In land sea fishing!

Question
Hi, I am going to fish in Santa Margarita in the Costa Brava,Spain this month,the odd thing is that I will be fishing in salt water canals off a pier.I fished there in April and managed to catch a sea Perch(or at least that whta I think it was! It had a perch type dorsal fin and a faint yellow stripe down it)and one god awful looking thing that was very small and brown!!.I am float fishing with a standard course fishing rod and 6lb line. What bait would you recommend? As you can tell I do not fish often,in fact this is the first year since a was a boy!! Any advice would be appriciated.  Bren  

Answer
Hi Bren;

I am sorry but I have absolutely no idea of what sort of fish are in that area.  My best advice would be to go to a local bait and tackle shop once you get there and see what they suggest as bait.  

Should you not be able to find such a place, then I think the best thing to do is bring along a few proven baits that seem to catch no matter where you are.  Things that you can carry with you; maybe like the new Berkley "Gulp" worms, grubs or minnows or any other supposedly natural tasting packaged products.  Though the manufacturers would like you to think these are as good as the real thing, I frankly have always found live or fresh bait better than anything in a package. But when you have no choice, something is better than nothing.

There is one other source of natural bait that is often overlooked.  A local fishmarket!  Any sort of squid, clam, oyster, mussel, shrimp, or even small food fish can be used.  Chances are that anything locally harvested as seafood for human consumption, is also eaten by fish in that area. Depending upon the species available in the water you are fishing, the size of the bait you use can be anywhere from tiny bits to large chunks.  This gives you a great deal to experiment with.    

I hope this is of some help.

-Rich