Fishing in Spain

Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:26 pm

i live on the coast of spain (benidorm!) and would like to know what type of fish i might find in the coastal waters in the mediterranen sea. everyone seems to fish using floats here which i find a bit strange!!

any info on what bait and rigs to use would be very much welcome

many thanks in advance

matt tougue

Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 2:13 pm

...

Member Joined: Aug 22, 2006 Posts: 10

I think eveyone is to jealous to reply mate.

try google 'fishing in spain for o,a,p,s'

Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2006 1:59 pm

partx wrote:

I think eveyone is to jealous to reply mate.

try google 'fishing in spain for o,a,p,s'

OAP´S!!!!!!! IM 22

Joined: Sep 07, 2006 Posts: 1 Location: La Linea, Spain

I live in la linea, the boarder town with Gibraltar. Float fishing i have caught bream, mullet, makaral and bass, biggest being about 3lbs. I have heard there is a huge variaty of fish here. I personally have only been fishing for 2weeks here so I am learning and any adivice from anyone else would be great. I use calamari as bait (local squid) I get this from carrefour and its very cheap. I find calamari to be a good strong smelly bait. Water is pretty deep straight off the rocks here so I do not need to cast more than 35ft. I know it will be different for you in benidorm, but I am definitely not an expert. Definitely not OAPS as im 20 winking

Rob

Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 6:01 pm

robert wrote:

I live in la linea, the boarder town with Gibraltar. Float fishing i have caught bream, mullet, makaral and bass, biggest being about 3lbs. I have heard there is a huge variaty of fish here. I personally have only been fishing for 2weeks here so I am learning and any adivice from anyone else would be great. I use calamari as bait (local squid) I get this from carrefour and its very cheap. I find calamari to be a good strong smelly bait. Water is pretty deep straight off the rocks here so I do not need to cast more than 35ft. I know it will be different for you in benidorm, but I am definitely not an expert. Definitely not OAPS as im 20 winking

Rob

Same sort of conditions here i use raw shrimp seems to work well also bread is good bait. i fish off rocks here u can see thousands of small fish with the bigger ones being deeper feeders, i have been using floats with the hook 6-7feet down from float and am getting good results. not sure what fish i have been catching, a fish is a fish to me!! and i always release after

Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 8:17 pm

Hi Robert,

I grew up in La Linea (detras de la plaza de toros, en la calle Padre Majon). I started fishing there when I was 3. Chipirones (small frozen squid) are cheaper at the frozen stores near the plaza, btw..

Now's about the best time of year for it; try casting on la Playa de la Atunara, near the little fortress thing whenever there is a decent levante blowing. You can dig your own lug there at low tide too. Should catch decent herreras daytime and doradas or bass at night (if the snappers and bogas let you).

Benimatt: the fish in Benidorm are the same as around Gibralter.
Your best bet is to go out on one of the many stone jetties at night, use a float with a starlight and strips of mackerel or salted sardine - you're still in time to catch loads of horse mackerel (my favourite fish).

Most popular species include snapper (wherever there's sand.. any bait will work; they tend to show about an hour after dark), black bream (wherever there is a mix of rock and sand, best caught on a float wherever there is a running current), dorada (like black bream, only with a gold tint round the head) and the baila (another bass-like thing that puts up one hell of a fight).

Robert: The calamares season is also approaching - get down to Gibralter's RHS pier (its free but you need to hand in your passport for safekeeping) on a moonlit levantishon night (light easterly) and watch how the local moroccans pull out hundreds of monster sized white calamares - can be caught with any plastic fish or luminous squid jig. Can also catch mackerel and horse mackerel from the pier at night if you take a lamp along and use only a tiny sliver of fishskin as the bait.

Baits: other than the ever popular frozen squid, are rag (river) worm, lug (can be dug on most sandy beaches), coquinas (a small seashell that lives on sandy beaches and in estuaries - can be dugup at low tide), corrucos (a kind of cockle with red and white flesh), navajas (razor fish - excellent 'big' baits for big breams / doradas), mejillon (mussels - quite good from piers / jetties if you salt them heavily for a few nights), ermitaño (hermit crab - a bit too expensive but worth it if big fish are showing). Try making enguao (ground bait) with smashed mussels, sardine, flour and sardine oil (sold in some bars), lethal from piers with little or no wind blowing.

You two live in what is probably the closest place to paradise on earth - for me at least. Explore the coast, talk to any anglers on the beach (they are always friendly, even if your Spanish is crap..) and enjoy it. If I could get a decent job back there I'd join you both.

Saludos,
Antonio.

PS. dont bother with all the mullet you see floating about, the Spanish dont eat them.. and lets face it, we eat just about every other thing that comes from the sea!

Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 8:22 pm

Be careful with the araña or weaver fish - can be caught wherever there's sand and it spine carries poison.

The locals tend to use a single big ball lead shot plus a 1m hook trace for the bigger fish and any 2/3 hook patternoster for snapper, etc. The best floats are the cork type that are red on top.

You need a license now, costs around a fiver - can only fish with two rods max.

Have fun,
Antonio.

Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 3:34 pm

went off the rocks the other day and caught 17 fish
these were amongst them

Posted: Sun Sep 24, 2006 5:25 pm

The top one's called a doncella (don-se-sga) which means 'dame'.
It is very common in rocky parts of the levante coast, but does not grow much bigger than about a foot (rare) and is full of bones. Its usual to catch another fish called a breca (a type of wrasse) whereever these are feeding and they tend to be a little larger and fatter. There's also another fish called a salema (a type of bream with dirty yellow stripes running from head to tail)

The second fish looks like a baby garfish or it might be a pez-rey, which is a baitfish commonly used for catching bass etc.

If it is a garfish, you really dont want to be fishing such silly things mate. A treble that size is really only good for bait fish unless its on the end of a lure.

Try lobbing a razorfish bait out from the rocks late in the afternoon and see if you can knab a decent bream.

Regards,
Tony.

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 12:33 am

my strange catch any ideas what it is ?

Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 7:11 am

We call them 'vaquitas' or 'little cows'; another type of wrasse.

Do you get your hooks from a jewellers then? tougue

Do you realise that floatfishing from the rocks at night, now in October, you could easily fill a bucket of plate-sized fish? - black bream is delicious wrapped in tin foil with a little added salt and spanish olive oil..

Even with a small rod, some squid and a couple of hours around sunset on a sandy beach, you should be able to land a decent amount of young snapper..far more edible than that sad little thing!

Have fun.

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:09 pm

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 4:22 pm

Never seen one like that! - obviously a bottom feeding wrasse of some type.
Was it a loner or did you get more of the same?
Was it big?

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 11:33 pm

AV wrote:

Never seen one like that! - obviously a bottom feeding wrasse of some type.
Was it a loner or did you get more of the same?
Was it big?

Think it is a stone fish, has a poisionus spike, was about 10 ins or so but very round had a huge mouth