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

100th Species

After another cancellation of my charter boat trip, I decided that I had to get a good fish for the 100, and I wanted it to be a pike. I was told about a fishery in Sussex which had a predator lake and decided to do an afternoon ticket there. Got off the train at about 10 minutes to midday and decided to walk to the fishery as I had an hour to spare for the afternoon ticket and it was only a few miles from the station. It was a pleasant walk and got there about 12:30. Half an hour to spare to set and have my lunch.


My 100th Species of Fish - The Northern Pike - Esox lucius #100


Northern Pike - Esox lucius


Bream - Abramis brama


It’s a 2 rod ticket but decided to spin on a single rod until I got a pike. There a lot of activity on the water with my rudd or roach dashing away from predators. I tried some spinners, spoons and plugs. Its was raining quite a heavily and I perservered having a couple of taps every few casts. After about 90 minutes changing lures, I had some decent resistance on the line, initially it was just a little bit of dead weight but as it surfaced, it starting making runs and after a few minutes, it was in the net. I little jack of about 3lb. Because of the coloured water it was a very pale looking fish with a lot of scars, I think they may be from leaches as I saw them on some of the fish I had later one. The lure was a perch coloured lure without the stripes that I got for a mere £2.50. I wasn't very impressed by the battle though, I would have expected it to be much stronger. It only felt like a carp and not a perch. There were bursts of speed but no violent headshakes that you get with 3lb perch or bass. I decided to not go for another pike and go for some coarse fish. I fished corn on the waggler and soon had a nice 2-3lb bream. A skimmer and another couple of bream. Time for a move.


Fully Scaled Mirror Koi - Cyprinus carpio


Fully Scaled Mirror Koi - Cyprinus carpio


Linear Mirror Carp - Cyprinus carpio




I knew that one of their other ponds was an ornamentals pond which contained a good head of koi and goldfish, so I moved there. I decided to use two rods here. I had a rod with ledger corn and the waggler rod which I used with corn and cat-meat. Had a few small rudd on the corn and the ledger corn had a little run and brought in a nice little tench. A change of bait to meat on the waggler and got a really nicely coloured fully scale mirror carp which looked a little koi like with orange lips. I then had another tench on the ledger. The the float dipped again and had an better fish on the end of the line. This one was a Linear Mirror Carp about 3lb.

So got a few skimmers, rudd tench and carp, and apart from a koi-ish carp, where are those ornamentals?


Koi - Cyprinus carpio


Koi - Cyprinus carpio


Koi - Cyprinus carpio


Linear Scaled Koi - Cyprinus carpio

Rebaited with catmeat again and watched the float dive as I hooked into another good fish. As it surfaced, I got my first glimpse of the yellow koi on the end of the line. After a few minutes, I played it out and it was soon in the net, and it was a beauty too, it was a nicely coloured common (ghost) koi. As I was putting the fish back into my net to return it, the ledger rod went off and this time it was a proper fish. A few minutes later I had another nicely coloured koi but it was a Linear Mirror type koi. A few photos and then release.


Brown Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Brown Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Brown Comet Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Orange Common Goldfish - Carassius auratus


Orange Common Goldfish - Carassius auratus

The carp fishing quietened down and soon got into the all the goldfish varierties. The long tailed comet ones do fight hard. Seem to catch a few more of those than common goldfish because they probably swim faster with better propulsion? Kept on seeing the red goldfish following the koi earlier on but didn't manage to get hook it but it was now time. This was the most goldfish like goldfish I’d ever caught. Had more skimmers, tench, rudd and another small common carp. The day ended in the smallest tench I’ve ever caught. I think thats time to go home.


Common Carp - Cyprinus carpio


Skimmer Bream - Abramis brama


Rudd - Scardinius erythrophthalmus


Tiny Tench - Tinca tinca