Flipper
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2020
- Messages
- 263
- Reaction score
- 1,166
- Points
- 93
- Location
- Devon
- Favourite Fishing
- Shore
Just back from an extended family holiday to Northern Gran Canaria, because it was with all of the extended family, there was less fishing time. Research leading up to the holiday did not inspire confidence. As ever youtube was very insightful and some the regular vloggers from Gran Canaria were very helpful - especially once they knew we weren’t catch and kill everything anglers - as was Sunil, who frequents this parish occasionally and provides a top quality licence service. Google earth, navionics and online photos certainly helped narrow down where we wanted to fish in the limited time we had available. Certain marks we fished brought back many memories of my youth fishing the rocks of north Cornwall, some random big waves and frequent swells meant you had to be careful and observant at all times. The weather for northern Gran Canaria was unusually warm and settled for the whole two weeks, which was awesome, although the fishing may have suffered as a result. That as well as the huge amount of pressure from boat anglers, shore fisherman, commercials, spear fishermen, etc!
As it was our first trip there we tried to apply the lessons learned from previous holidays in Fuerte, La Palma and Madeira, as we didn’t have loads of time to spend seeking out interesting marks via the car and foot.
As usual, I start the holiday obsessing about lure fishing, but, soon begin to marvel at the natures aquarium of stunning species, so get drawn into the world of bait fishing for as many species as possible. The lures were not as productive as I hoped and the ground was incredibly lure hungry, one particular bad day saw me lose 3 Duel Heavy Minnows
Highlight of the holiday was using a Savage Gear Gravity Pencil 60 on HTO Rock Rover LRF rod, casting out into some current and about 10m of water, letting it sink and then fishing a sink and draw, opening the bail arm to let it sink naturally. 5th cast and the lure just stopped on the drop and in an instant my little Rock Rover was bent over in a very unnatural hoop! The next 5 mins were pure ecstasy as line poured off the reel and the rod stayed bent over in a crazy curve. Eventually I got the fish in and we saw a large silver flash, the ground we were fishing was extremely rocky and I was certain the fish would be lost, but, after all its crazy runs it was as knackered as me and we were able to land a lovely 4lb Sierra. The Rock Rover, 10lb J Braid, 10lb fluoro and Gravity Pencil lure had overcome the best pound fir pound fighting fish I had caught since Bronzies in Namibia nearly 20 years ago. Just amazing fun and one of my target species from our recent holiday trips to the Canaries finally landed.
We also caught a couple of stunning Pandora Bream on jigs which fought exceptionally well. My eldest showed how it was done with a fish of 1 1/4-1 1/2lb which fought like a far larger fish, just beautiful to look at.
On the last day we found a mark where we could use lots of floating bread groundbait to draw in a couple of our favourite species, saddled bream and derbio, using my preferred bubble float, 4ft fluro trace and size 6 B983 Kamasan. These fish are nuts and makes surface fishing for carp look sedate and boring. They come up like trident missiles from the depths to absolutely smash the bread and is so much fun. We found some examples of just over a pound and the fights on the LRF travel rods were superb. I have watched videos of Markos Vidalis and others catching the Saddled Bream on lures, but, despite my best efforts I seem unable to do so, however, the bubble float tactic is so much fun I don’t worry about blanking on the lures.
An octopus on float fished crab was another first for us and was very exciting to see.
I think we ended up with 21 species, sadly the pics of the barracudas and striped bream never came out, but, any help checking on some of them would be much appreciated.
Species caught
Lizard fish
Damsel
Ornate
Grouper?
Madeiran Rockfish
Barracuda
Striped Bream
Bogue
Saddled Bream
Saupe
Pandora Bream
Painted Comber
Grouper?
Goby?
Mullet?
Parrotfish
Sardines
Derbio
Octopus
Cardinal Fish
Sierra
Garfish
There is an excellent tackle shop in Galdar, called Battlefish, the guy who runs it can speak no English and me no Spanish, but, via google translate we got by. Superb service, really excellent stock of temptation and all round great shop, thoroughly recommend.
There were three disappointments, my Dave Barham Travel Rod had an epic fail and broke in two places when I got my lure snagged for the 100th time, really gutted as I loved that rod. Second was the carp angling guiding service, who based down south wouldn’t venture north to collect us and go back south to fish Chira Reservoir. Thirdly, getting info about reservoirs you can actually fish for black bass was a complete ball ache, during one trip into the hills we went to 8 reservoirs and despite seeing the fish, there were signs up saying no fishing, but, we will return.
All in all a fab holiday trip, loads of potential and we will return.
As it was our first trip there we tried to apply the lessons learned from previous holidays in Fuerte, La Palma and Madeira, as we didn’t have loads of time to spend seeking out interesting marks via the car and foot.
As usual, I start the holiday obsessing about lure fishing, but, soon begin to marvel at the natures aquarium of stunning species, so get drawn into the world of bait fishing for as many species as possible. The lures were not as productive as I hoped and the ground was incredibly lure hungry, one particular bad day saw me lose 3 Duel Heavy Minnows
Highlight of the holiday was using a Savage Gear Gravity Pencil 60 on HTO Rock Rover LRF rod, casting out into some current and about 10m of water, letting it sink and then fishing a sink and draw, opening the bail arm to let it sink naturally. 5th cast and the lure just stopped on the drop and in an instant my little Rock Rover was bent over in a very unnatural hoop! The next 5 mins were pure ecstasy as line poured off the reel and the rod stayed bent over in a crazy curve. Eventually I got the fish in and we saw a large silver flash, the ground we were fishing was extremely rocky and I was certain the fish would be lost, but, after all its crazy runs it was as knackered as me and we were able to land a lovely 4lb Sierra. The Rock Rover, 10lb J Braid, 10lb fluoro and Gravity Pencil lure had overcome the best pound fir pound fighting fish I had caught since Bronzies in Namibia nearly 20 years ago. Just amazing fun and one of my target species from our recent holiday trips to the Canaries finally landed.
We also caught a couple of stunning Pandora Bream on jigs which fought exceptionally well. My eldest showed how it was done with a fish of 1 1/4-1 1/2lb which fought like a far larger fish, just beautiful to look at.
On the last day we found a mark where we could use lots of floating bread groundbait to draw in a couple of our favourite species, saddled bream and derbio, using my preferred bubble float, 4ft fluro trace and size 6 B983 Kamasan. These fish are nuts and makes surface fishing for carp look sedate and boring. They come up like trident missiles from the depths to absolutely smash the bread and is so much fun. We found some examples of just over a pound and the fights on the LRF travel rods were superb. I have watched videos of Markos Vidalis and others catching the Saddled Bream on lures, but, despite my best efforts I seem unable to do so, however, the bubble float tactic is so much fun I don’t worry about blanking on the lures.
An octopus on float fished crab was another first for us and was very exciting to see.
I think we ended up with 21 species, sadly the pics of the barracudas and striped bream never came out, but, any help checking on some of them would be much appreciated.
Species caught
Lizard fish
Damsel
Ornate
Grouper?
Madeiran Rockfish
Barracuda
Striped Bream
Bogue
Saddled Bream
Saupe
Pandora Bream
Painted Comber
Grouper?
Goby?
Mullet?
Parrotfish
Sardines
Derbio
Octopus
Cardinal Fish
Sierra
Garfish
There is an excellent tackle shop in Galdar, called Battlefish, the guy who runs it can speak no English and me no Spanish, but, via google translate we got by. Superb service, really excellent stock of temptation and all round great shop, thoroughly recommend.
There were three disappointments, my Dave Barham Travel Rod had an epic fail and broke in two places when I got my lure snagged for the 100th time, really gutted as I loved that rod. Second was the carp angling guiding service, who based down south wouldn’t venture north to collect us and go back south to fish Chira Reservoir. Thirdly, getting info about reservoirs you can actually fish for black bass was a complete ball ache, during one trip into the hills we went to 8 reservoirs and despite seeing the fish, there were signs up saying no fishing, but, we will return.
All in all a fab holiday trip, loads of potential and we will return.
