SD BWE member in Portugal report

[Zfish03]

This is a nice story/report about our kayak fishing community throughout the world. Picture heavy and a Youtube link. Enjoy!


I got a great shot of an octupus in at 2:20 mark.

A quick background, I'm from SD and have been part of BWE community for a few years now. I left SD two years ago for some work in the big sandbox, it sucks but allows me to be closer to many places.
One place I really enjoy is Portugal. I went to Lisbon last year and had a great experience. This country has some of the best beaches in Europe, dramatic coastlines, mosaic tiles on most buildings, great sea food and all type of food, fishing history, sea travel history, medieval history, and some of the nicest people I've ever meet.

So recently, I decided to go back to spend one month in Portugal. I planned to start in Porto, rent a car and drive to the Algarve Coast. I wanted to do some surfing and fishing. Then I remembered there was this guy on here who posted fishing reports from Portugal. I decided to shoot him PM and pick his brain on where/how could I do some kayak fishing on my trip.

His name is Godinho. His response to my PM was more than I expected. He gave me a lot of travel advice and then invited me to meet him and some friends in Peniche, Portugal. One of his friends, named Duarte, owns one of the few kayak fishing shops in Portugal. Godinho and Duarte were able to get me a PA 12 to use! They made an event out of my visit too:

Pretty cool!

When I arrived in Peniche, Duarte meet me and brought me to his shop. It was fun seeing a Hobie dealer/fishing shop in another part of the world. Especially all the different bait and equipment used to fish these waters. One of the best parts was his girlfriend owned a bar next door so naturally we discussed most of our business there. Duarte is a very knowledgeable dude and very passionate about the sport. He really went above and beyond getting me set for this trip.


The next morning I meet with Godinho, Duarte, and the gang at the shop. They set me up with all the bait, fishing poles, gear, and PA 12! The only method of payment accepted for this experience were a few beers and stories after. Great bunch of guys, they taught me a lot about their local waters and fishery. It was a humbling experience.


My ride:

The launch:



It was a similar day to San Diego, started out overcast but then the sun came out and gave us a nice day. We fished the boiler rocks, and the target species were rock fish, safia, choupa, and sea bass. The rock fish had some nice color, check out this little guy.



I nice size trigger fish showed up towards the end of the day.



Some snapper caught

Beers, sangria, and dinner after a fishing.


The next day Godinho invited me to cook our catch with his family.
He pulled out some recently caught cuttlefish too, which was even better than calamari. We finished off the meal with a homemade coffee cookie desert that his wife made.

Deep fried trigger fish

Deep fried cuttlefisheggs





After lunch, Godinho and his family showed me around their home town and a surrounding areas. Beautiful place!





I'm forever grateful for this experience, thank you again to any of my Portugues friends reading this. If any of you BWE guys make it to Portugal please feel free to PM me and I'll give you some contacts and more details. They have just about every fishing you could want there. The big game fish there are the Corvina which are similar and just as big as our white sea bass. Godinho has bagged a few of those.

If you're interested, here are some pictures I took of the country.
Belém Tower

Lisbon



Algarve Coast ( Lagos)





Berlengas Island

Aveiro


Porto


Cheers!