Petra, Lesvos

This was the last full day, and the last possible day I had for fishing as my luggage was to be collected from the hotel early in the morning. I'd caught 9 new species so far, equalling my previous record of 9 species on my trip to La Palma earlier this year. I was really hoping for a big slurry of species on the last day.

My last session of fishing on the jetty and as the previous couple of days, no suprise, it was a tiny comber. Next, caught a species of wrasse, which looked similar to a Corkwing back home, but not as colourful. It had a black spot at the bottom of the base of the tail and a black spot on the start of the dorsal, later identified as a Grey Wrasse [#112].


Comber - Serranus cabrilla


Grey Wrasse - Symphodus cinereus #112


Grey Wrasse - Symphodus cinereus

Next, I had two species of goby, a family of fish that had eluded me for the entire trip, even though I'd seen several in the water. The first of these was an orangish goby with black spots, a reddish head and several brownish streaks on its face. I have identified this fish as a Red-mouthed Goby [#113], but I am not 100% sure. The second species was a Black Goby [#114], easily identified by its long first dorsal and black spots at the base of each dorsal.


Red-mouthed Goby - Gobius cruentatus #113


Red-mouthed Goby - Gobius cruentatus


Black Goby - Gobius niger #114


Black Goby - Gobius niger

It started getting difficult to catch anything after these, Im not sure what it was, but in the next half and hour or so, I had many takes but only caught a single Pandora.

Giving up, I packed all my gear and started walking back, when I saw several nice mullet cruising around the boats in the marina just behind the jetty, so I baited up a handline to see if I caught catch them. Managed a tiny Two-banded Bream and an Annular Bream, but not the mullet. On my very last cast, I hooked into a really good comber, the largest one I'd seen so far on the trip, but as I handlined it in, the hook transfered into a rope used to moor a boat, and I was shattered. I spent rest of the morning (and afternoon) sulking....


Common Pandora - Pagellus erythrinus


Two-banded Seabream - Diplodus vulgaris


Annular Seabream - Diplodus annularis

Petra, Lesvos

10th Morning, Petra

Fished the same jetty again, but there was a frighter unloading roof tiles on the inshore side so I had to fish seawards. Casted one rod out with larger hooks hoping to get something decent and fished straight down with my other rod. Spent about and hour missing takes on my straight down rod after lossing a few leads, I decided to fish inshore again. This paid off as the first fish of the day again was a tiny comber. Several more came to hand before I had something different. It was a small Rainbow Wrasse [#108]. They are a species of Coris which is a very big genera of tropical wrasses and this was my first. A few minutes later, I had a larger male and this was a much nicer looking fish with its comb shaped red markings.


Comber - Serranus cabrilla


Comber - Serranus cabrilla


Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse - Coris julis #108


Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse - Coris julis


Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse - Coris julis


Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse - Coris julis

I caught a few more annular bream after the wrasse and I must say that they are quite powerful fish and put up a good fight even though they were only tiddlers. Then I finally hooked into one of those pink bream I saw being caught a few days earlier. They were a nice pink with bright blue spots all over and a red gill plate and a indistinct dark spot at the end of the dorsal. It was a Common Pandora [#109] and there were plenty of them about.


Annular Seabream - Diplodus annularis


Annular Seabream - Diplodus annularis


Common Pandora - Pagellus erythrinus [#109]


Common Pandora - Pagellus erythrinus

10th Afternoon, Petra

I decided to fish again in the afternoon today. Didn't have much luck with my standard rig so decided to fish with small hooks, split shots and bread for bait and landed my one and only Damselfish [#110] for the trip. Its the dullest looking damselfish out of all the ones I've caught or seen in the wild.


Mediterranean Damselfish - Chromis chromis #110


Mediterranean Damselfish - Chromis chromis

11th - Skala Kalloni (Σκάλλα Καλλονής)

Today, I drove around the centre of Lesvos around the Kalloni area, from visiting monastaries to seeing flamingoes other waterbirds at the saltworks. I fished around the harbour at Skala Kalloni to see if I could get something different. There were thousands of prawns around as well the the ever present mullet, and many blennies and gobies around the rocks, but I couldn't manage to hookup. I had one take but I missed it, watching a very large goby (possibily a giant goby) take my bait, but it and all the other visible fish didn't want any of it, they seem to be all satisfied with just scurring about.


12th Morning, Petra again.

This morning, I only managed to catch bream. The first fish of the day was a lifer, a Two-banded Seabream [#110], its probably the most striking of all the 10 seabream species I have caught so far. It was a young fish but, it has a standard seabream shape, a black band on the collar and one on the tail, with black extending into its dorsal and anal fins. The pelvic fins are completly black as well. It has yellow horizontal stripes across its body, and a metallic blue nose. I had previously seen this species snorkelling in Turkey and in the Canary Islands, but never an adult of the species (except in an Aquarium). I also caught some Annular Seabream and Pandoras.


Two-banded Seabream - Diplodus vulgaris #111


Two-banded Seabream - Diplodus vulgaris


Common Pandora - Pagellus erythrinus


Annular Seabream - Diplodus annularis

Molyvos, Lesvos

Molyvos (Μόλυβος) is the next city around the headland from Petra. Officially it is call Mithymna (Μήθυμνα) but I dont think anyone calls it by that. It was called Molyvos during the Ottoman period and the name has stuck. Aparently was from a frankish word, Mont d'olives, obviously due to the areas vast amount of olives.

There is a nice hike around the hills behind petra to get there and thats what we did. There is a tremendous amount of wildlife around here, which I will blog about in my wildlife blog, but after a few hours walk, we arrived at the city with a castle on top of a hill. We had lunch in the newly built marina having a fish platter as well as more prawns.


Mediterranean Spearfish - Tetrapturus belone


Mediterranean Spearfish - Tetrapturus belone

After lunch, we watched some local fisherman spearing a Mediterranean Spearfish (Marlin) for almost an hour and there were many spectactors. They had to spear it a second time to bring it in. It was a magnificent looking fish and would be happy to catch and release such a beast, but Im sure it made a good meal to many. We watching it being slaughtered and it had dozens of gar in its belly. There was also a remora as well, but I wasn't able to get a photo before it was returned to the water.

I obviously, I didn't bring my fishing gear as we had to walk several miles, but I did bring a spool of line and some size 18 hooks and the bread that I didn't use on the previous day's fishing. First cast I got a small annualar bream which I wasn't able get a decent photograph before mades its dash for freedom. I moved to the carpark to try for some mullet that I saw cruising about and landed one. It had a weird looking lip and yellow stripes. I was not able to identify it until I checked my books back in the hotel, but it was a Boxlip Mullet [#105].


Annular Seabream - Diplodus annularis


Boxlip Mullet - Oedalechilus labeo #105


Boxlip Mullet - Oedalechilus labeo

Next was a Salema [#106], these are a species of bream as well, but are known to be hallucinogenic. Its said that the romans may have used it as a recreational drug. They are a pretty looking bream with many yellow stripes. I had seen these before in turkey and the canaries but was never able to catch them.


Salema - Sarpa salpa #106


Salema - Sarpa salpa

The final species of the day was golden grey mullet [#107]. I had also seen these previously in the Canaries. It but up a pretty good scrap too, on a handline!


Golden Grey Mullet - Liza aurata #107


Golden Grey Mullet - Liza aurata


So after 2 days of fishing, I had caught 5 new species.

Petra, Lesvos

After leaving home at about 4am, 1 hour train ride, about 8 hours in the airport due to a Greek air strike, about 4 hours in the air, and another 90 minutes drive, we arrive in Petra (Πέτρα) about about 11pm. I was hoping to be able to fish on the first day but no luck.

Our hotel room was about halfway between the town and the jetty so it was a perfect location for fishing. In the afternoon, I bought a single small bagget and headed straight for the jetty. When I got there, I found a few scrap calamari bits and used that on the hook first. Not much going, had bites but nothing connected. Some localed drove up and parked next to where I was fishing and I soon realised why I wasn't landing anything. The locals mostly used handlines with up to about 6 small hooks baited with prawns. First cast and there were several 3" pink coloured seabream and an ornate wrasse on the line which were kept for the table. I downsided to size 14 hooks and landed my first fish. It was a Comber [#103]. It was about 2" long but it was at least a fish. My first ever fish of the 'grouper' family, Serranidae, some of these guys grow to 2 metres long, but the comber only grows to about 10"-14". They actually remind me of a small coral trout which are also members of same family.


Comber - Serranus cabrilla #103


Annular Seabream - Diplodus annularis #104

My goal for this trip was to catch a few species of bream, as I massively dipped out in the canaries, catching only the Gilthead, so this was a good start. The local fisherman gave me a handful of prawns to fish with and with that, I caught my first Annualar Bream [#104]. I had seen them before in turkey but had never caught one. This one was about 6" long, but I was quite happy with that. I still wondered what species the pink bream caught by the local was, but no luck, better luck next time.


Annular Seabream - Diplodus annularis


Annular Seabream - Diplodus annularis

More Pike and Carp, Sussex

Since the previous trip I made here where I caught my first pike, my mate who originally put me onto this fishery had always wanted to catch and pike and to make use of his many lures that he had collected over the years but had never caught a fish on. So when we arrived at the fishery, we went straight onto the predator lake and plugged for the pike. A couple of hours went by and we hadn't had a pike but we and several follows and takes but no solid hookups.


White Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Red Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Bream - Abramis brama


Brown Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Rudd - Scardinius erythrophthalmus

We decided to move on to the ornamental lake to take a crack at the goldfish and koi. Not much happened for a while and had a couple of missed bites. I did hook up on a few tiddly rudd which came off the hook before I could land them, no big loss. I then had a solid take which ended up in a beautifully coloured white goldfish. I think it may have been an albino, but it did have blackish eyes and a lot of orange on its body where there we no scales. Shortly after I a second goldfish which was a proper red goldfish with quite a long 'comet' tail. We decided to fish the main lake to get something better, so I set up a ledger and waited. I kept on getting tempted to fish the ornamental like with my float rod and pulled out several tench, goldfish, bream, rudd and two carp, a little 1lb ghost carp and a common of about 3lb. Unfortunately, no koi this time. My mate managed to get a decent 1lb goldfish from the main lake, but I was unable to hookup getting only several missed runs.


Tench - Tinca tinca


Ghost Carp - Cyprinus carpio


Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio

After a while, get got a little bored and wanted to take another crack at the pike. I wanted to try to catch some decent carp or bream from the predator lake as we were told there were some nice fish in there. My mate persisted with the lures and managed to get a nice little jack of about 2lb. Not a very bit fish, but was beautifully marked compared to the one I had about a month ago. After that I tryed a little bit of spinning but wasn't very successful. I went back to fish a different corner of the main lake setting up a ledger and a float. Nothing much happened, I did have a few takes on the ledger, and lost either a small carp or a large goldfish on the float. I had the float rod in the water and walked up the bank for a chat. When I came back, the float was gone and I reeled into a heavy weight. After several minutes, I had a nice near double Ghost Carp in the net. I would say that it was a little under 10lb, the biggest ghost carp I had ever seen. A nice end to the day.


Northern Pike - Esox lucius


Ghost Carp - Cyprinus carpio

Brighton Marina

Been planning a fishing trip to brighton for a while looking for some new species. Likely targets were Gurnards, Weaver, Red or Grey Mullet and Gar, but none of these appeared on this trip.

It took me almost 5 hours to get to the Marina from my front door, tube closures, no First Captial Connect from London Bridge and trains to Brighton diverting to Hove first. When I finally arrived at half two, I found the marina completely packed with every bay full. I had to fish between anglers which had already settled into their own bays. It was high tide and I think it was a 7m spring tide.


Black Sea-Bream - Spondyliosoma cantharus


Tompot Blenny - Parablennius gattorugine


Shanny - Lipophrys pholis


Atlantic Mackerel - Scomber scombrus

Fished black lug to start off and had a nice bream on after a little while, my first for the year. It was really quiet though, I was told there was a lot of mackerel caught early on but didn't get anything on feathers. Later in the afternoon, I did get a single smallish mackerel on tiny hokkai feathers. There was nothing much except for usual shannies and tompots close in until about 7ish and when I started to get a few Pouting. Then a Sand Smelt on baited hokkais with the glowing bits charged with my head lamp. This was species number 101. A few more Pouting and then a good take, it was a Scad on the baited hokkais again, species number 102. I've only every caught Yellow-tail Scad back in Australia which looks pretty much the same, but this was a nice suprise. I left at about 8:30pm after about and hour of catching dozens of tiny Pout.



Pouting - Trisopterus luscus


Sand Smelt - Atherina presbyter #101



Atlantic Horse Mackerel - Trachurus trachurus #102

Life - 102
2010 - 41
English - 34