Living within a stones throw of the Mediterranean, the urge to do some angling is pretty irresistible. Looking down from my balcony, there are always about five or six anglers on the rocks below.  Having done a bit of angling back home in the uk  I reckoned I stood a good chance of a few nice catches.  The main thing to find out was which method to use and the type of bait I needed.  Most of the anglers were using telescopic rods, the ones which extend from about a foot to about eight foot.  I wondered why these were not as popular back home, they're extremely handy for carrying and the fully extended rod doesn't seem much different from the standard two piece rods I was used to.

There are quite a few angling holidays available in Spain and I'd often fancied trying one of these.  Most of them are boat fishing which I quite liked the sound of but it wouldn't have been fair on my wife who isn't really the seafaring type so a bit of fishing off the rocks seemed the ideal solution.

In the uk sea fishing involves fairly hefty tackle.  Serious anglers use multiplying reels, beach caster rods and large weights. Over here on the Costa Blanca the tackle seems to be a lot lighter, probably because the med is so much calmer.  Having made my decision to give it a try, I went down to the rocks to see if I could pick up some clues about the best method to use.  I was surprised to see that the majority of the Spanish anglers were using extremely light tackle and floats.  Float fishing at home is usually associated with freshwater angling in lakes and rivers, I can't remember seeing any float fishing in the sea apart from kids in some of the harbours around Cornwall.  After a while, it became apparent that they were only catching fish about three inches long, the type we throw back.  What the Spanish do with these fish is a bit of a puzzle, not one person threw anything back. Maybe they make soup or something with them.  The bait seemed to be either bread (again something I would associate with freshwater fishing) squid and ragworm.  Ragworm is not native to the Mediterranean and after a few enquiries, I discovered that you could buy boxes of  ragworms at the fishing shop in Villajoyosa, about five miles away.   I decided to ledger because I wanted to catch something bigger.  Ledgering, for any non anglers reading this, is fishing on the bottom using a fairly large weight as opposed to float fishing which leaves the bait suspended.  After half an hour, I'd made my mind up, I'd buy some tackle and have a go.

Chatting with a local who seemed to know what he was doing, I realised that the serious anglers fished at night and the daytime guys were just dabbling and weren't that serious.  I drove to Villajoyosa and bought a rod, a decent reel, weights, hooks and everything else I thought I'd need.  For the bait, I bought three boxes of ragworm and on the way back, stopped at the local supermarket and bought half a dozen squid.  The rest of the day was spent carefully making up some ledgers, putting line on the reel and cleaning the squid which I chopped into chunks.  I didn't have a tackle box, so I used a cd carrying case to store all the ledgers and hooks.  I put everything into a supermarket plastic carrier bag including a couple of spare bags for the catch.  All I had to do now was to wait for the sun to go down. 

About eight o clock the sun started to set behind the mountains which form a backdrop to the bay, the weather was perfect, about 20c with no wind, not even a breeze.  The sea was like a millpond.  I made my way down to the rocks and started to make up the tackle in the fading light which is no easy task when your eyes are about as useful as Mr Magoo's.  Threading a squirming ragworm onto the hook was like trying to thread a piece of rope through a needle, it was determined to make this as difficult as possible for me.  After a battle of wills lasting about five minutes I managed to impale it and after a bit of fiddling it looked quite a presentable meal (for a fish of course). 

By now, the sun had disappeared and it was a struggle to see what I was doing.  The only light I had was from the apartment car park about twenty yards away.  I wanted to cast out as far as possible.  Big fish swim in deeper waters as the saying goes.  I held the rod aloft at about 180 degrees pulled back the pickup on the reel and swung the rod out.  Having done a bit of sea fishing before, I knew straight away something wasn't right.  The cast felt unusually heavy and to my horror I realised that I'd cast my tackle bag out along with the bait.  It was surprising how far out I'd managed to cast out, I heard the bag hit the water about twenty yards away.  My heart sank, all that hard work, all the expectations of a meal of fresh fish but wait, the bag was still on the hook, I could feel the weight.  All was not lost, I carefully reeled in and in the dark, I saw the white carrier bag slowly making its way towards the rocks.  It was still heavy, that meant all my tackle was still there.  I stooped down and grabbed the bag.  Water! that's all that was in it. No bait, no tackle, just  water.  When I look down at the fishermen now, I think "maybe I'll go for a beer"