La Caleta de la Ballena - La Palma - Canary Islands

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.


Rock-pool Blenny - Parablennius parvicornis #95


Hairy Blenny - Labrisomus nuchipinnis #96


Canary Damsel - Abudefduf luridus


Madeira Scorpionfish - Scorpaena maderensis #97

Los Cancajos - La Palma - Canary Islands

I went to La Palma in the Canary Islands to do one hiking, birdwatching, snorkelling and fishing. My goal was that if I caught 10 species, it would make it a good trip and if I caught 20, it would have been excellent.

The initial idea for the first day was to fish off the rocks on a headland called Punta de la Caleta Grande at the north-east end of Playa de los Cancajos, into the swimming beach with lures. I had an arsenal of several Rapalas, Chrome Slices, Minnows and Feathers. The first fish of the trip was caught on a Flashmer 40gm lure, a Diamond Lizard fish. A few minutes later, the lifeguard came, and was told that I was only allowed to fish on the other side of the point where there were much rougher seas in a bay called Caleta Grande. Tried a few different things and caught another Diamond Lizardfish on feathers. They were silver tinsel feathers with red plastic. The same set of feathers that I had caught several dozens of Mackerel on.

Tried a few other chrome slice type lures and noticed a schoal large fish following the lure. Managed to hook up to one and landed my first Grey Triggerfish to a Tsunami Stinger lure. Caught another 3 on that lure and lost about the same number before retiring to fish a small rockpool in the me of the rocky headland for a break.


Diamond Lizardfish - Synodus synodus #91


Grey Triggerfish - Balistes carolinensis #92

There were a few gobies of various sizes, ornate wrasse and a few silver fish of about 3cm, which were either mullet or sand smelt. Was able to only hook into some of the gobies on bread and a 18 hook, which were later identified as Madeira Gobies. The mullet/smelt were too small. Dropped the line back into the calm bay as well and got a few ornate wrasse but couldn't hook into any of the Canary Damsels I could see swimming about, until I got told off by the life guard again.

So fished back into the rough surf, this time with the flashmer lure and hooked into something really heavy and took a lot of line, but it dropped off the line and retrieved a fishless lure. I then started hooking into a few triggers again only landing one. I decided to call it the day, catching three new species, out of four.



Madeira Goby - Mauligobius maderensis #93


Ornate Wrasse - Thalassoma pavo


Grey Triggerfish - Balistes carolinensis

The next night, the night of the Spain vs Germany Semi-final, decided to fish the beach at Playa de los Cancajos after the game. I used prawn bought from the local SPAR and after a few casted, hooked up good into a fish, but the baitrunner on my reel over ran causing a birdsnest, so I had to handline the fish in fly-fishing style and ended up landing and releasing a nice Gilthead Bream. This was interesting because the Gilthead Bream is meant to be quite rare in the Canary Islands, and although I saw at least 5 other species snorkelling in the same waters, I didn't end up catching any of these but caught this species instead. Although I released this fish, I'm sure it would have made better eating the other other bream species there.

This make it 4 new species out of 5 after two days fishing.


Gilthead Seabream - Sparus auratus #94