Lanzarote Fishing

This december has seen the Katfish fishing the biggest amberjack of the last 10 years. An incredible catch of more than 40 kilos! Funnily enough we began the day with another amberjack of 14 kilos, but everyone was amazed at the size of the second one.

In early december we also had a great 30 kilo wahoo while trolling, plus plenty of atlantic bonito and skipjack tuna, with weights of up to ten kilo. Like usual, lots of bream, couch's sea bream, and quite a few manta rays. Here are some pictures taken last month (more in the gallery):

We have had this blog unattended for the last couple of months, but we hope to catch up and bring you the latest information with our fishing reports from Lanzarote. Here is one written by Dave, a fishing addict that works in the commercial department of our company, about a day's fishing with a party from Surrey that chartered the boat in early October:

Pete and his mates from Surrey chartered the Margaritta on friday 2nd of October  for a days fishing, hoping to catch a big one to remember the experience of big game fishing in Lanzarote .

With fantastic conditions and hardly a breath of wind we decided to spend the morning fishing with live bait and the afternoon trolling for Blue Marlin, when the tide was changing . Not to be disappointed , it wasn’t long before we had hooked our first Barracuda of about 3kgs . We caught another two, and an Atlantic Bonito of 5 kilo; when suddenly, at the back of the boat, we spotted around 6 Wahoo and 5 big Amberjacks, a couple of them at least 40 kgs.
The Atlantic Bonito was a little bit too big to use as bait for the Amberjacks, but we tried nevertheless. Within 10 seconds, one of the biggest jack had taken it and we were hooked up . Unfortunately after one minute the jack spat it out as the sierra was too big.
We caught another barracuda and 4 more bonitos, but no Amberjacks. Typically, just when we needed a nice sierra (atlantic bonito) of around 2kgs for bait we hooked all big ones. Nevermind it was all good fun .

We set off after lunch and a beer, on our hunt for Blue Marlin, trolling offshore at around 600m depth. We had no sign of Marlin, but within one hour we sighted a large shark fin on the surface. Hammerhead.
Our big sierra could now prove useful after all. After quickly retrieving the Marlin rods, we rigged one of the sierra as bait on an 80lb shimano, and trolled slowly looking for our shark.
After 10 patient minutes the fin appeared again; this time 20m behind our bait. Within two seconds the shark had ferociously taken the bait and was off on 200m run with the nylon flying off the reel. The lads were now about to realise that the nylon goes back on a lot slower than it comes off the reel. After a steady fight for 30 minutes and three of the guys strapped in the fighting chair, we managed to bring the fish alongside. Plenty of photos and a Hammerhead of around 120kg released back for another day.
A great days fishing for Pete and his mates and some nice memories to take home.
Hope to see you again some day in Lanzarote.

It took some time, but one month later luck was again on our side and we caught our second marlin this season.

We left Puerto del Carmen on the Margarita heading Southeast, and not even half an hour had gone by, when the sonda showed a huge shoal of (probably) mackerel. We hanged around the area for a while, but as nothing was happening, we moved on back to our original route.

The hours passed by without much luck, but when we were heading back to port we decided to try that morning spot once again, as if we knew we would be given one last chance. And so it was, all of a sudden a 80lb reel screams out, it's a marlin of over 200 kilos. It was a very intense 30 minute fight, and even though we were a bit dissapointed not to see it jump even once, when we finally took the hook off and released it, everyone was exultant. Hopefully we won't have to wait as long for the third!

Finally, we've had a good week's of fishing. Our colleagues at the Katfish have been fishing plenty of white trevally, with weights up to six kilos, and a couple of beautiful 20 kilo wahoos (an another one they lost) on thursday, but the real action has been on the Margarita Segundo as we became the first boat in Lanzarote to catch a marlin in 2009. We knew it wouldn't be long, as we've been having news about marlin catches on the eastern island since a month ago, and now we are fortunate to have the marlin here in the waters of Lanzarote.

Funnily enough, saturday began fishing for wahoo, motivated by the catches earlier in the week; but after a couple of unsuccessful hours, we changed to marlin lures and decided to head south east looking for the big one. Just before 2pm, about 10 miles away offshore, one of the reels screams out from a marlin strike, but unfortunatelly didn't take. Nevertheless, we were quite excited and we sticked around in the hope of getting a second chance. It didn't take long, ten minutes later we were hooked again, a marlin of about 220 kilos that puts up an excellent fight. In about forty minutes the marlin gives up, we put it on the side of the boat, bring it round, take off the hook and release it. Everyone is cheering up full of excitement; with a bit of luck, next week will be just as good.