Species Fishing Blog: La Caleta de la Ballena - La Palma

After a days hiking on the previous day and catching the Gilthead bream at night, I decided to fish closer to home around a bay called La Caleta de la Ballena which was less than 10 minutes walk down from the apartment. The name translates to the Bay of the Whale. Was too tired to walk to the other side of the town. Continued to use prawn but wasn't able to hookup because the hooks were too big (size 1) and lost the bait within minutes due to small fish. Reduced the hooks down to size 4s but was only able to get a few ornate wrasse. Then a new fish straight down the side. My thoughts were that it was either a bullhead or a blenny, but although it had blenny like pelvic fins and 'horns', it did have largish scales and a notched dorsal fin with quite prominent spines. It turned out to be neither although its common name is a Hairy Blenny, its in a seperate family, most species occuring around the Americas. Again, I did some rockpool fishing with my coarse fishing hooks and managed a few more larger Madeira Gobies and a new species of blenny. The only common name I've found for it is the Rockpool Blenny, but I dont really like the sound of it as other blennies occur in rockpools as well. There was a school of 'silver' fish in the rock pools which had quite a large flat head around 6cm long, but I was not able to hook up on them as their mouths were quite small. The seem to be slightly yellowish tinted with an indistinct lengthwise stripe, but I think it may have been a species of Mullet.

The only full day I didn't fish on the trip was on the 10th. Had done another tiring hike, but this time on along the Cumbre Vieja ridge of volcanoes. It really took it all out of me.

Next day, relaxed and snorkelled the Playa de los Cancajos. (Photos in another blog [coming soon]). In the afternoon attempted to fish the La Caleta de la Ballena again hoping for some decent fish, but no luck. Started off catching a few Canary Damselfish, the first for the trip, but not a lifer. Then another Diamond Lizardfish and ended the day with another lifer, the Madeira Scorpionfish.

So with the total of 9 species with 7 of those new, I'm one species short of my target.