Rockfish Fuerteventura - Part One

Well I had been looking forward to this trip for some time, initially I had thoughts and dreams of Bonito and Bluefish but as the winter dragged on I found myself just looking forward to sunshine and the great outdoors. Catching anything other than Pollock would now be a huge bonus.

As time got closer I also knew that the chances of encountering a Bonito were slim as the shipping forecasts were looking less than ideal, strong and pervasive North Easterly winds were set to batter the coast for the duration. 

Well I was never going to put all my eggs in one basket anyway and the light game kit was already  prepared and packed.

I met Scott and Nick at Manchester airport on the 24th Feb and we flew out full of anticipation and excitement.

After checking in and finding the digs we were pretty much up for a fish and headed down to some marks surrounding Caleta De Fuste Harbour and Scott and Nick were pretty much straight into fish but it took me a while to start catching, well hooking anyway as I lost 5 decent Salema that evening and only landed a bloody Cardinal fish.
I did help land Scotts Salema though, after slipping about on some precarious rocks!

The next morning after finding a new room mate in my bed

and breakfast

We headed out to Las Playitas and caught absolutely tons of fish, the methods of the day were vibe baits, drop shot and jigs.

Canary Damsel taken on dropshotted Gulp Alive! 1" Fish Fry

Planehead File Fish

Common Two Banded Sea Bream 

Planehead Filefish on an Aquawave Ami

Madeira Rockfish taken on a Dropshot Aquawave Ami rig

Diamond Lizardfish taken on a Shout Dangan mame 5g

Painted Comber on an Ecogear vx40 vibe

Scott with another nice Pandora which has obviously had a hard life.

We caught literally hundreds of fish that day and a lot more species than pictured too, you will likely find a more detailed report on Scotts blog.

We also made a big time rookie mistake this day, in not wearing any suntan lotion! My hat also blew into the sea and I sustained second degree burns to my head and neck which left me quite ill for two days.
I had already made some other mistakes; not charging my Camera and not packing the needed attachments for my action cam! For this reason all the photo's were taken on phones and Scotts old Pentax Optio.
Nonetheless we were still on to a good start with some fun being had, I was real pleased to get my first Filefish as this was a new species for me, I also got my PB Painted comber and its always a pleasure to catch the iconic Scorpionfish.
Scott is always a jammy bugger though and always turns a good Pandora with his funky dropshotting, he did the same in Madeira.

More to come so stay tuned peeps.

Tight lines!