Ydra – Sep 17 – 18, 2010
This was a highly anticipated stop on the trip. Not only was it a beautiful island that had retained much of its charms, it was also the top fishing destination on my travel.
Ydra is a relatively small island in the Saronic group. There were only a few motorized land vehicles on the island. I saw on one of them during my stay…a garbage collection truck. Most people depend on their own two feet or donkeys to get around the island. Some people also use boat travel to get to more remote areas.
All the streets were cobble-covered pathways maintaining is old world charm. Most of the streets also travel up slope from the port. It’s not a friendly place for people with walking difficulties.
This island was also a favoured holiday destination for the rich and famous apparently. As such, accommodations came at a premium and prices in general were higher than most Greek islands.
Arriving at the guesthouse, there was only a desk in the lobby with no one around. I waited for 20 minutes and no one returned. There was only one floor of rooms at this guesthouse. There were three rooms with keys hanging on the door. Two of doors had a note with some Greek writing (identical note). The other did not have a note. I took one of the note to the streets and had someone translate it for me. “Room for Mr. Panothrop”…or something like that. It certainly wasn’t my name from what I could tell.
After another 15 minutes wait without any service, it was enough. I had confirmed my reservation with the guesthouse owner that I was arriving so one of the room had to be mine. By simple deduction, I just took the only available room without the note on the door. It has to be mine.
The room was very nicely appointed for a price of 55 euros/night. This was actually the cheapest accommodation available on the island!
And the view from the roof top balcony…
I left a note on the desk stating who I was, how long I’ve waited for service, the room I had chosen, and when I was expected to return if there was any issue. That’s as much as I could do.
There was no time to waste at all. There was already 45 minutes of delay to my original schedule so I dropped my luggage and quickly went to explore the island. Luckily, I spent my time rigging up the rods during the long wait for service.
A quick photo of the port of Ydra Town.
Much thought was given at home to research for suitable fishing locations. GoogleMap was not much help since the resolution of the maps were rather poor; however, the pictures people had posted were a lot of help.
I found the swim platform located near one of the seaside cafe. The first look into the water revealed many small damselfish, scattered small school of tiny mullet and some small school of small baitfish.
Presented with that scenario, the first choice was to use the float rig, 4lb fluorocarbon and #20 hook to try add the damselfish and mullet to my fish list.
Chumming with bread brought the fish into a feeding frenzy. The first cast with bread bait quickly resulted in a new species. Although it was not my original target, it was still one of my top targets to catch on this trip.
7” Ornate Wrasse (Thalassoma pavo)
Two more casts later there was another good hit. Yet again, it wasn’t the damselfish...but another new species, one that was apparently a local delicacy even when they were smaller in size. The locals called them gopa.
5” Bogue (Boops boops)
Casts after casts, the bogue took my bait while the damselfish just could not take the hook. I would have caught enough bogue (even at 5-6” size) to make a decent meal…had I knew the local actually eat them at that size.
Finally, the decision was to change tactic to try from some of the predatory species. My friend Eli had advised me the use of dropshot rig with 1oz sinkers. Certainly, that was the rig of choice for fishing the rocky and steep sloping bottom. A #8 baitholder hook was set 12” above the weight. My weight actually consisted of a 1oz sliding sinker with two splitshot crimped above and below the sliding sinker to keep it in place. The line was threaded on the sliding sinker twice to make removing the sliding sinker much more difficult. The benefit of this rig was to allow sacrificing the sinkers if they snagged on bottom. Surprisingly, only 4 sinkers were lost through two fishing sessions.
Shrimp was my most dependable saltwater bait after so many previous experiences. It was the first bait tried and it was only 2 casts later that I caught a 7” painted comber. This picture was actually from a fish caught the next day since the picture of my first comber turned out blurry.
7” Painted Comber (Serranus scriba)
My first painted comber was deeply hooked and bleeding profusely. I did not think it would have a realistic chance of surviving, so I tossed it to my fishing companions.
These fishing companions rule the island. They could be found all over the place hiding among rock, hanging out on the streets of rummaging though garbage. Some of them look so malnourished that I tossed a few fish to feed them. Of course, the one in the picture was one of the larger ones and probably quite well feed.
A couple more painted combers later, another new species was caught.
7” Comber (Serranus cabrilla)
Combers species are territorial fish. After a few of them were caught in quick succession, the fishing slowed to a stop. Walking 20 feet away and casting at a different angle resulted in another comber. The next cast in the same area, my bait was hammered and the rod was in full bent! This was certainly a better fish. After a few deep diving runs, the fish finally came in reluctantly. I was pleasantly surprised with my first parrotfish of any species! FishBase actually listed the common name as Parrotfish.
Parrotfish (Sparisoma cretense)
This parrotfish was 15” long. When reading through the different travel guides, having a fresh fish dinner in Greece was one of the top things to do. With that in mind, this fish was destined for the table.
The bites on the dropshot rig were very slow. It was time to revive the float rig and try for damselfish and mullet again. Of course, those little bait thieves managed to miss the hook every time. Soon, light was fading and I couldn’t see the float anymore. I tried fishing the drop shot after dark but there were no night time bite. At 8:30pm, the decision was to return back to the guesthouse to shower, then find a nice little restaurant to experience my fresh fish dinner.
When I returned to the guesthouse, the owner was at the desk. She actually apologized repeatedly for not being at the desk. Apparently, there was a confusing between she and her sister about who was working on the day. Her sister had traveled to Athens thinking it was her day off leaving my host clueless about no one being present at the desk. She said I had guessed the correct room and hope that it was fine. Since I already felt bad about taking a room without proper notice, I guess we were even. I did not trouble her at all.
After that was settled, I took my shower and went looking for a nice restaurant. It was really only 30 seconds away from the guesthouse when a friendly older lady waved me to the little place. They spoke only a little English, but between some gesturing and some broken English, her husband took the parrotfish to the kitchen to put it on the grill. I ordered a Greek salad to make a proper meal. As a note, if you sit down at a Greek restaurant, a generous basket of bread would be served. It would provide enough carbohydrates that you wouldn’t need another carbohydrate source.
Here’s the Greek salad with an awesome slab of cheese…
…and the grilled parrotfish…
What a meal!
It was early to bed since I wished to wake up early to fish. Ydra also had mediocre nightlife so there was really not much to miss. Strangely, I woke up at 2am for no particular reason and could not fall back to sleep. After laying in bed for an hour, it was just too silly. I got up to rig up my rods for the morning of fishing. At 3am in the morning, Ydra was quite active with some people about opening shops. I could only assume that these were restaurant owners and cooks preparing for the next day.
By 4am, I had nothing to do but to lay in bed again. I did get about 1 hour of sleep until the 5am alarm. Instead of getting out of bed, I snoozed for another 30 minutes until it was time to fish. The morning fishing was important since morning was said to be better time to target seabream and red mullet.
The morning was real quiet with the exception of a few restaurants getting ready for serving breakfast. The walk to the swim platform was very peaceful since there was no one up this early.
I modified the dropshot rig to include a dropper loop about 4” from the sinker. About 12” of 6lb fluorocarbon was tied to the dropper loop and a #16 hook was used. I put on a squid tentacle on the hook while the #8 hook received a shrimp.
Similar to the night before, there was no action during the dark hour…except for this new species. There was actually no indication that the fish had bit and was on the line until I reeled the entire rig to shore.
Cardinalfish (Apogon imberbis)
There was no other bite and dawn was breaking. It was time to check out another location, one that my friend Eli had suggested.
On the way to my new spot, I was looking at the deeper water and saw a bunch of bait flying out of the water. Some predators were actively feeding about 200 yards offshore.
These were two swim platforms a little further way from the port. It was set in a more secluded bay with a gentler rocky drop on the side and a very steep boulder strewn shoreline on the other side. I decided to fish the gentle area since it was most “beach-like”.
Similar to the afternoon before, the area had many damselfish, bogue and small mullet. Many attempts were in vain trying to catch the damselfish and mullet, but the bogue kept it interesting.
After a while, it was getting boring catching bogue and frustrating not catching damselfish. I switched to the dropshot rig. On the second cast, I caught a painted comber. A few more casts later, it was another new species on the bottom dropper loop with the #16 hook using a small piece of shrimp.
7” Mediterranean rainbow wrasse (Coris julis)
The combers kept it interesting for a while until the bite slowed down a little. Still looking for my red mullet, I decided to use the even smaller #20 hook and use the tip of a squid tentacle as bait. It was only 3/4” long but it looked like a little sea worm. Red mullet, being a species of goatfish, digs around the sand for small shrimp and sea worms. It was a good idea, right?
On the next cast with the good idea…surprise! I love when a plan comes together so nicely. Seriously, it was probably more luck than technique.
Surmullet (Mullus surmuletus)
It was at this time that there were the occasional surface feeding within casting distance. I took off the dropshot rig in favour for the Kastmaster. I tossed that around for a good 15 minutes without getting any hits.
What happened next was one of the most amazing fishing scene I’ve ever saw. If you remembered, I was fishing for damselfish initially and I usually use pieces of bread to start a feeding frenzy. Piece of bread with the crust attached were usually left alone until when all the other pieces of bread were consumed. Some of the bread crust were still floating around and when the crust got soft enough, fish would start feeding on it.
There was a small school of mixed fish feeding to my right. I just happened to look at the feeding school for about 20 seconds when out of the blue, the small fish scattered. A 3-4lb mahimahi (dorado) had rushed in chasing the small fish. You have to understand that Ydra has a very quick dropping shoreline and it could drop 50 feet or more within a 20 feet distance. However, where I was fishing was more moderately sloped and the mahimahi had ventured into water about 3 feet deep. YES! That’s 3 feet deep!
Here I was with a Kastmaster on my line...I just had to cast it about 10 feet from the mahimahi and reel it into the line of sight. The fish suddenly turned to inspect my lure…but I ran out of room to keep the lure moving and the fish saw the lure slow down and lost interest. It would have been too cool to hook up a mahimahi from shore. Oh well…it left me with one of the coolest thing I’ve ever saw!
I did notice a few garfish following my lure in but not hitting. In truth, the Kastmaster were too big for the garfish. So I tied on a 12” leader to the treble hook of the Kastmaster and set up a #16 hook with a 1” green twister tail.
The garfish didn’t hit the twister tail…but something much smaller did.
4” Pompano (Trachinotus ovatus)
The garfish were starting to lose interest, so I switched back to the dropshot rig to see if there were any new species I could add. I was actually desperately looking for a seabream.
Maybe luck was smiling upon me. After two casts with the dropshot rig, I hooked into my seabream! It actually fit a #8 hook in its small mouth!
7” Annular Sea Bream (Diplodus annularis)
A couple more combers later, it was pretty quiet. It was also this time that people start showing up at the swim platform and this local actually kicked me out! There were two platforms to use and he said he want to use the one I’m fishing from.
Since I was displaced from the choice fishing location, I decided to try my previous swim platform. After an hour of no action, it was about time to leave. I grabbed a quick lunch at 12pm, took a quick shower and packed my luggage to get ready for the ferry ride back to Athens.
Everything was done rather quickly and there was about an hour wait for the ferry. Strolling toward the fort near the mouth of the harbour, there were the donkey for hire waiting for customers.
The fort
Walking back to port, there was a man at the mouth of the harbour fishing. I walked over to see how he was doing. He did not speak English but I could see he was catching garfish with good success, evident by the small cooler of garfish from 8-12” long. These garfish (locally called zargana) are also table fare featured at many local restaurants.
Seeing the success, I quickly rushed back to the guesthouse to grab all my luggage and dragged them to the harbour mouth. I had just a little over 30 minutes to fish until the ferry arrived. It actually took me about 10 minutes to dig out my rod and reel, set them up, and rig up my line. The man was using a water bubble (which I had none since I couldn’t find them in Toronto). He was using a hook about #14 in size and pieces of garfish flesh for bait.
Although we could not communicate verbally, we used a lot of hand gesture. He offered a few pieces of garfish to me. Strangely, the fishing was rather slow. The fish seemed to have moved and we were not getting bit. With about 5 minute left before the ferry arrive, the man finally hooked up a garfish and brought a small school closer to shore. I got bit as well but the fish jumped off. A couple of casts later, the man hooked up again and so did I…and this one didn’t get away!
9” Garpike (Belone belone belone)
I contributed my fish to his catch as a sign of thanks. I had to leave since I had about 3 minutes left until the ferry.
Well, as it turned out, the ferry was 1 hour late!!! Yes, ONE HOUR! It was good I didn’t have a plane to catch or a connection ferry to make. I guess it does run on Greek time here.
Back in Athens, I checked into my cheap hotel for the night (so cheap they don’t even do morning calls…more on that later). I had some time on hand so I decided to go fishing in Glyfada.
A 30min tram ride later I reached a nice stretch of beach with some rocky points. It was an encouraging sight that there were other anglers fishing. I start chatting with a local and hearing that I came from Canada, he shared some techniques and bread dough bait with me. He was trying to catch mullet and a type of Mediterranean chub.
Fishing was very slow with no one catching. Other anglers also used the algae growing on the rock as bait for mullet. My local angler friend and I chatted some more. As a sign of good faith, I gave him a few of my Gulp! Sandworm after he saw the one on my line. I was using a float rig with two hooks. The bottom hook had bread dough and the top hook was given the Gulp! Sandworm. He was so pleased with the Sandworm that he gave me some sandeel lure in exchange! This dude was super cool!
We fished some more and suddenly, my float shot down! I thought it was a big fish…but it was only a small…DAMSELFISH! Finally caught my damselfish!
Damselfish (Chromis chromis)
The sun was setting and I took a picture of the area.
All the local angler were leaving but I stayed until it was too dark to see my float. I only had one bite all evening but that was all I needed.
Back in Piraeus, I grabbed some dinner.
That would be the end of my Mediterranean fishing adventure. I had plans to fish in Santorini but due to unforeseen events, I actually didn’t have any time to fish there. The Mediterranean did leave me with a very good impression. With a total hours of 14 hours fished, 12 species were caught! It was pretty impressive. Some day, I hope I have the chance to fish the deep water of the Mediterranean for the pelagic and deep water species.