Today was my second real fishing trip on the kayak at sea. Both outings so far have been short, maybe two hours, but there’s already plenty to learn. Last time I got up at five and was on the water by around six — and that turned out to be too early: choppy water, darkness, not a single light on the kayak, just a headlamp, and I’m not even sure that’s enough. I’ll admit it was a bit unnerving — some part of me just didn’t want to paddle into that dark, restless void. Today I waited for dawn and went out much calmer.

From the Dnieper to the Costa Blanca

This channel is probably going to be about the process of learning — my evolution as a fisherman, both on the surface and underwater. I do have freshwater experience: I used to love fishing for zander on the Kanivske (Kyiv) Reservoir, and worked out hundreds of spots there over time. That kind of fishing meant no alcohol, no hanging around — dawn to dusk, constantly searching: sonar, old maps, scouting new spots.

Here on Spain’s Costa Blanca, it’s the opposite: the sea is completely unfamiliar, the fish are a novelty, and I keep asking in local groups what species I’m even looking at. One local angler once posted in a chat that he’d caught horse mackerel and was heading out for shark that evening — to me that still sounds like science fiction. I’m literally at the starting stage of this evolution: I bought a cheap Chinese multi-fly rig, and last time I managed to catch a decent number of small horse mackerel on it.

A fly rig, jigging, and finding fish without a fishfinder

I don’t have a fishfinder yet, so I look for spots using visual cues: gulls diving into the water, or small fish getting pushed up to the surface by a bigger predator underneath. Another trick — let the fly rig out about 20 meters behind the kayak and paddle along while the flies work through the water column; a bite while moving is the signal to stop and fish that spot properly.

Today the depth under the kayak was around eight or nine meters, maybe ten. I drop the rig to the bottom, jig it gently, reel up one turn — about 80 cm — and jig again at a different depth. If there’s fish around, they respond almost immediately.

And there were fish: bite after bite, often two or three at once on different flies of the rig. These fish have very delicate, thin mouths that tear easily, so I had to loosen the reel’s drag. I still haven’t quite figured out what I’m actually catching — I keep calling it horse mackerel one moment and mackerel the next, and one fish I trolled up last time looked like a small tuna. My spinning rod is rated up to an ounce, which is strong by river standards but not really sea gear — if a barracuda ever grabbed it, it wouldn’t feel strong at all.

The fly rig did its job for the day: the fish kept tangling the flies around each other, and the hooks, which I naively assumed were stainless, had noticeably rusted after just one outing. I retired it in pretty rough shape.

First fish on a jig

On the way back I decided to try vertical jigging with a pilker — about 20 grams, curved so it glides on the drop. On the seventh cast, I landed my first fish ever on a jig — and again I couldn’t tell if it was horse mackerel or mackerel. The fish usually strike right on the fall, sometimes before the lure even settles — it seems like that slow, gliding drop is exactly what draws in a passive predator.

Sometimes after the hookset you can feel something bigger has taken it, and reeling it in is genuinely thrilling — it’s hard to tear yourself away. My camera battery was almost dead, so I decided to make a few more casts and head home.