Catching Conger Fish

I finally bought my fishing tackle at Decathlon - a collapsible pole, reel, landing net, lines, lures, hooks, floats, sinkers and a pail - all for about 80 euros. Top quality material, as you can guess from the price.

It took me a whole afternoon to spool the line onto the reel. Tip number one: when spooling the line, the reel must be under the pole and turned with your left hand. My first catch was our cat that walked into my office and into a mess of line on the floor. Before I realized it, it was all tangled, started going nuts and I had my first big game adventure before I even left the house.

Next, I practiced my casting technique in the yard. On my first try the damn sinker went right over the fence and into the neighbor's yard, scaring the crap out of her dogs. Then I overturned some decorative rocks and caught half a dozen worms. That's it, I was ready for some action.

My collapsible pole and bucket at Paimogo beach.

 Some things in life are downright puzzling. For example, when I opened my pack of hooks I couldn't believe what I was seeing - they had no holes for tying the line, merely a flattened head. But I'm sure there's some logic to it. 

Plan B: I used a small lure and put a worm on its hook as an added attraction. It looked like a small fish with a long poo coming out of its arse. 

I tried casting from different rocky outcrops, but nothing. The tide was low so that didn't help either. Finally, I lost my sinker and lure on a rock and gave up.

Instead of catching fish, I got a good look at what lurks in these rocky bottoms. 

While I was playing with my pole, a young diver speared two monster conger fish.

 The real test will come when I go fishing on the boat, and I have some real good (expensive) lures for that.

This was once an interesting fish restaurant. The local authorities closed it down because the cliff behind it will come crashing down sooner or later. It's been about 15 years and we're still waiting for the big event.