As anyone might understand, this was always going to be a “difficult” week…
And, as might be expected, not everyone made it everyday…
When you stay in bed and the sun rises like this then the saying “you snooze, you loose” always holds true…
For those ducking out, and the reasons why, considering the folks in the picture above ,I’m sure you can figure out who, why and when…
So, the fishing…
Monday started off with this, and a first for us, a pretty sizeable Little Tuna, sometimes known as a False Albacore, taken on a small Bertox soft plastic…
Across the week we plugged away and saw some amazing sights… busting tuna everywhere, sunfish, wild seas, wildlife galore and the once in a lifetime Mega Shoal. For me the highlight was seeing John hook up and catch his first Blue Fin Tuna, the strongest fish in the sea …
It was my last day of Med fishing this week and I wanted to do something different so turned down the strength of the tackle – to what would be pretty light for UK Bass fishing – but still managed loads of the small 2kg BFT & Little Tuna that are around right now.
Couldn´t find anything big and unfortunately didn´t see the busting Tuna that were around on Monday.
Pulling lures saw multiple hook ups of all species…
Joachim and me fished this morning and it proved to be another day where counting the fish was futile. Once past 4NM these small 2kg BFT were everywhere and smashing these daisy chains I rigged up with 2 small white lures running ahead of a purple one (I made up two and they worked really well)…
We found shoals of Little Tuna feeding on the surface – with some very big ones within them, 10-15kg sized – but despite throwing small poppers at them I could only get these 2-3kg sized ones to bite – they way out-numbered their bigger brothers…
Dinner tonight came courtesty of the first Dorado of the year. Ollies arch nemesis is back…
Unfortunately some rough weather lies ahead of us over the next two days… gives me time to think ahead to Thursday & Friday and how to round the year of with a big, er… Little Tuna
I was about 7 years old when I caught my “most ever fish in a day”. I still recall it quite clearly – it was when Dad took me to The Isle, we fished off the jetty, it was a sunny day and Dad was super happy because he caught his first ever 10lb carp. I beat him pretty comprehensively though with 159 Carp and 9 gudgeon – the fact that my biggest was around 4oz didn´t matter as a kid back then…
History almost repeated itself today and if I´d stayed fishing any longer – and could count with the same mental clarity – I could proubably have beaten my old 168 fish record.
On this mornings trip the sea was packed with small 2-3kg Tuna. Everywhere.
Little Tuna came first, a mile or so from the harbour…
Small Bluefins were next, starting from 3NM onwards,..
I was trolling 4 rods all the time but found lures being hit faster than I could wind the fish in then get them back out again and had double, treble and even quadruple hookups.
I cast small metal lures for then but best of all fished small, walk the dog type surface lures on my Bass tackle and watched hoards of fish smash them on the surface.
Amongst the fish I landed was our first ever Skipjack Tuna – see those horizontal dark bars, quite different than Bonito, Bluefin, Little Tuna etc…
I lost count of the fish tally quite early in the morning and with sore arms wandered back to port at lunchtime feeling pretty happy.
On the way back I pulled a large 8″ lure, 2 medium 6″ lures and a small pink lure – similar to the orange and green one in the pics above. Only a couple of miles from port the smallest one was hit by something much bigger than all those fish above and came back with the hook bent/straightened. I don´t want to think what it was, even though I do have my suspicions… it´s just one of the reasons I´ll head out to the horizon again soon…
It is horribly hot right now but this morning offered a little relief with a nice sea breeze, a sky filled with clouds and, falling from them, some very welcome & cooling rain showers.
An escape from the heat on land was thus primary in my thoughts so I left the harbour around 09:00, headed south and pulled an assortment of lures, large and small, to just beyond where the sea drops off into the depths.
Fishing was perhaps a secondary consideration today because a sea filled with breaking waves and white caps undoubtedly made it difficult for the fish to see the lures . One did though, a miniature version of those fish we caught in April, taking the smallest lure in the spread.
Carefully released back into the sea this juvenile Blue Fin Tuna has a wonderful journey ahead of him… a nice run South down the Spanish coastline, a passage through the Straits of Gibralter and then out into the wild Atlantic Ocean. With luck he´ll be back in these waters in a few years time, when he’s more than a hundred times the size he is now…
Back to one of our favourite places and the previous home of the boat, Shell Island.
With no boat this time the fishing would have to be different so I started with a before-sunrise, early morning wander to the harbour as the low tide turned and water started to feed into the lagoon.
I used my favourite Bass lure, a Lucky Craft Gunfish, casted behind the breaking waves, much like the one you see in the picture above and started the week with this small Schoolie…
Later in the week Brad and myself took a trip on the charter boat running from the harbour, Western Flyer. Although it is primarily catering for holidy makers catching Mackerel & Bream I avoided the lure of plenty of fish on feathers, briefly transitioned to the dark side and contrary to all the ethics of this blog… I used bait…:(
Freelining a live mackerel onto the reef – which is almost lure fishing – I had this nice Bass which later starred as lunch on the BBQ…
My favourite fishing though was undoubtedly on the sandy beach that runs from Shell Island right through to Barmouth, a mark we never really used to put much effort into.
After some rough weather early in the week Friday turned out to be the best day weather wise – sunny skies and no wind – so an almost flat, calm and clear sea. Bass were just offshore and pushing tiny whitebait into the shallows – all given away by small gulls and Terns plunging into the water to feed on them.
Wading waist deep into the light surf, maybe just 20-30 yards out, I launched this small metal lure into and around some emerging bait balls and managed several more Bass, similar in size to the one caught on the boat. Was also a pretty exhilerating way of catching them…
As regards the Bass fishing it all ended up as… Lures 3:1 Bait
All in all, a great week and very likely to see a repeat visit next year
We seem to be in a nice period of warm weather, calm winds and smooth seas so with the memory of last years Spearfish still in my mind set out at dawn for a morning trolling session.
I pulled an assortment of trolling lures, two larger ones down the middle running in the clear water just behind the prop wash and two smaller ones running down the outside, positioned a little further back.
Pushed out past the drop-off, to where it´s really deep and found plenty life out there… a pod of dolphins who ran with me for a while, flying fish & some sun fish
Unfortunately any Spearfish out there eluded me. Fish wise I found nothing big and nothing new but lunch is sorted with this small Tuna who couldn´t resist what is probably the best trolling lure we´ve ever used…
Found a place to do some fishing on my work travels to Worcester… the local canal…! Had a stroll down it this evening, casting a small jig head and managed this little perch and what must be the smallest, fish tank sized Zander you could ever imagine.
A bit of a size difference from my last fishing trip..! Enjoyable all the same…
As is now obligatory I took the first week of April as one of my annual breaks from work. Purely for fishing.
A couple of friends came down from the UK who helped massively – spotting the fish, positioning the boat, unhooking the fish, taking some pictures etc – is all so much easier when done as a joint effort than it is on your own.
No secrets to how I fished this week… casting big poppers at the passing Blue Fin Tuna.
What a week it was…! Across the four days we fished I had multiple strikes, hooked up and pulled the hook on three of them, watch fish hit the popper so hard they simply launched it airborne, got so close we almost run over them, had one on the first cast of the morning, another on the second cast and in the end brought four to the boat, all but one released boat-side.
A little collated go-pro footage tells a better story than I might ever write…
And some pictures…
Here´s one chasing down the popper, a heart stopping moment…
And some more boatside pics of what must be the greatest fish in the sea. Black, Gold & Silver…
I found the weather pretty spectacular today, with monsoon style downpours it probably seemed best to avoid…
Was quite a lumpy sea but just like we saw a couple of days ago, with Joachim & Juan, packed with small BFT in the 3-4lb range.
Best lure by far… a 2 euro special from Game Fisher, this yellow and orange Williamson Jet Head…
Ultimately it was not my best ever day, characterisized by a bizzare incident… as ever I had a 2 x rods in side mounted rod-holders. Starboard side hooked up, somehow rattled and then unfothomably popped right out of the rod holder… if anyone finds an Avet MXL attached to a Colmic trolling rod… and maybe attached to a Dorado… it´s mine..!
As ever, lessons in life are always learned the hard way…
Joachim, Juan and myself ventured out early this morning and at 8 NM found the sea literally alive with small Tuna… small Bluefin, Little Tuna and Bullet Tuna all mixed together and demolishing massive shoals of tiny whitebait.
We probably had 40-50 between us trolling and spinning with double hookups and even a treble hookup as we passsed one dense shoal.
Haven´t seen such a density of fish like this for a long time…
It was great weather this morning, no clouds & no wind so went offshore looking for some fish. As is normal I pulled 4 x 140mm Williamson trolling lures together with a small one out back which got all the attention today.
First hit on the small lure was a little Tuna, it then got chomped and bitten off by something larger, most likely a Bonito, then its replacement gave us todays lunch…
Not much doing offshore today, just a small Tuna for Kate and a small Dorado for me. We came inshore and found bigger stuff near the cliffs with this nice Bluefish…
Plan today was only to take lunch on the back of he boat with Loira and enjoy a bit of sunshine.
After a quick stop at the supermercado we left port mid morning then anchored up just beneath the cliffs under the coast road.
It really wouldnt be me if I didn´t take at least one rod and make the most of the opportunity (I took 3, just in case) so with a small popper cast towards the rocks under the cliffs quickly hooked up to an old favourite, still as acrobatic as always. Did manage a 2nd take a short while later but it didn´t hook up. Great to see them here for the summer…
Summer seems to have started today. Hasn´t just been the weather but also the relaxing of lockdown measures…
Not that it all bothered me, I just went trolling…
A confession – I actually like trolling. It covers far more ground then you otherwise would and it allows you to fish more than one rod. Sure, it goes wrong when you have multiple hook-ups but that´s all part of the fun…
Anecdotaly, it was “expect the unexpected” which held true today. I set out all prepared to cast poppers at Tuna but, as ever, trolled lures on the way out. Just in case like…
No more than 2nm out from Aiguadolc one of the two rods arched over and the reel, losing line fast, screamed for attention.
At first I was sure this was just another Bluefin but right from the start the fight was quite different. Tuna are brutes, thugs, heavy & angry and pull fast & long, like freight trains. This was different, manageable, actually more enjoyable.
After a relatively short fight the first time I saw the fish was pretty close to the boat and it was just amazing, the colours of it were just not of this earth, it was all lit up, glowing neon blue & green. Angry. My first billfish…
We are guessing this as a Mediterranean Spearfish. Too big to ever come home so released back to the sea – an absolute privilege to have met you…
Back at the harbour, after washing the boat down, I walked through the port, up to my car. Sun was shining, bars were open, people were everywhere, taking drinks, smiling, talking, laughing and enjoying life.
I can assure you – not one of them had a bigger smile than me…
Had one last try before what looks like a stormy weekend followed by going back to work next week. Found them slow today, with little interest in poppers so switched to a Duo Rough Trail Malice 130 lure. Had one take it but miss the single hook on the back but then hooked up a short while later. Popped it off at the side so not the best of pictures…
Sadly, maybe my last opportunity for a while… its been a fun Easter break.
That’s now 5 this Easter… if Carling did breaks from work…
Set out nice and early this morning, at a time most normal people are finishing off their nights dreams, but was faced a nightmare of a horrendous, lumpy sea ahead of me which kept speeds down to 6 knots & below. At one point I honestly thought of turning around, jumpimg in the car and driving South for a day on the Ebro…
Kept going but with a sea literally alive with waves found it hard to see fish like I had over the past week. White caps & seagulls looked all the same – just white markers on a sea of blue – but I kept looking.
Boat fuel is expensive and boats aren´t exactly the most frugal of vehicles so in the interests of maximising my fish/litre ratio have always hung a lure out the back whilst mooching around like this, trolling, looking for life & fish activity. Today, a tiny, little Bertox Natural Sardine…
Thought very little of it & expected exactly the same from it and as I saw gulls ahead of me started to gradually reel it in. Thats when I hooked up first, something seeing it far more interesting than me and snatching it just metres from the boat..!
Wasn´t a big fish, perhaps just 18-20kg but was a handful on quite light gear like this, a Saltiga 8000 with 50lb braid & 40lb leader. With just a single hook there was no need to bring onboard so I released it boatside.
Immediately after, and with Tuna Gods obviously looking down on me, could see dancing gulls no more than 100yds away so slowly approached, this time with the “big rod” ready.
Launched a popper close by the shoal which led to 4-5 big Tuna visibly pursuing it. First one lunged at it clearing the water completely but missed it whilst the second totally nailed it. On again after only 5 mins – luck of the gods…!
Put some serious heat on this one and it was in the boat in 20-25mins…
And todays hero of the day, again a Tackle House Feed 135mm, this time in total white, a colour I really like as it´s pretending to be nothing special…
Left the harbour very early again yesterday, as dawn broke.
Was fortunate to have a really calm sea ahead of me and quickly stumbled on a shoal of fish maybe 4nm out from Sitges, splashes in the water and Seagulls dancing above them the obvious markers of what lay below.
Crept up slowly so as not to spook them then the second cast was all it took to connect but this was immediately tougher than last weeks fish. Looking back at the Go-Pro we connected at 08:09…
Finally, at 09:46….
All on the same lucky lure as I used last week – Tackle House Feed 135mm Popper – this one now retired from active duty..!
Some collated Go-Pro footage, from the hook-up to just before the Go-Pro battery ran out, not that we were anywhere finished by then…
It is no coincidence that the last two Tuna I hooked up came at 07:30 and 08.09 – I think these fish are like many others and after a night of darkness feed heavily as dawn breaks.
They may also be less sensitive to our lines at this time which show more as the sun rises because I later made many other casts, right into similar breaking shoals, all without interest.
Once my arms recover I can test that theory again…
I tried for them from the off but no matter what lures I first flung at them, starting with small lures like these Bertox Natural Sardine soft plastic lures, Jackfin Pelagus & various metals, then moving up to Dual Adagios & Duo Pressbaits they just weren´t interested…
I had a go at sneaking out early in the morning, trying to catch them before breakfast – theirs and mine – but that didn´t work either…
I had pretty high hopes yesterday though as the sea was like glass, Tuna were breaking the surface everywhere but big lures, small lures, every design you could ever think off, all launched right into the feeding melee… again, damn, simply no interest…
Tried again this morning but it wasn´t ideal conditions. Far from it actually with a cold 20 knot wind pushing down from the North, but as Capt. Ralph once said, “if its blowing, we´re going”
Left Sitges at sunrise and was upon a shoal at just 2nm from the harbour but same as… simply no interest in anything I cast at them.
Mooched out a little bit further and after a few casts to several other busts, yet again without interest, spotted a flock of gulls moving North. Quick. Undoubtedly there were Tuna beneath then but these weren´t shoaling and pushing up small baitfish, they were behaving differently, they were moving.
I raced to catch up with them, eventually drawing parallel then launched a popper -Tackle House Feed 135 – just ahead of what I anticipated to be the head of the shoal.
It had barely touched the water when it was smashed by a Tuna going airbourne, taking it completely out of the water. We´re on..!
Adrenaline immediately kicks in when you connect and initially there´s a million and one things going on in your mind… am I still tight to the fish, is my drag set right, wheres the Go-Pro, wheres the camera, I must get a picture, I still need to wind in the other rod I stupidly left trolling, it´s going under the boat, the engine is still on, how long will this last, my line is near the propellors, I need to physically hang on somewhere because it´s rough and I´m either falling down or over-board. Unnecessary mental badness slowly proliferates too, shit – the Go-Pro won´t turn on, where´s the landing net, damn – a tackle box fell off the bait well and now there´s lures all over the floor, I´m gonna lose it…
Beyond the chaos and excitement you eventually find yourself in this zone where nothing matters – only that fish on the end of your line. Your line too… right now thats maybe 100m out, stretched out so tight you´ll hear it whistling in the wind, only fractions of a millimetre thick and all thats standing between glory & devastating disappoinment. If there´s ever a time to doubt the integrity of your knots and your tackle it´s here and now.
Furthermore, the simple aspect of Time works very differently when you are hooked up to fish like this – 5 minutes might seem like an hour, an hour might seem like 5 minutes… I couldn´t hazard a guess as to how long the fight/agony/wonder/hope lasted…
And so, eventually… When it came to the boat it was the similar class size of fish we usually see, 60-70lbs. I couldn´t lift it onboard – it´s size and the waves not helping – so released it boatside. I really wish it well and would like to think that some day, sometime in the future – when it´s bigger, and I´m wiser – we´ll dance again once more…
Squeezed out for a mornings trip this weekend. Winter is very clearly here now and it was pretty cold outside but I did manage a few of these small Bullet Tuna…
Out for a quick evening session today. Much like the weekend we found lots of fish hanging around marker bouys – small Amberjack, small Tuna and best of all, lots more of these Dorado. All seemed a little bigger than they would normally would be in August so October is looking really promising now, they should be a great size by then…
Back on familiar, home territory today. With the boat all refreshed with a new engine Kate, Olivia and myself set off early today. Was a breezy day with a pretty rough sea but we did well, eventually losing count of the fish we caught, Amberjack, Small Tuna and best of all… lots and lots of Dorado.
“Awesome” just does not do justice to the place and the views on the island are literally mind blowing…
We also went fishing, on a boat run by Filipe from azorseaadventures.com from a small village called Vila Franca do Campo.
Was initially nothing more than a day out at sea where we enjoyed seeing the wildlife… turtles, several whales, countless gulls and even more dolphins.
We also did a little fishing, dragging 4 lures around.
Nothing happened for a few hours but we saw plenty bait balls being smashed into on the surface. All the while, as we ran up to them it was seemingly always dolphins in on the party. “Too many dolphins...” is not something we say too often.
Filipe worked the boat really hard and pursued flocks of birds endlessly, often doubling back through them. At one point he muttered something on the lines of “They are here, I know they are here….“
He wasn’t wrong.
Both port side rods arched over and massive 80W reels screamed as line was pulled from them.
Much of what happened next was a blur, grabbing pictures seemed a distant thought vs. fighting the fish but heres Kate hooked up…
After 2:30 we had my fish through the door and into the boat, a 109kg (240lb) Big Eye Tuna and after a 3:30 fight Kate landed hers, 117kg (258lb), more than twice her weight.
This was truly a day beyond our wildest dreams and I was so proud of Kate.
We all have our favourite holiday destinations… Shell Island, Cuba, Nefyn, Sitges, Abersoch etc. There´s a new one of the list now, a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that´s like nowhere else on Earth.
That was the thinking Oli and myself had in deciding to start 2020 with a quick trip down to Adlington Canal. With hailstones blowing sideways we didn´t last long but taking a small Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnow for a swim kick started the year for me. Now, back to BCN and out into the sea…
Has been extremely windy these last few days but I managed to get out this morning. Sea clarity was quite poor and I couldn’t find any Dorado but did manage this stonking Bonito which was too long to fit in the fish box. Gonna eat well tonight…
A pleasure to be out on the boat this morning as September & October really are the nicest months of the year. Found the sea to be alive with Dorado everywhere there was structure, debris, buoys etc.
Sometimes I can catch them…
Sometimes it just doesn´t matter….
In the next month these should almost double in size, from 1.5 to 3kgs. Roll on October…!
Weather Gods were seemingly unhappy with my plans for the well anticipated start to the fishing season, a full week chasing Tuna, and threw 40mph winds at us turning the sea into the same consistency and colour as that what we normally see off Blackpool…
Still, there’s always something biting deep in the harbour…
Had a long day out in the sun today and it was great just to see these small Blue-Fin Tuna smashing into baitfish, flying out of the water, going totally airborne and cartwheeling through the sky.
They are the same age fish we caught earlier in the summer – but when they were much smaller – this is how fast they pack on the pounds and mature.
Impossible to catch for someone but thankfully not for me..! It has been scorching hot these last few days and there are plenty of nice sized Dorados about right now – I had 6-7 this morning along with some small Amberjack and small Tuna.
Tuna caught casting Halco Twistys. Dorado caught on small Williamson trolling lures, modified slightly, with double instead of single hook.
He lives in Sitges Bay…. And he´s back.., Hopefully for the rest of the summer. Caught this small one today and some very small Tuna – similar to what we caught on Sunday…
On the North coast of Cuba, at the South East end of where the Cayos start I fished at La Boca which is a little inland from Playa Coco, reputedly one of Cubas finest beaches…
Bay of Nuevitas
Only used 1 lure, a 49g Halco Rooster 135 popper which took some serious Barracuda and a first for me, a nice Jack Crevalle.
Jack Crevalle
A happy guy
One of many Barracuda
And with my helpers that day. The local guy that landed the fish for me ate well that night…
It Ate My Lure 