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La Palma

Island · Salt water · in Canary Islands

A steep young volcanic island with very little level coast: cliff, boulder and black shingle for most of its circumference, with the southern point at Fuencaliente the most consistently used shore ground.

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 La Palma

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

  • Punta de Fuencaliente, La Palma

    Rock platform

    The southern point of La Palma below the lighthouses and the salt pans, a young lava platform running into deep clear water with no beach on either side.

    Documented here: Greater amberjack, White seabream, Dusky grouper

  • Santa Cruz de La Palma

    Harbour wall

    The island capital on the sheltered eastern shore, with a long commercial mole, the old town seafront behind a black shingle beach, and low lava rock running north and south of the harbour.

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

  • Tazacorte and Puerto Naos

    Harbour wall

    The island's only significant harbour, at the mouth of the Barranco de las Angustias, with a breakwater, black sand beaches either side and the ground falling to great depth within a very short distance of the mole.

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

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
Established quarry
Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
Places, accounts and sources are counted separately
A fish documented once at each of six marks is still documented once at each of six marks. Breadth is reported as a place count and never raises the strength, and sources are deduplicated across places so one publisher covering a whole coast counts as one. A fishery account is a source describing the fishing; a recorded catch is a report of a specific catch. They are counted apart because they are not the same evidence.

How people fish it

Practised here: Sea fishing, Spearfishing.

The ground and the water

The ground
A steep young volcanic island with very little level coast: cliff, boulder and black shingle for most of its circumference, with the southern point at Fuencaliente the most consistently used shore ground.
Exposure
Exposed on every side, with the west coast taking Atlantic swell with no shelter at all.
Depth
The defining physical fact of Canary shore fishing: the islands are volcanic cones with no continental shelf, so the ground falls away steeply within metres of the rock and a shore angler is casting into genuinely deep water.

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. FishingHQ does not hold the current requirements — check with the Canary regional fisheries 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.

La PalmaSanta Cruz de La PalmaTazacorte and Puerto NaosPunta de Fuencaliente, La Palma
La Palma and the publicly documented places around it. Approximate positions, not marks. 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 quarry, 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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