Playa de los Cancajos and La Caleta de la Ballena - La Palma - Canary Islands

After a day of catching mediocre fish, I decided to nightfish at beach again. Instead of using a running ledger like I did on the previous night session, this time I used a two-up paternoster, to keep the hooks off the rocks. Since the last trip, I'd snorkelled the beach, so I know the geography of the beach. After a little while, had a few taps of the rod and I was in. After a quick scrap, I had a nice little silver fish in my hand. I had no idea what it was, my first thoughts was that it was a little bream, possibly an Axillary bream (Pagellus acarne) as I had previously taken photos of these guys in a fish market in Lyon, France. When I got back to the apartment and examined the photographs, I relised that the dorsal fin was wrong for a bream, and thought that it was some sort of bass or serranid. In a bream the spines and rays are roughly the same length for the entire length of the fin, but in this fish, where the spines get shorter and shorter but when the meet the soft rays the rays start of large again, making a little notch in the fin. This fin kind of reminds me of estuary perch back home. Found out that the fish was a fish called a Bastard Grunt.


Bastard Grunt - Pomadasys incisus #98


Bastard Grunt - Pomadasys incisus - check out the dorsal fin

On the 11th, fished the Caleta again because of its short distance away hoping to finially catch something different. Again I couldn't get away from the Canary Damsels and Ornate Wrasse. I did get a few really nice looking males wrasses though and managed to get another single Hairy Blenny. I even riggged a whole prawn on a pennel rig on number 1 hooks but still managed hook a tiny canary damsel on it. After a while I did manage to hooked into something different. It was a nice looking puffer that i had seen snorkelling the previous day called a Guinean Puffer which is commonly mistaken for the Band-tailed Puffer (Sphoeroides spengleri) which occurs in the West Atlantic. It has what looks like spikes when seen in the water, but I dont think I felt them when I was handling this one. Towards the end of the session and as I was getting bored, I found a nice red rock crab. (a species recently split from Grapsus grapsus sometimes called the Sally Lightfoot.) I found that it really liked my prawn bait as well and chased it when I casted towards it and managed to catch it. Its a splendid looking beast when holding it infront of you.


Ornate Wrasse - Thalassoma pavo - this one is a male.


Guinean Puffer - Sphoeroides marmoratus #99


Guinean Puffer - Sphoeroides marmoratus


Red Rock Crab - Grapsus adscensionis

So after a week of fishing, I decided to pack up and clean all of my gear that night so that it was clean and dry when it had to go into the luggage but I did leave out my fly rod, line and flies so that I could have a quick flick in the morning, and thats exactly what I did. I had gotten a nice #8 6ips (inches per second) sinking line specifically for this purpose. I went straight to the Caleta in the morning to test this out. Tied on a clouser and found that I was able to cast quite well. I was actully casting as far as I could cast a 3oz lead. The line that I was stripping out got caught on the very sharp rocks at my feet a few times and since I didn't have a bucket, I had to keep very large loops in my hand but it was really good to be able to cast the amount of line I was casting out, even though I didn't hook into anything. I tried about 5 different types of flies but got tried. I then tried to cast tiny flies into the rockpools. The larger 4" blennies followed each time but would turn away at the last possible moment. I did try a few flies but wasn't able to hook into any. Time to called it the day. It was great fun to be able to fly fish in the sea as I don't really ever get a chance back in England.

In the end, I caught 11 species of fish, 9 of those lifers and a new species of crab. Not bad at all. I'd also like to mention that I didn't eat any of the fish and they all went back into the sea!

So I'm one species away from catching 100 species.

Grand Total:
2010: 36 species, 18 new species
Life: 99 species, 81 with photos

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

Playa Santiago - La Gomera - Canary Islands

I spent a week in La Gomera in 2008, and it is a fantastic location for a sun holiday, with nice black beaches and nice mountain walks. We stayed in a little town called Playa Santiago which was made up of just a few shops and a church which was set into the side a rocky hill. At the end of the road there is a little jetty where the ferry which takes you to San Sebastation and a Whale Watching trip departs. I didn't bring any fishing equipment on this trip but was able to buy a very cheap telescopic rod and reel from the local store and used some nice baguettes for bait. With these necessities, I headed towards the jetty to try them out.

On the way to the jetty, I spotted a nicely coloured fish, with a yellow body and brown stripes. Later on I found out that it was a juvenile amberjack, a proper gamefish. When I arrived at the fishing mark, there was a fishing boat landing its catch and they had a nice haul of Skipjack Tuna. I'd love to catch one of those one day.


Juvenile Lesser Amberjack - Seriola fasciata


Skipjack Tuna - Katsuwonus pelamis

After I started fishing, I realised that hooks I was using were way too big for the fish I was trying to catch on the wharf but even then managed to catch 3 species of fish, all new species to me. First was the Bogue [#51], which was a very common fish. They look like sardines but are actually a species of sea bream that were enlongated instead of deep bodied. I then had several Canary Damselfish [#52] which where black with electric blue fins. Finally I caught a few Ornate Wrasse [#53], a fish I did see them while snorkelling and they are a very pretty fish, but only a few females and not a more colourful male.


Bogue - Boops boops #51


Bogue - Boops boops



Canary Damsel - Abudefduf luridus #52


Ornate Wrasse - Thalassoma pavo #53


Ornate Wrasse - Thalassoma pavo

On the whale watch earlier in the day, I stopped for lunch and threw in some bread to attract fish. I spotted quite large sized Bogue and a few Derbio. They are in the same genus as Permit but are a lot more streamline. In Australia, fish of this genus with the same shape as derbio would be called a Dart.


Bogue - Boops boops


Derbio - Trachinotus ovatus


I saw many fish while snorkelling in Playa Santiago. White Seabream, Blennies, Lizardfish, Pufferfish and Wrasses were seen.


Moroccan White Seabream - Diplodus sargus cadenati


Red-lipped Blenny - Ophioblennius atlanticus