Tenerife 2013 Sea Fishy tales...

Just come back from a few weeks in Tenerife with the family. Plenty of fishing off the breakwaters and rocks with lots of fish caught, most however wouldn't look out of place in your average saltwater aquarium. Light tackle order of the day with Size 12 hooks and reasonably small floats for sea fishing. I did try the fly occasionally but without success. I refined my technique to keep the bait in the water long enough for the bigger fish. This was to use a pinch of my trusty Ramer sponge capped with a squid tip. Bread would soon be removed without a positive take. At times I did groundbait with mashed bread, sweetcorn and tinned fish but I am not sure it increased the chances of hooking a bigger fish and merely turned your mark into a boiling mass of little rock dwellers. The lagoons held good numbers of Salema Porgy (a type of Bream), Vieja ( a type of Parrot Fish) and Mullet with odd European Sea Bass (farmed escapees sub 35cm) and small Cuda but getting a hook up was not easy. Mullet despite being the largest target were impossible to tempt, they seemed pre-occupied with grazing on the algae boulders. In between catching double figure numbers of Canarian Damsel Fish or Ornate Wrasse you might just have a scrap with a Porgy, European Sea Bass, Pompano or Vieja all on my bread substitute, which was nice on light tackle.

Ornate Wrasse

Lizard Fish

Canarian Damsel

No Guilthead Bream this time which was surprising as I did see the odd one snorkelling. Feathers or lures just produced the abundant Lizard Fish which although unusual never exceeded 30cm in length. Larger tides produced more fish in the lagoons particularly a few hours either side of high tide.  If you feel the need to take the odd fish for the table the Vieja is recommended despite its wrasse like appearance was delicious baked with butter, coriander and parsley. Rock fishing in exposed places was dangerous in any form of swell as even with my awareness of set waves I was caught out several times and found myself clinging limpet like to the lava  - sometimes I wonder why I push the boundaries so, it seems fishing does funny thinks to the logical mind. One other word of warning - Green Turtle were occasional visitors close inshore at this time of year which made for some spectacular snorkeling however if you know they are present best to move on when fishing.

Salema Porgy - the most abundant bream in the area.

Vieja - fish deep on the seaward side of inshore reefs
 and be prepared to make ground immediately.

Courting Flounders 

Grazing Mullet - if only they grazed on my bread fly!