Fishing in Murcia - La Manga

Although the area of Murcia - also known as Costa Calida - is a relatively unknown for sport fishing, it is one of the best fishing areas of the spanish Mediterranean. This coast line, that stretches out over more than 250km features lonely bays, white dunes in the playa El Mojon, small villages like Aguilas, the Manga del Mar Menor and endless beaches with crystal clear water.

Murcia still has vast untouched sea beds, especially in the natural reserves from Cabo de Palos, Islas Hormigas, Isla del Fraile in Aguilas, Cabo Tiñoso and Azohia and the Bajo de Emilio in the coast of Mazarron.

Around the different capes of Murcia, fishing is very interesting. In the north, the sea beds are rather sandy with a few rocky patches. Towards the capes the sea floor has much more rocks and the water is clean and crystal clear. The coast of Murcia features cliffs that rise from the Mediterranean Sea. The cliffs fall vertically into the Mediterranean sea and reach depths between 25 to 45 m. The irregular rocky bottoms are the habitat of the dentex, amberjack, pink dentex and grouper. Here, the best fishing technique is trolling with downriggers (preferably with life bait) and vertical jigging.

Not far away from the coast, the depths rapidly reach 100m, excellent fishing grounds for bottom fishing. The famous Piedras Malas (Bad Stones) hide enormous conger eel, snapper, grouper, and other great sport fish. The best time of the year for bottom fishing is winter.

South of the capes, the drop-off is about 5-8 miles from the coast. 10 Miles from off shore we have 1000 m of depth, excellent for big game fishing and tuna fishing. The most popular technique is chumming, we drift and chum all kinds of pieces of fish. During the summer months, this is a great place to fish for giant blue fin tuna (900lb+)

Between May and November you may want to do some light trolling. With this technique you can catch great sport fish like Melva, little tunny and bonito. In areas with 50-60 m deep, these predators hunt in top water for sardines, anchovies and mackerel. The best lures are small Rapala, Williamson, Yozuri and all kind of feathers and squids. In september the mahi-mahi or dolphinfish arrive at Costa Calida and they great fun to catch.

During the winter months, when the weather is calm, locals often go bottom fishing with electric reels. They fish for all kind of bottom fish like snapper, conger eel, grouper, black spot sea bream, scorpion fish, etc.

Shimano Tiagra 30 lb for trolling. Shimano Tiagra 130 libras for big game fishing, Shimano Stella 20000 for jigging, Kristal Fishing and Rioby for deep sea bottom fishing.