Report:I planned a two week holiday in Crete for the middle of the Bass ban in the hope that it would help the month pass a bit quicker. I brought a rod and some tackle with me so that I could get in a bit of fishing while we were there. We were based in Piskopiano but hired a car for the full duration of the holiday and managed to put just under 2000 km on the clock. Most of the fishing I did was from rock marks or in harbours for an hour or two in the late afternoons/early evenings.
25th May - Drove around the Lassithi Plateau then to Agios Nikolaos and on to the north coast. Found a nice looking rock mark at Myroniktas. Fished for about an hour using a two hook flapper with size 8 and 10 hooks baited with squid. I had a lot of bites but just caught 1 comber and one small red scorpion fish.
26th May - Drove to the south coast and had lunch in Matala. I asked the waiter if he knew of any good fishing marks in the area and he said off the rocks on the left of the beach was good. We gave that a go for an hour or so. There were a lot of small fish swarming around my bait but I only managed to catch one - a parrot fish. After that we drove to Lentas had a beer and then headed back to Piskopiano.
27th May - Drove to northeast of the island to Vai Beach - Melissa wanted to go swimming, but it wasn't a suitable venue for fishing. Afterwards we tried fishing a rock mark further north. I was getting the occasional timid bite but no hook ups. A strong northerly wind was also blowing which didn't help. First blank of the trip.
28th May - Melissa wanted to visit the Knossos archeaological site in the morning. Afterwards we drove to the coast for lunch. The north wind was still blowing strongly so not suitable for fishing. After lunch we drove back eastwards along the coast until I found a sheltered spot on the western side of Malia Bay. Fished there for about an hour but no bites at all.
29th May - Paid a visit to the tackle shop in Hersonnissos and got a box of Chinese rag worms and a carton of maggots. We then drove aross the Lefka Oro mountains to the southwest to stay in Hora Sfakion for three nights. We arrived and first had lunch in a restaurant overlooking the old harbour. There were a lot of mullet there feeding on bread thrown in by the diners. Mostly small, but a few 3-4 lbs in amonst them. So I decided I would have to have a crack at catching a few but first we had to find accommodation. After checking into some rooms on the hillside overlooking the harbour we headed back down to the harbour. Unfortunately most of the mullet had left at this stage but there were still a few milling around. I chucked out some bread and then baited a mullet rig with bread. On about the second cast I hooked a small one. However, the fight spooked the rest and they vanished. I then did a bit of mini species fishing for a couple of hours, catching a brown stripped blenny, a rather pretty green speckled blenny, 3 parrot fish, a comber and a damsel fish. Using the rag worms really made a difference - they attracted the fish much more than the squid.
30th May - In the morning we drove up to a plateau on the southern flank of Lefka Oro until the road ended at Agios Ioannis and then back for lunch in Hora Sfakion. I was hoping the mullet would be back in the harbour but there were only a few tiny ones swimming about. After lunch I decided to try the new deep water harbour. I set up on a jetty and as soon as I cast out there was a swarm of fish on my bait. Unfortuantely they were very adept at whipping the bait off the hooks in a fraction of a second. However, I found that by very slowing moving the bait around it encouraged them to chase after it and bite more strongly resulting in a lot more hook ups. Over a couple of hours I caught 3 damsel fish, 5 bogue, 3 ornate wrasse, 4 parrot fish, 1 derbio. Melissa had spend the afteroon swimming on a little beach to the east of the old harbour but returned for the last hour. I made up a hand line for her and she caught a damsel fish. I used up all the rag worms and had to use maggots - they were not as effective but I still managed to get a few fish on them.
31st May - Drove east along the southern flank of the mountains to Amoudi Bay - this was a beach/swimming day - but I got bored with that after a while and got the tackle out of the car and headed over to a rocky promontory to the east of the small beach. Over about an hour I caught an ornate wrasse, a parrot fish and a comber.
1st June - Drove back to the beach at Amoudi Bay. In the afternoon I went back to the same rock mark for about an hour and caught a parrot fish, a rainbow wrasse and a comber. Before heading back to Piskopiano I got into the water to cool down - there were a lot of small fish following my feet - I guess they were looking for food in the sand stirred up my footsteps. I decided to have a crack at catching one but reckoned the swimmers would not be too impressed if I hauled out my gear so used a hand line with a size 10 hook baited with maggots. However, they were not interested and just kept swimming around my toes.
2nd June - We decided to head over to the west coast. First I called into the tackle shop in Hersonnissos for more bait but they were out of rag and maggots
So I bought some prawns in a supermarket. We then drove westwards along the north coast and took the coast road to Elafonsi. A strong southery wind had picked up, but it was a hot dry wind, coming from the Sahara. Elafonsi was much smaller than I expected so we backtracked to Christokalitissas and found a room for the night. In the evening I went down to the shore for about an hours fishing. There were not too many fish about but I managed to catch red scoption fish and a brown blenny.3rd June - Drove across the mountains to Paleohora, had lunch and found a room for the night on the seafront. After that I left Melissa to roam around the town and made my way down to a rock mark. Fish were scarse but I got a comber and a parrot fish. I decided to move further along to find a better spot - and worked my way around to the new harbour. Again there weren't too many fish about. I eventually settled on a spot near the harbour entrance. I caught two plump parrot fish and a red scorpion fish.
4th June - We took the car ferry from Paleohora to Hora Sfakion. Arrived in Hora Skafion in time for lunch. After lunch I headed over to the new harbour as that had been the most productive mark the previous week. A big shoal of damsel fish crowded around my bait - I only had bread at this stage as my prawns had gone off and were too mushy to put on a hook. However, by dropping the bait down close to the bottom it cleared the damsel fish shoal. The first fish I got was a rabbit fish (thanks for the ID Eric) - a fish with vicious spines on its dorsal, anal and pelvic fins. It put up a strong fight - first time on the trip I had anything that put up much of a fight. I managed to catch another three of these - they were all about the same size so it could have been the same fish that I caught 4 times. I got a nick from a spine when unhooking one of the fish - it was quite painful and I read the other day that its spines are vemonous
Apart from that I also caught a small mullet, 7 damsel fish, 1 parrot fish and 2 bogue.5th June - In the morning I decided to give the new harbour in Hora Sfakion one last bash before heading back to Piskopiano. The damsel fish could whip off the bread in a fraction of a second but I still managed to catch 5 of them including the smallest fish of the trip, one parrot fish and on the last cast another rabbit fish. After that we went over to one of the restaurants overlooking the old harbour for lunch. There was a lot of small mullet milling about. Then just after placing our order there was a sudden scattering of the mullet as two barracuda swam into the harbour. I grabbed the rod and began to set up, the waiter came over and said that they liked squid and gave me a few chunks. I made a few casts and retrived the bait across the front of the barracuda but they were uninterested. They made a few laps of the harbour but were only interested in the small mullet. After lunch we drove back to Piskopiano.
6th June - Last day
After packing our bags we drove down to the coast near Milatos for a final few casts. I found a likely looking rock promontory and dropped a line into a crevase between some big boulders. I caught red scorpion fish, a brown stripped blenny and an ornate wrasse. Then we went for our last Cretan lunch. Then back to the apartments to get the bus to the airport. We arrived back in Ireland on Saturday night to a strong cold northerly wind and rain but at least there was only another 10 days to go before I can go fishing for bass 
So I managed to catch a total of 64 fish, 12 new species. The fish were small but I wasn't expecting anything big from the shore. Thanks to Cretekos from this site for advice before I went and thanks to those who provided species IDs.
