued to catch more striped seabream. During my last visit to Fuerteventura, I caught a few common pandora when we fished from these rocks, and was hopeful we would catch some this time too. Eventually Gordon did catch one, and almost straight afterwards, I caught one of my own too.

Mission accomplished. Species number forty of the trip!

With two full day’s of fishing left, we decided to up the ante, and try to reach forty five species. I drew up a shortlist of potential targets, most of which I had caught on the island myself during my last trip, or knew specific spots where other anglers had caught them. Despite this bit of strategic planning, the last venue on our itinerary for the day was the a shot in the dark. Remembering the western breakwater of Morro Jable harbour from my last trip to Fuerteventura, I speculated that there might be a reasonably good chance that it held a population of glasseye, so we headed there. However, after making the forty five minute drive down there, we found that the area we wanted to fish was completely closed off due to the construction of an exclusive marina. Disappointed, we parked in the main harbour area so we could formulate plan B. Glasseye were definitely off the table, but I thought we could try fishing on the white sandy beach of Playa las Gaviotas, located a short drive to the east of us, there we could target wide eyed flounder and lesser weever as light faded. This proved to be a great decision, not because we caught either of those species, but instead because we caught a few nice gilthead seabream from the realively shallow gully we chose to fish in! In a relatively short period, Gordon caught two and then I caught a slightly bigger specimen that gave a great account of itself on my ultralight tackle. Very happy with this unexpected action, we called it a day and drove back to Caleta de Fuste.

What a scrap over fairly shallow ground! Species number forty one!

In the morning, we decided to stay local, fishing around Caleta de Fuste and from the rocks near the Museo de las Salinas del Carmen, 3km to the south of the town. Before any swimmers arrived, we began on Playa de la Guirra, twitching Gulp! Angleworm along the bottom. Wide eyed flounder were the target species, and I soon hooked one, but it managed to throw the hook as I wound it in. I called Gordon over, and he promptly caught four of them in fairly quick succession! Another species had been added to our tally, but I still wanted to catch one myself, so I switched to a small piece of raw prawn and cast that out. A bite came almost instantaneously, and a wide eyed flounder was quickly wound in. 

Wide eyed flounder are awesome flatfish! Species number forty two!

Having ticked off another species, we headed to the pond at the back of the Elba Sara Resort again, to see if we could catch a golden grey mullet or a flathead mullet. I quickly caught one of the larger thick lipped mullet in the pond, however, the commotion it made spooked the other mullet in the pond, and they all swam up the pipes at the top end of it! The sailfin molly were still around, so I quickly caught a plain looking one before we left.

A "standard" sailfin molly. The specimens I’d caught two days earlier, the more colourful fish, were melanistic I believe.

Jumping back in the car, we headed south to fish from the rocks near the Museo de las Salinas del Carmen, a well known spot for early morning bonito and barracuda fishing. As we walked down from the car park to the sea, we were met by a Barbary ground squirrel. It obviously thought we might give it some food and followed us for a while, scampering over the rocks. 

Our new furry friend! It hung around for the duration of the session. 

There was a bit of a swell running, and waves were breaking on the vertical rock faces in front of us, sending spray up onto the ledges we wanted to fish from. We managed to find one small dry area and had an hour or so casting baits out into the relatively deep water out in front of us. This produced a lot of Canary damselfish, ornate wrasse, planehead filefish and pufferfish. I caught one particularly large Macaronesian sharpnose puffer, and also managed to catch my first butterfly winged comber of the trip.

Beautiful, but very annoying!

Gordon had already caught a butterfly winged comber earlier in the trip, so this wasn’t an addition to our trip tally.

With nothing else interesting turning up, we decided to head back north again to Caleta de Fuste. There, we found a place on the rocks fairly close to where we had fished the day we arrived, just north of the edge of the town. I focused my efforts fishing with small chunks of raw prawn in close on ledges, the target being a hairy blenny. Gordon tried his luck fishing with Gulp! Angleworm further out in deeper water. The only species I caught, were the ones you would expect to catch at close range over rocky ground, lots of ornate wrasse and Canary damselfish mainly. Gordon was also catching those too, as well as plenty of planehead filefish and pufferfish. Midway into the session, he caught something rather unusual. As he was winding it in, the fish came to the surface and leap from the water, trying to throw the hook. Initially we thought he had hooked a garfish. However, as it got closer, and he was about to lift it up, I realised it was in fact a halfbeak.

Doing some research later, I discovered this was a Balao halfbeak. A very close relative of the ballyhoo. The Balao halfbeak has a much longer pectoral fin. Bent forward it reaches the anterior nostril. On a ballyhoo it doesn’t reach that far. 

Halfbeaks have the strangest mouths! Species number forty three!

This was without doubt the most unexpected species caught so far and, yet again, I was slightly jealous of one of Gordon‘s captures, but I was happy we’d caught yet another addition to our trip's tally. We carried on fishing away for a few hours more, but neither of us caught anything else that we hadn’t caught already earlier in the trip, so as it got dark we called it a day. With one full day left we still needed another two species to hit our new target, so we decided to head north to fish some different spots. 

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the final part.

More Species Hunting Adventues On Gran Canaria & Fuerteventura: Part 1.

Winter sucks. There's no getting away from the fact that the fishing locally is pretty hard going this time of year. It’s not that there aren’t any fish around, it’s just not much fun catching what is available in very cold, wet and also often windy conditions. Only dedicated cod anglers enjoy going out in such miserable conditions! Having only managed three fishing sessions since I returned from Asia in November, I decided I needed to get some winter sun, and after speaking to my mate Gordon, we decided to head down to the Canary Islands. I thought it would be interesting to split our trip across two islands, and after checking out ferry and flight options between the various constituents of the archipelago, we settled for Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura.

Minimal fishing tackle, at the ultra light end of the spectrum, was packed into my suitcase, and after arriving in Gran Canaria in the evening, we visited a supermarket to get some food for later on, as well as some bait in the form of a packet of frozen raw prawns. After reaching our accommodation and removing the required fishing gear from my suitcase, we jumped back into our hire car and headed to a spot nearby to open our account. We set ourselves what we felt was a fairly ambitious target of forty species for the week, and dropping small pieces of prawns on split shot rigs down the side at the end of Arinaga’s pier, we quickly caught our first few species of the trip.

There were lots of these Madeira rockfish out hunting after dark. Gordon also caught a solitary black scorpionfish. 

Gordon caught a nice dusky grouper that swam straight into a snag, but being patient and applying just the right amount of pressure, he managed to coax it out again.

Casting further out onto cleaner ground, we both caught a few bastard grunt.

Before we knew it a couple of hours had passed, it was quite late, and we were feeling quite hungry, so we called it a night and headed back to our accommodation for some tasty Spanish tapas, sliced meats, hard cheese, olives and tortilla all washed down with some red wine and few beers. A most pleasant end to our first few hours on holiday. 

The following day, we headed to the southern side of the island. At our first stop, the main target was a Mozambique tilapia. There are lots of them in the coastal nature reserve in Maspalomas, in a body of water next to the sand dunes called La Charca. No fishing is allowed in there though, with lots of signs along the esplanade running alongside it making sure this is abundantly clear. Instead, we went to check out another body of water further inland, away from the coast. At this venue, there were also a few signs around the pond, but they didn't mention fishing!

Feeding the animals is not permitted. Not a problem. I brought some Gulp Angleworm!

There were hundreds of Mozambique tilapia swimming around, so I knew straight away that catching them would be very easy. Using only a piece of line, a single split shot and the heavily scented worm like lure on a small hook, I quickly caught a couple of them, and then we headed off, just in case anything had been lost in my translation of the signs!

Rules circumvented with the aid of an artificial bait, I’d caught my first Mozambique tilapia and also my first new species of the trip!

We then drove further west along the southern side of the island until we reached the village of Puerto de Mogan, where we made our way out onto the rocky breakwater of its golden sandy beach.  

The busy resort of Puerto de Mogan. Fishing is permitted from the seaward side of Playa Mogan's relatively short rocky breakwater. 

The steep cliffs of the south coast of Gran Canaria are home to a few small villages and also large holiday resorts. 

There was a good depth of water in front of us, but our prawn chunks were being quickly stripped from our hooks. Often without any bites registering. This could mean only one thing. That there were lots of pufferfish around. Mainly Guinean puffer, with the odd Macaronesian sharpnose puffer in amongst them. Canary damsel fish were also abundant. These three species are super aggressive and are also adept at rapidly nibbling small pieces of prawn from a hook, meaning that other species which may be present in the area get caught much less often.

A Guinean puffer, by far the most common pufferfish we caught, and we caught lots of them!

The prettier Macaronesian sharpnose puffer with its nice blue spots. An equally annoying bait stealer!

Canary damselfish were also around in plentiful numbers. Their indigo markings are quite incredible, making them instantly recognisable.

After a while, Gordon hooked into something that definitely wasn’t any of the three species above. I got the net ready and hopped down the rocks into a position to land whatever it was that had put a better bend in his rod. I had my suspicions about what it could be, but got a huge surprise when a red banded seabream appeared from the depths.  

Gordon's red banded seabream. Such a cool looking fish! I was very jealous of this capture and wanted one myself badly! It's a species I’ve wanted to catch for over a decade but have never been lucky enough to over numerous trips to that part of the world.

Hoping there were more around, we carried on fishing for a couple more hours, pulling in more of the other, less desirable species. After that we decided to head off to try another spot, but I knew before we left Gran Canaria that we’d have to return to have another session on Playa Mogan’s breakwater so I could try to catch a red banded seabream myself!

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the next part.

Spelling error correction.

It seems for the last ten years I've been getting the common name of a species of fish wrong. I've been referring to Canthigaster capistrata as the Macronesian sharpnose puffer, and this error has also been subsequently perpetuated by anyone who has asked me to help them identify this particular species.

This is in fact the Macaronesian sharpnose puffer.

Massive thanks to my fellow species hunting friend Donny for noticing this mistake and bringing it to my attention. Just goes to show that you should always double-check what I tell you by doing your own research too! Sometimes, I get things wrong!

Tight lines, Scott.

Even more species hunting adventures on Lanzarote: Part 1.

At the end of November, I flew down to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands with two of my mates, Nick and Ryan, for a week of species hunting. I've been twice before and Nick was with me the last time I visited the island, but for Ryan it was his first real foreign holiday. We were all looking forward to the trip, and three sets of tackle went with us. Ultralight gear would be used most of the time and would no doubt account for most of the species we would catch, but we also took heavy lure gear to use at dawn and dusk for barracuda and bonito and finally three heavy beachcasters, so we could fish after dark for stingrays and other shark species.

The day before we left we checked the weather and to be honest it left us feeling a little bit deflated. High winds building up over a number of days with a fair bit of rain also forecast and couple of days of thunderstorms thrown in to the mix as well. Certainly not the type of weather you expect when you fly down to that part of the world! Anyway, we were still determined to make the most of the trip even if we may have to temper our expectations. Arriving in the evening after the sun had set we quickly picked up the hire car from the airport, drove to a supermarket to get some food and bait, found our apartment, grabbed the ultralight gear out of our luggage and hit Playa Chica pier for a couple of hours.

It was a pleasant, warm evening and turned out to be a fairly busy if short session. We had raw prawns and squid to use as bait, with the latter proving much the more effective choice. Fishing the bottom few feet  of the water column, we caught a few bogue, common two banded seabream, white seabream, blue jack mackerel, axillary seabream, a Madeira rockfish and one of my favourite nocturnal mini species, cardinalfish.

The cardinalfish. These little red rubies come out to feed after dark.;

Catching seven different species was a good start to our species hunting. With over a hundred species possible, I’d set us a fairly ambitious group target of fifty species for the week, but given the weather that was coming our way we all agreed to forget that and just enjoy whatever fishing we managed to do as the conditions might restrict our opportunities during our stay. Back at the apartment we went straight to bed as we had an early start planned the following morning. We wanted to head down to the back of Puerto del Carmen harbour for a few hours, targeting primarily barracuda.

Down on the rocks before sunrise, we thrashed the deep water in front of us with various plugs, soft plastics and metal jigs. I think it's more a case of being in the right place at the right time than anything else, and sadly we had no luck in that respect. We decided to put the lure rods away once the sun had been up for a while and headed along to the rocks at the mouth of the harbour armed with our ultralight gear and some bait.

Not an entirely unproductive morning on the heavy lure rods, various new lures were tested and also got a thorough wash.

After scrambling down the rocks from the clifftop path, we got into some fish straight away. Nick fished in a deep gully fairly close in.

Ryan and I cast as far as we could out into the entrance of the harbour.

None of us were shocked when we all caught our first ornate wrasse of the trip. Unsurprisingly, they made up the bulk of our catches over the remainder of the week.

We added a few more species to our tally in the shape of a common pandora…

…a ringneck blenny…

…and a couch’s seabream.

We also caught a black goby, some Guinean puffer and a blacktail comber before we decided it was getting too hot and the action slowed right down, the fish obviously agreeing with our assessment of the rising temperature. A bit sweaty we headed back to the apartment for some lunch and a siesta.

At about 17:00 we put our beachcasters in the car and headed south to check out a couple of stingray marks. The wind had really started to blow and as a result the first mark, a long beach, was being battered by a large swell, making fishing virtually impossible. The second mark was slightly better as it offered some protection from the wind, but there was still a bit of swell running so it was far from ideal. We gave it a go anyway and three up and over rigs baited with sardine were cast out onto a sandy area beyond the rocks, but after a couple of hours the conditions deteriorated further and when it started raining we all got a bit of a soaking and decided pack up. Even if we hooked a fish it would have been a nightmare trying to land it. At least we had seen what the mark was like before the sun had set and if conditions improved we could return later in the week to that part of the island.

By the time we got back to Puerto del Carmen the wind had really picked up, and it rained heavily most of the rest of the evening, so we chilled out in the apartment and had a few beers with the intention of making another early start the next day. When our alarm clocks went off, it was raining heavily again, so we had a couple more hours in bed and waited for it to stop before heading down to Playa Chica pier for another session there. When we got down there it was absolutely mobbed with divers though, more divers than I’ve ever seen there in fact, so we headed west to fish from some rocks near the mouth of Puerto Calero Marina instead. It’s a spot that usually throws up a good variety of species, but all we caught were dozens of ornate wrasse, some puffer and a few Madeira goby. The Madeira goby did add another species to our group tally. The tally that, as the three of us had discussed, I definitely wasn't keeping a track of.

Living on the wrong island.

In the afternoon, we decided to try a new spot further up the eastern side of the island to hopefully stay out of the wind. A small stone pier in Punta Mujeres was chosen, and it proved to be a very good spot, comfortable to fish from, providing lots of ultralight sport and adding several species to our haul.

There were lots of puffer fish in the area. Mainly Guinean puffer…

…but also the odd Macaronesian sharpnose puffer too. They're more colourful with various shades of blue spots on them and are a little nicer to look at, but still a super aggressive, bait stripping pest.

One fairly small shallower area off to the right of the pier held quite a lot of annular seabream.

Nick and I both caught a single planehead filefish each.

Ryan also caught a wide eyed flounder.

We fished there until we ran out of bait, adding an Atlantic lizardfish, some Canary damsel, an Azores damsel and a couple of emerald wrasse to the species we’d already caught. We also watched several large stingray swim past the base of the pier and head out off into deeper water. So we had also stumbled upon another potential mark to fish for them if the conditions were right. On our way back to Puerto del Carmen we also checked out Playa de la Garita, a black sand beach not too far from Punta Mujeres, that we figured might also be a reasonably comfortable place to fish for stingray after dark. It had been a productive day and our trip tally, which we’d all completely forgotten about because we were all just focusing on having fun, was now a respectable twenty three.

After dinner, we discussed our options for the next few days after checking the weather forecast again. The following day it was due to improve a bit, with the wind dropping off slightly, so we decided to book seats on the first ferry to take us over to La Graciosa in the morning. There we planned to spend the day fishing into deep water with our heavy lure rods to see if we could catch some bigger fish.

Up early the next day, we drove up to Órzola on the north coast and took the thirty minute ferry over to La Graciosa. It's a very small island and has no proper roads, so 4x4 jeeps are the only means of transport available. Speaking to the drivers of these off road taxis, they warned us against fishing from the two marks I told them we were interested in going to, saying that the swell was too big on them both for us to fish safely, instead they helpfully suggested an alternative which we then drove to. It was a bumpy ride in the back of the old Land Rover, but after about twenty minutes we were dropped off and given directions to the mark, which required a short walk north along the rocky shoreline. Arriving at the small peninsula, it didn’t look anything special or particularly deep, but we got our gear set up and started fishing with various lures. The weather forecast had predicted a dry day, but the grey clouds overhead had other ideas, and we got soaked to the skin three times. Each time the rain stopped, it gave us the chance to dry off a bit before it started again, drenching us once more. To make matters worse, none of us had any interest in any lure from any fish that may have been around.

More jigs, plugs and soft plastics being cleaned until absolutely spotless. Shirt, shorts and trainers also got given a good wash too. Repeatedly.

Eventually the rain stopped and stayed off, and having tried various different types of lures with no success, I switched over to ultralight tackle and kicked a few whelks off the rocks to use as bait. This rather predictably produced endless ornate wrasse and puffer. Occasionally, a different species did manage to reach the bait first, breaking up the monotony.

I caught our first diamond lizardfish of the trip. They seem to prefer living in rocky habitat, unlike their cousin, the Atlantic lizardfish, which prefers clean sand.

I also caught a solitary common comber from the rocky bottom in front of us.

Switching to a split shot rig and dropping my whelk bait into rockpools that appeared as the tide dropped, produced some rockpool blenny.

Shortly before we had to leave, I also got broken off by what I suspect was a grey triggerfish. We saw one following an ornate wrasse up as I wound that in and on my next drop I hooked something that powered off when I set the hook. Heading underneath a ledge, I had no choice but to apply some pressure to try and bully it away from the snag. As soon as I did though, my rig failed at the loop knot that I had used to create my hooklength. Landing a grey triggerfish would have been a new species for me, so I was pretty gutted, but being busted up by larger fish is always a risk when you fish with ultralight tackle. 

To their credit, despite not getting any interest in their lures all day, Nick and Ryan both persisted with the heavy lure gear until it was time to head back to the dirt track road to get picked up to be taken back to Caleta del Sebo harbour. Another short bumpy ride later we arrived back at the port. As we had just under an hour or so to kill before our ferry left, we fished with our ultralight tackle from boulders at the back of the harbour breakwater, where we all caught some ornate wrasse and Guinean puffer. It had been a bit of a disappointing day trip really but at least none of us blanked on La Graciosa and the rain had stayed off too, so by the time we caught the ferry back to Lanzarote we were all fairly dry.

Arriving back in Puerto del Carmen we got freshened up and headed out that evening for a meal and a “few” drinks.

Things started a little messy when Ryan returned from the bar with these cocktails.

The meal was great and we had a great laugh visiting a few pubs before returning to the apartment where we carried on drinking for a few hours. As we didn’t go to bed until very late, there would be no early start the next day. This marked the midway point of the trip and whilst the weather hadn’t been great, we’d certainly tried to make the most of things and had caught twenty six species in the process. Not bad really, all things considered.

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for part 2. 

Species hunting on Gran Canaria : Part 2.

Having reached the midway point of our holiday and having only explored the coast we were keen to see a bit more of the island. We decided to chance our luck with half a day fishing in a dam without the required licenses. Given the license only costs €3.22 for tourists we figured it was hardly crime of the century and really if had been a lot easier to obtain one we would have happily paid for them. Anyway, off up into the island's interior we went and the scenery as we drove was breathtaking. 

The drive was enjoyable until I noticed how much fuel the ascent was using and got a little worried that we might run out before being able get more petrol!

We pulled over and whilst I tried to find out where the nearest petrol station was Ross and Lee photographed this woodpecker that was battering a hole in a roadside tree.

After successfully locating a small town with a petrol station and filling the tank we headed to our chosen dam to target largemouth bass. Things were slow but making our way around it we eventually started getting a few hits on various types of lures. After hooking and loosing a couple of fish Lee and I managed to land a few small largemouth bass. Unfortunately Ross, who'd never caught one before, didn't manage to get one before we left.

My only largemouth bass of the session took a small Salmo plug.

Having successfully avoided the authorities we headed back down out of the mountains to fish legally only to find it was quite windy with a bit of a swell running on the coast. We visited a few new marks that I thought might be potentially more sheltered but couldn't figure out how access some of them and at the last one the fishing was pretty poor so we threw in the towel and headed back to the apartment to relax and have an early night in preparation for another sunrise session the following day.

Returning to Puerto Rico again early in the morning armed with lure gear we had another go for barracuda and bonito but after a few hours nothing had shown any interest in our lures.

Ross casts out a jig as the sun rises.

Whilst Lee persevered with his lure gear once the sun had risen, Ross and I switched to much lighter tackle. We quickly caught some rockpool blenny and madeira goby to add to our tally before switching our attention to a parrotfish that we spotted swimming in and out of the submerged boulders at close range. While we were trying to catch it Ross looked up to see Lee was into a fish. It turned out to be a barracuda but sadly it managed to escape when it thrashed on the surface just as Lee was about to lift it up onto the rocks. He was gutted and understandably so, Lee and I have a pretty poor record when it comes to barracuda with neither of us having successfully landed one of any size. Shortly afterwards we headed back to the apartment and later in the day we headed back out again, returning to Puerto de Sardina taking both our ultra light tackle and our heavy bait gear. Upon arrival we had some fun with the smaller fish and I set about catching a few more Molly Miller. After catching them the day before I had bought a box of Ferrero Rocher and the contents had been devoured so I could use it to get some better photos of their funky "hair".  

Molly Miller has a punk hair style.

Fishing away we spotted some Zebra seabream in amongst the canary damselfish and ornate wrasse, a species none of us had caught before. The other species around them were much more aggressive however and getting through them proved difficult but eventually we managed to catch a few zebra seabream.

The aptly named Zebra seabream. My third new species of the trip.

As darkness fell we packed up the ultra light tackle, got out the heavy gear and fished large fish baits for shark species. After less than an hour the ratchet on Ross's reel started to click and after letting the bite develop a little he wound down and hooked into a nice fish. After a few runs a nice spiny butterfly stingray came to the surface and after making several attempts to get back to the bottom it was eventually beaten and was successfully landed with help from Lee on the pier's nearby slipway. 

Ross's first cast saw him catch his first spiny butterfly ray and also saw Lee get a little wet.

All excited by this capture we were hopeful this would just be the first of a few but sadly it turned out to be the only fish of the session with the only other brief bit of excitement coming when my rod registered some interest but that turned out just to be an octopus. Pretty tired from a fairly long day we headed back to the apartment.

On the seventh and final full day of the trip we headed to Las Palmas to see if there was anywhere inside its massive harbour area where we could fish. The areas we wanted to fish were all sadly out of bounds but eventually we found a marina where a fishing competition was taking place, located a nice shady spot and began fishing, enjoying a few cold beers. Apart from the zebra seabream the lack of seabream species during the trip had been was noticeable but at this spot we caught a few over a couple of hours in the shape of common pandora, black seabream and common two banded seabream.

It was nice to catch a few more bream species. I caught this black seabream.

Ross and Lee caught a few common two banded seabream.

Feeling hungry we then had a break and enjoyed some tasty Paella, Canarian potatoes and a few more cold beers in a nearby restaurant before having a couple more hours fishing into darkness. Lee and Ross fished heavier tackle in the hope of catching a larger predatory species but didn't have any luck. I fished small baits on ultra light gear and once the sun set I caught lots of bastard grunt.

Our last day on the island had arrived and we got up early and visited a nearby harbour for one last go for larger stuff at sunrise. Sadly the mark was a lot shallower than we had anticipated and we had no luck so we headed back to the apartment to pack and load our cases into the car. As we still had a bit of time to kill we decided to drive all the way back to Puerto de Sardina again for a few final hour's fishing. A bit of groundbait soon drew in several shoals of small fish and we caught loads of bogue, derbio, white trevelly, a few garfish and some puffers.

The puffers, whilst not as prolific as previous trips to Canaries, were still quite annoying, destroying lures and damaging line with their sharp teeth. This Macaronesian sharpnose puffer did have some lovely blue markings on it.

Below the shoals of smaller fish there were a few parrotfish moving around so I dropped down a bigger chunk of prawn to try and tempt one. My bait was barely on the bottom when something came out of the rocks, grabbed it and tried to get back into it's ambush position. It put a a decent scrap but hopes of a nice parrotfish were dashed when a nice black scorpionfish appeared.

Scorpionfishes rock so I wasn't too upset that it wasn't a nice parrotfish.

We were having lots of fun but soon it was time to put the gear into the cases and head to the airport bringing another fishing trip on foreign soil to an end. We'd caught lots of fish using a variety of methods and had a great time on the island.

Here's a quick summary of what was caught...

I caught the following species with new ones in bold...

1. Atlantic Lizardfish
2. Bass
3. Bastard Grunt
4. Black Scorpionfish
5. Black Seabream
6. Bogue
7. Canary Damselfish
8. Cardinalfish
9. Cleaver Wrasse
10. Derbio
11. Diamond Lizardfish
12. Garfish
13. Greater Weever
14. Guinean Puffer
15. Large Mouth Bass
16. Macaronesian Sharpnose Puffer
17. Madeira Goby
18. Madeira Rockfish
19. Molly Miller
20. Ornate Wrasse
21. Pandora
22. Rockpool Blenny
23. Thick Lipped Mullet
24. Wide Eyed Flounder
25. White Trevally
26. Zebra Seabream

Lee and Ross also caught...

27. Black Tailed Comber
28. Common Two Banded Seabream
29. Gilthead Seabream
30. Salema
31. Spanish Sardine
32. Spiny Butterfly Ray
33. White Seabream

More importantly though the three of us had really enjoyed each others company and hopefully it won't be too long before the three of us are fishing together again. We've all agreed that we need to meet up more often and later this year the three of us are planning a week's fishing on a Greek island, most likely Crete. I'm really looking forward to another fishing adventure with these two lads.

Tight lines, Scott.