Managed to get some fishing in whilst on holiday on the Greek island of Lesbos.
You can’t go far wrong with a holiday to Greece, from a fishing perspective. Or the food. Or the people. Or the weather. Or the vibe.
I’ve been on so many holidays to Greek islands now that it’s a really relaxed affair, and that is partly why we return again and again. No fishing licenses. No unreasonable ‘no fishing’ signs. If you are respectful to the locals, 99.9% of the time you can fish where you like. This holiday I found myself fishing a cast away from an armed naval vessel for example!
This time around we visited a new island for us – Lesbos (Lesvos). It was probably the most relaxed, most Greek island I have been to so far. Relaxed vibe with lots and lots of nature all around. In fact there was so much nature above water that my fishing time was quite limited this holiday, but I did have my LRF rod in the hire car all the while and tried to fish new places for a few minutes here and there.
We visited at the start of May. Typical for that time of year, the waters of the Aegean Sea were crystal clear. And I mean CRYSTAL! I had 15ft+ visibility of the bottom looking down. This can lead to challenging fishing. I whole-heartedly recommend dropping your line diametre as much as possible. I was running long, 3lb fluorocarbon leaders for the entire trip and actually wished I had 2lb on a couple of occasions. The fish can see everything in the bright sunshine and clear water so think about how you present a lure. I found that fishing the shadows of harbour walls was the most productive for the predators I was targeting.
Also typical of this time of year, there are tons and tons of tiny baitfish around. It’s encouraging in some sense, but there is a lot of natural bait to contend with. I think if I had been more focused on fishing I might have learned that particular times of the day would be good for surface fishing. I saw one ‘blitz’ event in one of the bays, driving home one evening.
As I say, most of my fishing was targeting the predators working in the shadows. I used tiny metal jigs that matched the natural baitfish. Tiny examples from 2-5 gram. I also used micro wind soft plastics (darting method). Only because I enjoy it. This technique took the best fish of the trip, and probably the biggest grouper I have ever caught in the Med. Although typically I had neither my landing net, or a camera-phone with me for this unexpected capture.
There are many locations around the island and generally accessibility is easy enough if you have a hire car. There are little harbours all around the island. I didn’t get to fish any natural rock marks. There are also the two, large, saltwater lagoons that make Lesbos unique. It looked fishy for sure.
Of all the places I fished, two stand out. The small harbour and breakwater at Petra. Which is handy as that is one of the main tourist resorts. It offers varying depths and floodlights at night. It is a working harbour though and the gates to the breakwater look imposing. Just take your time surveying whether the main breakwater is closed before walking through the gate. It wasn’t closed once when I visited, despite a naval vessel being in situ. Again, it’s pretty relaxed if you’re considerate.
The other mark I enjoyed was Polihnitos Lesvou. A lovely little fishing village on the East side of the Kalloni Gulf. This is where an impromptu 5-minutes with darting method gave me the largest grouper of the trip. Which is a great sign that the area is not pressured by anglers. I would have loved to spend more time there.
Lastly, it was on our coach transfer to the airport on our last day that I realised that the capital of Lesbos, Mytilini is the home of an excellent fishing shop called Tsouros Marine. Bit gutted to have missed that. Hope to visit next time.