Not more species hunting adventures on Crete?!: Part 3.

For the majority of the third night and well into the following morning it rained heavily. When it finally stopped, we decided to head out, despite the fact that it was pretty windy and even more rain was forecast. I had a deep water fishing spot that I wanted to check out, so we drove to that. Upon arrival though, the terrain looked ever so slightly more difficult than I had imagined it would be. As I told Lillian, it’s something that can be hard to gauge when you're looking at new fishing spots on Google Maps!

The spot I wanted to get to. The rocks on the far side of this peninsula at the left hand side of Istron Bay.

Given it could be difficult to access, and more rain was probably on the way, we opted instead to take the elevator of the Istron Bay Hotel down to the lower levels of the resort and then make our way down through those to the beach. Once on that we headed along to the small harbour at its eastern end.

The Istron Bay Hotel from the end of the small harbour where I would fish and Lillian would read a book. The whole time both of us keeping one eye on the heavens, looking for signs they were about to open!

It didn’t look particularly promising to start with, being very shallow and without too many obvious features, but the little harbour actually turned out to hold a variety of species. To begin with I tossed in some bread and freelined small pieces of it in amongst the fish that arrived to feed. Doing this I managed to catch some small derbio and, after much frustration, a solitary boxlip mullet.

They are great fun to catch, and I was hoping some derbio bigger than the palm of my hand would show up, but sadly none did.

It took me a while to catch this boxlip mullet. Like all mullet species, they seem to be experts at nibbling bread from your hook without getting hooked themselves somehow. One for my tally was all I needed!

I then turned my attention to fishing pieces of prawn close to the bottom around the edges of a large submerged rock on the seabed. After a few rabbitfish and puffer were caught, I caught a few Atlantic lizardfish and some small goldblotch grouper. Then a few scorpionfish came out from beneath the big rock and sat motionless to see what all the fuss was about. Dropping a bait near them saw them pausing briefly before lurching forward and gobbling it up. I caught two different species of the aggressive little predators.

As well as a couple of Madeira rockfish,..

…I also caught several black scorpionfish too.

Then Lillian pointed out a small red fish tentatively poking its head out from beneath the rock a little bit before it turned and darted back under it again. Catching a glimpse of it I knew straight away what it was, and a bait was dropped as close I could get it to the curious fish. After having a couple of swipes at the prawn, the fish was hooked and quickly swung up to hand.

Eventually this bright red cardinalfish got brave enough to dart out and swallow my bait. Normally a species you catch after dark, they hide in dark places during the day.

Just after I had returned the cardinalfish, the rain started. Slowly at first, but knowing it could quickly start pouring down, I quickly packed up, and we began heading back through the resort to find the lift. We got a bit lost though, and by the time we figured out where we needed to go, it was raining torrentially, and we got a bit of a soaking. After seeking shelter, it didn’t look like it was going to let up, so we decided just to bite the bullet and dash back to the lift and then to the car. Drying off back at the apartment, the rain persisted, so we chilled out for a while and went out for dinner in the evening. By that point the rain had stopped and looking at the forecast for the rest of the holiday it was staying dry for the remainder of our trip.

The following day we checked out of our accommodation and drove west to the small coastal village of Georgioupolis. It’s a lovely place, and it’s also a great spot for a bit of species hunting, throwing up many different types of fish. Giant goby are present in large numbers and were the first fish I targeted, sight fishing for them in shallow areas up next to the bridge over the town’s river.

There are lots of these super aggressive giant goby around.

Casting out into the deeper water to see what else was around, I immediately caught a few yellow spotted puffer. I think that’s the first time I’ve caught them there, so they’re obviously also tolerant of brackish environments too. The Red Sea is a harsher environment than the Mediterranean Sea in that respect.

Cute? They are a total pest!

After a while, we crossed over the bridge and wandered down towards the mouth of the river. Fishing from the rocky boulders there, I spent a bit of time fishing with various lures in an attempt to catch a bass, bluefish or barracuda. This didn't produce much. I hooked a small bluefish, but it thrashed around in the current and threw my lure. Lillian then spotted a parrotfish, moving around on the rocks directly below us, so I tried to tempt it using a chunk of prawn. It really wasn’t interested at all, so I decided to see if I could find some small crabs I could use as bait. Parrotfish love crabs. After turning over some rocks at the edge of a nearby shallow area I did manage to find a few. Using these as bait proved to be a great decision. As soon as the first half crab was dropped in, the parrotfish quickly ripped it off of the hook. Before too long a few more parrotfish appeared, obviously drawn in by the scent of fresh crab. Eventually, I managed to hook one, but as it charged down the rocks and I put a bit of pressure on it, the fish threw the hook. The commotion spooked all the other fish too, so before we left I decided to ledger my last small piece of crab out on the sandy bottom away from the rocks at the river’s edge. This turned out to be a good choice and my rod tip was soon pulled round by a red mullet that had found my bait on the bottom with its long feelers.

This is a plain red mullet, cousin of the striped red mullet. It’s not as colourful and its fins lack any markings. It's plain!

We had another long drive to do, to get to Agia Galini, so I packed up after that, and we headed back towards the car. On the way I spotted a small fish that I was sure was a peacock blenny. Lillian gave me the green light to try and catch it, so a tanago hook baited with a tiny piece of prawn was dropped down next the crack at the bottom of the harbour wall that it had disappeared into. It was reluctant to come out, and every time it slowly poked its head out a small goby would steal the bait. Some much bigger rusty blenny and giant goby were also occasionally crashing around on the bottom and this spooked the fish a few times too. In the end I spent a fair amount of time trying to catch the little shy fish. Lillian’s usually incredibly patient with my fishing antics, but even she was getting annoyed! Eventually, it did come out, grabbing the tiny bait and I waited a second before lifting to make sure it was hooked. Thankfully it was, and was quickly swung up to hand before being popped into my tank for a quick photo.

The smallest peacock blenny I've ever caught.

Fishing over for the day, we made the drive from the north coast all the way through the island's mountainous interior to the south coast, passing through the breathtaking Kourtaliotiko Gorge on the way. Arriving just after dark, we checked in to our room and popped out into the town for a stroll. After exploring for a while we had a generous plateful of tasty gyros and washed it down with several large and ice cold beers before calling it a night.

The following day it may have been dry, but the wind was battering the shoreline where we were, so we headed to the coastal town of Matala to see the caves carved into the cliffs there.

These caves were carved thousands of years ago. No one's sure by who or for what purpose. Much more recently, they were inhabited by hippies. Now they are fenced off in a protected area, but you can still go inside and clamber around on the sandstone rocks for the sum of four euros.

After wandering around the town and having some lunch, we jumped back in the car and drove to Plakias. The passenger sitting next to Lillian on the flight to Crete had told her that he had been visiting the town every year for the last thirty five years, so we wanted to see what the fuss was all about! It looked nice enough from the end of its harbour, although it was very windy!. Rather predictably a large population of yellow spotted puffer were resident, but in amongst them, I also caught a few Atlantic lizardfish and my first parrotfish of the trip.

No crabs were harmed in the capture and release of this fish!

After being battered by the wind at the end of the pier for a couple of hours, we visited a marina nearby, but that turned out to be another pufferfest, so we decided to head back to Agia Galini. Arriving just as the sun was setting, I was given permission to have a few casts at the back of the harbour over a shallow area with some large partially submerged boulders. It only took a few casts to get a take, and it definitely wasn't anything inflatable that had munched my piece of Angleworm. After a short but dirty fight, a nice goldblotch grouper was hoisted up, photographed and put back to carry on its own species hunting.

One last cast before dinner...

...was well worth it.

So, my species hunting was going very well indeed. Despite some horrible weather at times, I'd managed to catch thirty species in five days which was a great result, even if the majority of fish I had been catching had all belonged to only one species! Anyway, we only had two days left of our trip and adding more species was going to be tricky. The wind was forecast to drop off though, and I had short list of species that I hadn't caught during the trip that I thought could be targeted. I was also hopeful that I'd get lucky and catch something new!

Tight lines, Scott.

Click here for the final part.

More species hunting adventures on Crete : Part 3.

Arriving in Georgioupolis in the early afternoon at the beginning of our second week on Crete we had a couple of hours to kill before we could check into our room so we had a wander around the harbour there. It flanks the river that runs alongside the town into the sea and a small bridge crosses the river a few hundred metres up from its mouth. Standing on the bridge we spotted some mullet and then a few large gobies caught my eye straight down below so the gear was taken out of the car and a split shot rig baited with a piece of ragworm was slowly lowered down right in front of the biggest goby I could see. It eagerly munched it without hesitation.

Geogioupolis Harbour looked full of potential.

A nice big giant goby.

We then had a walk down the left hand side of the river and whilst down there booked ourselves on a three hour boat fishing trip with local skipper Nikos for later in the week before heading back into town for some lunch. When we got booked into our room and unpacked again Lillian said she wanted a nap so I grabbed my gear and headed back down to the harbour to see what other species were resident. Fishing small baits down the sides and angleworm on a dropshot rig further out I soon added a few more species to my tally.

Peacock blennies with their bright blue markings were easy to spot sitting on the harbour's walls and on submerged rocks.

A sandy area down towards the mouth of the river produced a couple of plain red mullet...

...and a striped seabream too.

Exploring the harbour further I began casting out from gaps between the moored fishing boats. This wasn't very productive until I caught a small barracuda that grabbed my angleworm as I was lifting my dropshot rig up from the bottom right in front of me.

I didn't realise until later on that this was my third new species of the trip, a yellowtail barracuda. It's another species that has migrated from the Red Sea via the Suez Canal.

Just to the west of the river's mouth is Kalivaki Beach. Before returning to wake Lillian up I had a few casts out into the bay from the back of a taverna situated on the rocks at its southern end. I caught a white seabream, a wide eyed flounder and a few lesser weever before heading back.

Another weever to carefully unhook and another species added to my tally which had passed the thirty mark.

The next morning we headed up to nearby Lake Kourna, the only freshwater lake on Crete. It's not supposed to have any fish in it but at some point someone has released their pet goldfish into it and there is now a healthy population of them in there. I thought it would be fun trying to catch one so I took some tackle out with us on our hired pedalo to try to do just that. Sadly they were very spooky and every time we got close they just swam off. I did spot some smaller fish attacking my bait however and popping on a tanago hook I managed to catch a couple of them. They turned out to be sand smelt so it would appear the goldfish aren't the only fish in there.

Lake Kourna. If I return to this part of Crete again I think I'll visit the lake early in the morning and try fishing from the shore.

Plenty of goldfish in there.

From Lake Kourna we drove along to Rethymno to have some lunch and a wander around but parking was a bit of a nightmare and after doing a couple of laps of the centre of town looking for a space we decided to return in the morning another day and left. Driving further east we headed to the beautiful village of Bali. After lunch I had a fish from the mouth of the harbour and caught a few ornate wrasse, damselfish, marbled rabbitfish and a single white seabream. I also saw what I think were two small amberjack harassing a shoal of tiny baitfish but they came and went before I could tie on a metal.

Another venue, another species added to my tally.

Later that day when we got back to Georgioupolis Lillian gave me permission to fish at dusk before we went out for a meal in the evening so off I went down to the river again. I had bass in mind so headed to a spot that I thought looked promising. I didn't have the place to myself for long however as a gaggle of geese soon arrived.

There are lots of these geese around the river. Quite nice looking birds but they don't have make a lot of noise!

For a change I gave the angleworm a break and tried some other soft plastics on jigheads and drop shot rigs. Fishing away I didn't manage to catch any bass despite seeing a few small ones follow my lures before turning away. Instead I discovered that the spot was a good one for catching giant gobies.

They're pretty aggressive fish.

As light faded I headed to the other side of the river to fish from some boulders into some slightly deeper water. I switched to a paddletail mounted on a 3g jighead and fished it fairly quickly across the current near the surface. This proved to be a good decision and I caught a few small barracuda which was good fun. In amongst them I caught a slightly larger one that looked a little different to the others I'd caught being a lot longer and having a black edge on its tail fin.

I'm now fairly sure this one is a yellowstripe barracuda making it my second new barracuda species of the trip.

I then caught a couple of fish that I suspected were small bluefish. They fought well for their size and were a most welcome unexpected capture.

Yet another new species. Geogioupolis was being very good to me.

Later that evening Lillian and I had a nice meal in Arkadi, the fish restaurant down by the mouth of the river overlooking one of the villages famous landmarks, a small church build out on the rocks.

What a lovely view.

To help me decide what I wanted to eat I went over to have a look at the restaurant's fresh fish display. Looking at all the potential meals I spotted a fish amongst the various seabream that sparked my curiosity.

This is a red seabream, also know as the blackspot seabream. I wondered if there was a chance of catching one the next day on our boat fishing trip?

The fish on offer looked fantastic but as we'd eaten a fairly big lunch in Bali we ended up just sharing a plate of calamari and a Greek salad.

One of my favourite things to eat on holiday.

At the end of almost every meal you eat in a restaurant on Crete you get a complimentary shot of Raki. Usually it's homemade and it's also rather strong. In the Arkadi fish taverna you get a small jug that contains about six shots of the stuff!

Raki. Personally I'm not a huge fan.

The next morning we headed down to the harbour for our boat fishing trip. Tackle was provided but after consulting with the skipper I decided to used my Rock Rover and trolled a 12g diving plug. After about forty five minutes or so I had a take and my reel started screaming. At the same time Lillian and one of the other people on the trip also connected with a fish. The identity of we had on was soon revealed when behind the boat several dolphinfish began jumping out of the water. It was all very exciting and as I was using lighter gear I took my time playing my fish. After it's initial run though it came to the boat without giving me too much trouble and was quickly netted by Nikos.

My first common dolphinfish. A very cool fish.

We carried on trolling up the coast for a while before eventually turning around and heading back towards Georgioupolis. With no further action on the way we stopped for half an hour and fished on the bottom in very deep water over a reef. My mate Andy had told me he had caught a swallowtail seaperch when he had done this whilst out with Nikos so I was hopeful that I'd get one too. When I showed Nikos a photo of one and told him I'd like to catch one, he was confident I would and he was right, I caught one on my first drop of a set of sabikis baited with tiny squid strips.

What a beautiful little fish.

After catching a few more swallowtail seaperch and a some common combers I asked the skipper about the chances of catching red seabream and red scorpionfish. He told me that red seabream was not a species he'd caught in the area we were fishing and only three anglers out with him had caught a red scorpionfish. Sadly I wasn't to be the forth. We did some more trolling on the way back in but didn't come into contact with any more fish. On the way back I spotted a nice looking rock mark that looked easily accessible that was just to the north of Kalivaki beach.

Ideal for an early morning session and the water in front of the dark rocks looked nice and deep too.

In the evening I had yet another short session before dinner down at the harbour. To start with I focused on small blennies and gobies in the hope that I'd pick a species I might have overlooked and hadn't caught yet on the trip. This tactic paid off in the shape of a few rock gobies. As the sun began to disappear behind the mountains to the west I caught a few bluefish again and inspecting one of them I had a closer look at its razor sharp teeth. It snapped its jaws shut in a rather ferocious manner and I wouldn't like to have my finger anywhere near the mouth of a bluefish when it did this even on small specimen!

I really enjoyed catching these small bluefish.

Nasty little set of nashers on them and a strong bite.

So, the fishing around Georgioupolis had been very good with the unexpected capture of a few new species that I hadn't anticipated encountering being a big bonus. My tally for the trip had almost reached forty species. The last time I visited Crete I ended up catching forty species so I was keen to try and better that. Adding more would be tough but with a few more day trips planned to new places and possibly a second boat fishing trip out of Agia Galini on the south coast I was optimistic about my chances of doing it.

Tight lines, Scott.

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Light game fun in Croatia : Split.

Arriving in Split in the evening we were pretty tired so we ate a huge takeaway pizza in the apartment, drank a few beers and had an early night. With the hire car at our disposal for the duration of our stay in Split I got up early and went fishing in the mornings. Split is surrounded by the sea on its northern, western and southern sides so I wasn't sure where to go but with a fairly strong wind coming from the north on the first morning I headed to a couple of small rocky breakwaters on the south coast of the city. I was hoping to find some predatory species feeding but the sea was pretty calm and there was no sign of any activity on the surface. I tried some small hard lures and metals to see if there were any larger fish hunting deeper down but didn't get any interest at all sadly. Switching to soft plastics on a drop shot rig immeadiately had me catching rainbow wrasse, painted combers, a few types of seabream and some greater weever. 

A saddled seabream. They have quite a strong pungent smell to them. 

The light of the morning sun shimmered nicely on this annular seabream's scales.  

A greater weever. These can be tricky to unhook and I'm probably pushing my luck with the thumb grip. My mate Nick was stung by one when we were on Fuertaventura back in February and months later his finger still hasn't recovered fully. 

In the afternoon on our first full day we headed to Vranjic, a small peninsula to the north of Split, to visit an aquarium there. It was pretty cool and as well as a lot of tanks full of fish it also had some pretty awesome artwork on its walls including a rather wonderful John Dory.

I'd love to catch one of those.

Afterwards, before we had lunch, I had a few casts over a sandy area on the north side of Vranjic and caught lots of juvenile gilthead seabream, black gobies, a couple of peacock blennies and also my second new species of the trip.  

There were large shoals of these juvenile gilthead seabream. Cool little fish.

Peacock blennies are pretty funky. There were lots of them in the spot where I fished and they were very aggressive, fighting with each other over my lure.

My first ever brown comber. The smallest of the comber species found in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea.

Later in the afternoon we visited the Fortress of Klis that sits up in the hills above Split and then headed west to Kaštela, a region made up of seven small towns on the coast to the north of Split. We had a look around a museum telling the story of the region whose southern wall backs directly onto a small harbour. Before heading back to Split I had a few casts from the end of the harbour's breakwater and caught a few combers. 

The approach to the Fortress of Klis.

The fortress is long and narrow, perched on a long piece of isolated rock in the middle of a pass that runs up into the mountains and is inaccessible on three sides.

The view towards Split from the Fortress of Klis. 

At one time this museum in Kaštel Lukšić was surrounded by the sea with a moat at the front. Now only one side faces into the harbour.

Painted comber don't put up much of a fight but I don't think I'll ever tire of admiring their colourful markings. 

By comparison brown comber are pretty drab. These were much lighter than the others I'd caught perhaps because they were from a much shallower mark. 

For my second early morning session I headed south again but fished from the large boulders at the back of a big marina. The water was pretty deep and I had high hopes but sadly the fishing was pretty poor on the whole. Just before I headed back for breakfast I did catch a rather large and brilliantly coloured male rainbow wrasse but unfortunately it slipped out of my hand and fell back into the water as I got my camera out to take a photo of it. 

In the afternoon we headed west to spend a couple of hours wandering around the Ivan Meštrović Gallery and its lovely gardens to look at some of the work of the late Croatian sculptor.

This was Lillian's favourite sculpture.

This one was pretty impressive too.

In the evening before heading out for dinner I tried a spot at the eastern end of a long rocky sea defence as light began to fade. Surprisingly the fishing was pretty poor though and I only managed a couple of small common pandora. 

The red edge at the top of the rear edge of the gill plate is a good way to identify common pandora.

For my final morning session I headed to a small rocky outcrop to the east of Vranjic. It was a beautiful calm start to the day and the fishing was very good. I caught lots of smaller fish close in and there were also some nice mullet patrolling the shoreline but as I didn't have any bread with me I chose to ignore them. Casting a piece of Angleworm on a drop shot rig into some deeper water further out and slowly working it back towards me I caught some nice gilthead seabream which put up an awesome fight.

These beautiful fish were fantastic sport on light game tackle. 

In the afternoon we went for a walk around Split's old town. We spent several hours wandering about Diocletian's Palace and climbed up to the top of the bell tower. At noon in the main square actors in Roman costumes put on a bit of a show, re-enacting the changing of the guard. To end a pleasant afternoon we had lunch in Buffet Fife, a very popular restaurant that serves traditional Croatian food. We both had meatballs and mashed potatoes which were superb. 

When in Rome...

You can climb up to the very top of the bell tower.

The view from the top of the bell tower to the west.

Very tasty indeed. Very filling too.

Walking around in the sun was pretty tiring so Lillian had a nap when we returned to our apartment. I jumped in the car and headed back to the same spot I'd fished in the morning armed with a small 2.5g float, some bread and a small bucket I borrowed from our apartment to see if I could catch a mullet. Making up some groundbait I soon had them feeding with smaller ones showing up first. Larger fish soon appeared though from deeper down and bullied the little ones away. A patient approach, constant feeding and changing the size of my hookbait to achieve a nice slow sink rate eventually paid off. Most of the fish were nosing the bread on my hook around but when a couple of fish arrived at the same time one of them swallowed it whole and I quickly struck to set my hook. With no net with me I took my time playing the fish out before climbing down the rubble in front of me to lift it out by hand.

It turned out to be a golden grey mullet. The biggest I've ever caught.

After releasing the fish I headed back and in the evening we headed to the old town again for dinner. The following day we had a long drive to reach our final destination of the holiday so we got up early to leave. On the way north we made two stops so I could stretch my legs. Firstly we visited the lovely small town of Novigrad.

Novigrad was in a beautiful location. I'd love to return and spend more time there. 

While I stretched my legs I spotted large shoals of small fish and decided to find out what they were. They were soon attacking a small piece of Angleworm and turned out to be juvenile ocellated wrasse. I've never seen wrasse shoaled up before. When my split shot rig occasionally managed to reach the bottom I caught some peacock blennies too and a solitary five spotted wrasse.

Male peacock blennies have a large crest on their heads and elongated fins. 

This tiny five spotted wrasse managed to beat all the ocellated wrasse to my little piece of Angleworm. 

Back on the road again we stopped further up the coast in Senj for another break and some lunch. Before getting back in the car to complete the day's driving I had a few casts at the end of the harbour's outer breakwater. After a few wrasse and combers I switched to a smaller hook and added an incognito goby and a damselfish to my trip species tally.

A type of sand goby, the incognito goby has fairly distinctive rows of spots along its body. 

Small hooks are required to catch damselfish. I used a #18 to catch this one.  

The second part of our holiday had come to an end, and we'd enjoyed our time in Split. Whilst the fishing had been hit and miss, I'd caught a new species and enjoyed some great light game action with the gilthead seabream. The last destination on our itinerary was Pula in the Istrian region of the country. We were both looking forward to spending the remainder of our time exploring the area. 

Tight lines, Scott.

 

Click here for the final part.