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El Hierro

Island · Salt water · in Canary Islands

The smallest and most westerly of the inhabited islands, a young volcanic cone with a cliff-bound coast, lava platforms at sea level and almost no sand anywhere.

Safety: cliffs and rock platforms — can cause serious injury or death.

What each one does, and what reduces it ↓

FishingHQ describes what this place is, not whether you may fish it. Access, permits and who to ask.

Fishing places on El Hierro

3 publicly documented places inside this one, each with its own ground, catch and access.

  • Pozo de las Calcosas

    Rock platform

    A hamlet of dry-stone and thatch houses at the foot of a cliff on the island's north coast, with natural rock pools cut into the lava platform below it and boulder ground running out into deep water.

    Documented here: Mediterranean parrotfish, White seabream, Comber and 2 more

  • Puerto de la Estaca

    Harbour wall

    The island's only ferry harbour, a mole built out from a cliff-bound eastern shore with no beach anywhere near it and the ground dropping away almost vertically outside the arm.

    Documented here: Mediterranean parrotfish, White seabream, Bogue and 2 more

  • The Tamaduste coast, El Hierro

    Rock platform

    Low lava platform and a natural rock-enclosed pool on El Hierro's north-eastern shore, with clear deep water immediately outside the shelter.

    Documented here: Greater amberjack, White seabream, Dusky grouper

What you can catch here

Documented at this place, grouped by how you would be fishing, with how strongly the sources support each one. This is what has been written down, not a forecast, and being listed is never permission to fish.

From the shore · 5

What these strengths mean
Regular local target
Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
How breadth is counted
A fish documented at six marks is shown as six marks: breadth never raises the strength on its own. A fishery account describes the fishing; a recorded catch reports one specific catch. How evidence is weighed.

Fish documented nearby, not here

Nothing below has been documented at El Hierro itself. Each one has been documented at a named place on the same ground, and the places are listed with it. Treat this as what the water around here holds rather than as a catch list for this mark.

Also documented at neighbouring places

One or two accounts each, on the ground around here. Enough to know the fish is caught in these waters; not enough to say anything about this place.

From the shore

How people fish it

Practised here: Sea fishing, Spearfishing.

The ground and the water

The ground
The smallest and most westerly of the inhabited islands, a young volcanic cone with a cliff-bound coast, lava platforms at sea level and almost no sand anywhere.
Exposure
Fully exposed Atlantic on all sides, with the north coast taking the worst of it.
Depth
The most abrupt in the archipelago: depth of several hundred metres is reached within a short distance of the shore, which is the reason the island's diving and its fishing are both unusual.

Safety

Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death

Atlantic swell reaches the northern and western coasts with little energy lost, because there is no shelf to dissipate it. Waves at exposed lava platforms are larger and less predictable than the wind suggests, and people are washed off regularly.

What reduces it: Check swell rather than wind. Watch any platform for a sustained period before committing to it. Never fish a position you could not leave immediately, and treat undercut and blowhole ground as unsafe regardless of conditions.

Rules and access

FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. The Canary Islands are an autonomous community licensing their own recreational sea, boat and underwater fishing, separately from mainland Spain, and the archipelago carries marine reserves in which fishing and diving are restricted or prohibited on boundaries a visitor cannot see from the shore. Measures change. Check the current position with the Canarian government's fisheries administration before going.

Particular to this water: A Canary recreational fishing licence is required, separately for shore, boat and underwater fishing. This ground also lies in or beside a marine reserve whose restrictions are ZONED rather than uniform, and the zoning changes. FishingHQ holds neither the licence requirements nor the reserve rules — establish both with the Canary regional fisheries authority and the reserve authority before fishing.

Who holds the answer:

  • The Canarian government's fisheries administration, which licenses recreational sea and underwater fishing in the archipelago.
  • The island council, for local measures and for access to the coast.
  • The marine reserve administration, where the water is inside a reserve.
  • The regional Canarian government fisheries administration, for recreational licences, sizes and species rules
  • The Spanish national maritime and fisheries authorities, for offshore and vessel matters
  • The managing authority of any marine protected area or reserve, whose zoning governs what is permitted inside it
  • Local dive centres, charter operators and clubs, for current practice and access on individual islands

Nearby fishing

Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.

El HierroPozo de las CalcosasLa Restinga, El HierroPuerto de la EstacaThe Tamaduste coast, El Hierro
El Hierro and the publicly documented places around it. Approximate positions, not marks. On a narrow screen the plot is wider than the screen and scrolls sideways inside its frame. Positions are approximate by design — they are capped at about a hundred metres and describe where a named public place is, not where fish are and not a mark. Everything plotted here is also listed below.

Sources for this place

  • EMODnet — the European Marine Observation and Data Network — The European Commission, assembled from the national hydrographic offices, geological surveys and marine institutes of the member states (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Charted bathymetry, seabed substrate and seabed habitat for European sea areas, assembled from the national hydrographic and geological surveys, at the resolution the product publishes.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
  • The European Environment Agency's assessments of Europe's waters, seas and coasts — European Environment Agency, Copenhagen (Conservation authority)Relied on for: Assessment of Europe's coasts and regional seas, including the condition of coastal water bodies, the pressures recorded on them and the coverage of designated sites.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
  • Canary Islands marine reserves and recreational fishing licensing — Spanish and Canary regional fisheries and environmental authorities (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That marine reserves exist in the archipelago with zoned rather than uniform restrictions, and that a Canary recreational fishing licence is required for shore and boat fishing alike.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
  • Tallas mínimas de captura — Canarias: minimum landing sizes and closed seasons — Gobierno de Canarias, Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería y Pesca — Dirección General de Pesca, with the Grupo de Acción Costera de Tenerife and the Cabildo de Tenerife (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: The identity of the animals the Canary fisheries directorate regulates as recreational shore-gathering species, the Canarian names it gives them, and its own statement that the table applies across all eight islands.States this directlyPassage read and verified

How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-20.

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