THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

On one occasion, as soon as I touched bottom, a shark was hooked up and I had to retrieve the gear as
fast as possible to slip the mooring and get the fish away from the rope.
I can't tell you how hard that was. My arms were pounding and aching. Even when I was bringing fish
up gradually I was still having to stop for a rest. Now my heart was almost bursting out of my chest.
But worth it to a degree with a selection of deep water species including argentines, bluemouth and
beryx.
One evening just before dark, Miguel, Dave and I took the boat around to the 'Costa Calma', then headed
away from shore until we were well past the thousand fathom line where the boat was set up on a long
drift that would take us through in to the early hours.
What an eerie feeling that was. With El Hierro being so remote and so sparsely populated, there wasn't
a light on shore to be seen anywhere. It was absolute darkness.
Of course, we had lights onboard the boat, including a particularly powerful one high up on the mast
which illuminated quite a wide area around us, picking out small luminous green fish darting about at
speed with bright red squid in hot pursuit.
Out over deep-water after dark, and the reason for us being there, the food chain progressively moves
up in the water column as the phyto-plankton, which are small plant cells at the base of the food chain
reliant on sunlight for photosynthesis, rise up to grab the last few rays of fading light, dragging
everything else up with them in the process.
Dave Devine, Escolar
This includes zoo-plankton, which are microscopic animals
that feed on the phyto-plankton, followed by small fish
mopping up these tiny animals, and progressively larger fish
all the way up to the apex predators, which in this instance
would be a species known as escolar. A sort of tuna shaped
fish with lots of sharp needle like teeth which follow the
larger bait fish up progressively higher and higher in the
water column as the night wears on.
Initially, our whole mackerel baits were suspended in a
spread at varying depths maybe three quarters of the way
down, creeping progressively higher in small increments as
the night went by.
Meanwhile, Dave and I were sight casting small lures at the
squid and having a great time loading them into the live-bait
well. Actually, they put up quite a decent fight. We even
used a couple as live-baits.
Then the escolars ranging between maybe thirty and fifty
pounds apiece started finding the bigger baits. Dark
coloured fish with jewel like green eyes as the boats lights
caught them, and gill covers as soft as wet cardboard.
I say this, because as Dave lifted one up by its gill cover in
traditional pose for a photograph, it ripped, allowing the fish to drop and its teeth to make multiple cuts
down the side of his leg. There was blood everywhere, and it didn't seem to want to stop coming out.
Actually, it was borderline bad enough to warrant going back in, with only repeated use of the first aid
kit eventually rescuing the session, plus more escolars coming along to take Dave's mind off it, by
which time the baits were right up near the surface.
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