There are plenty of opportunities for both the fresh water and sea angler in the rivers and the seas around the coast of Spain.

For fresh water anglers there are rivers and lakes and reservoirs to visit and there are many different kinds of fish to be found in them.

So why not try to catch some of the following:

• Dusky Perch
• Barbel
• Eel
• Chub
• Black Striped Pipefish
• Bleak
• White bream
• Carp and Iberian Toothcarp
• Rudd
• Pike
• Zander
• Roach
• Brook Trout

Regional fishing licences (permiso/licencia de pesca) are required to fish in each region of Spain. Only coastal-water licences are valid throughout the country. Permits should specify if it is for a “catch and release” (sin meurte) area and obviously no fish should be taken away.

There are both public and private fishing waters in Spain. There are three types of fishing environment:

• Free (libros): These waters do not require a special permit
• Restricted (cotos): These are waters that do require a permit.
• Fisheries (intensivos): Permits for these waters are often available in local shops

The fishing season varies based on the particular species of fish. Many rivers have restrictions on the numbers of licences issued per day and the quantity and size of the fish that may be caught.

The Spanish Fishing and Casting Association (Federación Española de Pesca y Casting) has information on fishing sites and regulations (in Spanish). Local tourist offices and town halls often have information about local fishing areas and provide fishing maps (mapa de pesca fluvial).

In Murcia, separate licences are required for the following

• Only the sea coast (tierra; good throughout Spain)
• Only a boat in the sea (embarcación)
• The sea coast and a boat (tierra y embarcación)
• Underwater (pesca submarina)
• Freshwater fishing (pesca fluvial)

Beach fishing and fishing from the rocks is possible, however catches are better when fished from a boat. Freshwater fishing trips as well as boat rental and deep-sea fishing trips can be arranged.

For the website and a link for the Spanish Fishing and Casting Association click here.

For the sea angler there are opportunities to try and catch:

• Striped mullet
• Striped Seabream
• Swallowtail Seaperch
• Black Seabream
• Forkedtail threadfin bream
• Black Seabream
• Gilthead Sea Bream
• Brown Wrasse
• Striped Red Mullet
• Zebra Seabream
• White Seabream
• Northern Bluefin Tuna
• Giant Bluefin Tuna

Japan’s insatiable appetite for sushi has spawned a booming business of Tuna-fattening throughout the Mediterranean that is pushing the mighty Atlantic Bluefin tuna to the brink of extinction, conservationists have warned.

Spain leads this maritime bonanza, with the biggest tuna-fattening operation in the world off the south-east coast near Murcia, but Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia are joining in.

They are over fishing the Bluefin Tuna. Stocks have fallen 20 per cent in the last five years. They don’t breed and rear fish in captivity, they pen up declining stocks of wild fish that migrate to the Mediterranean every summer.

Beyond the obvious problems related to the sustainable management of the wild stock, current Tuna farming practices in the Mediterranean entail a much more subtle though potentially very important environmental risk. During their captive period, which lasts for about 6 months, farmed Tuna are fed on an exclusive basis large quantities of whole bait fish (small and medium pelagic species). Most of it consists of imported frozen, untreated fish, from outside the Mediterranean region, often belonging to small pelagic species alien to the Mediterranean though closely related to the local clupeiform ones (which are mainly sardine Sardina Pilchardus, Anchovy Engraulis Encrasicolus and round Sardinella Sardinella aurita). The systematic dumping into the Mediterranean marine ecosystems of thousands of tonnes of exotic whole fish constitutes a first order environmental threat due to the significant risk of spreading new diseases to the native fish populations. The subsequent threat to local purse seine fishing fleets targeting small pelagic fish is also obvious, as well as to the wider marine ecosystems, where small pelagic populations play a key functional role.