Grey Viking - Brighton

Booked my trip for the Grey Viking again in late July, but after about 6 cancellations due to bad weather, I was able to head back out into the channel.

Finally managed to photographed some Fulmars as well, I've seen them a few times while fishing in brighton, but never had a decent camera with me when they were around.



Northern Fulmar - Fulmarus glacialis



Northern Fulmar - Fulmarus glacialis



Northern Fulmar - Fulmarus glacialis

I bought a few boxes of cuttlefish and squid for bait and dropped half a cuttlefish on a 6/0 hook with about half a pound of lead which still took quite a while to get to the sea floor and waited. It was quite slow but we started to hook into whiting and it didn't stop. As well as the whiting, there was the odd dab, gurnard and the largest pout I've ever seen.



Whiting - Merlangius merlangus



Tub Gurnard - Chelidonichthys lucerna



Tub Gurnard - Chelidonichthys lucerna

We were plagued by the whiting but eventually we had a 10+lb cod in the boat. In the end, 5 cod were landed between 10-12lb all to two anglers. Unfortunately, I was not one of them.



Atlantic Cod - Gadus morhua



Atlantic Cod - Gadus morhua

Brighton Marina

Fished the Marina with my mate John. The weather was horrible and it was a force 7 with waves of about 10', but we still gave it a try. We started at my usual, the East Arm. We managed to catch a Bullhead, Pout, Shannies and a Wrasse, it got extremely bad and we had to retreat to the West Arm.



Longspined Bullhead - Taurulus bubalis



Longspined Bullhead - Taurulus bubalis



Pouting - Trisopterus luscus



Ballan Wrasse - Labrus bergylta

I had never fished the West Arm before, but it was pretty calm compared to the other side. Fish cast I got a shanny, but after half and hour and after the sun came down, I started to get Whiting. I ended up catching about half a dozen up to about a pound.



Shanny - Lipophrys pholis



Whiting - Merlangius merlangus

More Comber, Petra, Lesvos

I hadn't mentioned this earlier in my blog, but I had previously arranged for a fishing trip in the evening from a local boat excursion company earlier in the week. I wasn't too sure how much they knew about fishing, but I did have to supply my own equipment, they'd supply the bait, although I still had about 80% of the calamari I had bought at the start of the trip.

It was the warmest day of the trip so far, very humid but still cloudy. We decided to have a little swim just out from the hotel's driveway. The water wasn't too bad. I still hadn't gotten over losing that good Comber earlier in the day, but it was good to see the habitat that I had been fishing. I saw many small bream in the water, Annualar and Common White (which I didn't get to catch). The first big fish I saw was a nice fully grown Striped Sea-bream, they occur from Europe all the way down to Southern Africa, but I didn't expect to see one here. Then, I saw a school of about 5 gilthead bream, nice sized ones too, I had previously caught these in the Canary Islands where they are quite rare though. If I had known, I probably would have tried to fish the beach instead of the jetty, might have got a few more species of bream.


Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse - Coris julis



Striped Seabream - Lithognathus mormyrus


Gilthead Seabream - Sparus aurata

Later on, I found a few red mullet feeding. I noticed that they were being followed by juvenile bream who fed on the scrapes that were stirred up. What's also weird is that the red mullet weren't even red. I think they can change colour to suit their habitat as I've seen pictures of live red mullet that are red, but these were just whitish with a broad brown stripe and several yellow ones.


Striped Red Mullet - Mullus surmuletus


Striped Red Mullet - Mullus surmuletus


White Seabream - Diplodus sargus


Comber - Serranus cabrilla

We arrived at the Jetty at planned at 5pm and the boat driver took us straight out to a reef where there were a few other fisherman fishing as well. It must have been about 50 metres deep as it took over a minute for my 3oz lead to get to the bottom. We fished here for about 15 minutes but nothing happened so we moved to a more sheltered bay around the corner. Here I had my first bite and landed my first fish of the trip, it was a smallish Annular Bream, but it hopped back into the sea before I could get a photo. Next, I had a few Comber, these were bigger than any of the ones I had on the jetty, but not as big as the one I lost. They were a much redder colour, and really looked like mini coral trout. They must have come from quite a depth because their air bladders where quite inflated when they got to the surface.


Comber - Serranus cabrilla


Comber - Serranus cabrilla

We suddenly heard a few splashs about 20 metres away, and something large breached, I originally thought it was a dolphin, then a marlin, but when an entire fish of that was about 1.5m long leap clear out of the water, I instantly knew what it was, an Atlantic Blue-fin Tuna. Over the next half an hour or so, we saw several more breach, but I was not able to get any photos of it.

The activity slowed, as did the fishing. I also got tired of catching comber, so we moved around to the jetty on the side of the island. Lines in again, what did I land? another comber. A slightly bigger comber though and a brown one again. While fishing, I noticed a nice sized stripy fish hanging around and waited for it to take my bait. I took the bait away from the smaller fish when I saw them taking it, and soon I was in, a short tussle and landed my bigger comber of a trip. It was probably bigger than the one I lost in the morning. It was a proper fish, it looked like somewhat like Perch, but was more spikey and had sharp spines on the gill plates as well.


Comber - Serranus cabrilla


Comber - Serranus cabrilla

After a few more comber I decided to fish the other side of the boat which was in slightly deeper water. I lost one rig before I landed a very colourful looking Comber. A Painted Comber [#115], it had more of a hunched back, pointier nose, red tips to its dorsal fin, and a blue belly. It looks like a more aggressive fish with is 'bandit' black strip across its eyes.


Painted Comber - Serranus scriba #115


Painted Comber - Serranus scriba

We were provided a dinner of Feta, Tomatoes, Cucumber, Bread, wine and some homemade pickled fish which were really nice, but after the meal, it was very dark, and the captain wanted to try to catch calamari. He only had squid jigs on handlines and we setup a light pointing down into the sea where we would jig the jigs. I decided to continue fishing with bait as well, but nothing took on either line. After less than a quarter of an hour, the batteries on the light went out so we were jigging into the darkness. I persisted fishing but nothing happened and I had to call it the day.

After spending a week in Petra, Lesvos, Greece, I caught 13 species of fish, all of which I have not caught before, although I may be seen some of them while snorkelling. This brings my fishing life list to 115 and my 2010 list to 53, 34 new. I've got another ton coming up and that is my photo 100. I've currently got 97 species with fishing photos.

Comber Serranus cabrilla #103
Annular Seabream Diplodus annularis #104
Boxlip Mullet Oedalechilus labeo #105
Salema Sarpa salpa #106
Golden Grey Mullet Liza aurata #107
Mediterranean Rainbow Wrasse Coris julis #108
Common Pandora Pagellus erythrinus #109
Damselfish Chromis chromis #110
Common Two-banded Seabream Diplodus vulgaris #111
Grey Wrasse Symphodus cinereus #112
Red-mouthed Goby Gobius cruentatus #113
Black Goby Gobius niger #114
Painted Comber Serranus scriba #115

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