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The Kornati islands

Island · Salt water · in The Croatian Adriatic

Some 140 bare karst islands, islets and reefs in the central Croatian Adriatic, almost without soil or fresh water, with white limestone above the surface and vertical cliffs on the seaward side dropping into deep clear water.

Safety: drowning and immersion — can cause serious injury or death. 3 more points apply here.

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.

Also associated with this ground

Recorded as present here without a documented method or strength behind them.

Dusky grouper · Common dentex · White seabream · Common octopus · Red scorpionfish

How people fish it

Practised here: Sea fishing, Spearfishing.

Methods the sources name for this ground. Each one is explained in full on its own page.

  • Float fishing

    Suspending a bait at a controlled depth beneath a buoyant indicator — the most visual, most controllable and most widely applicable method in angling.

  • Shore diving

    Entering and leaving the water from land under your own power — the most accessible spearfishing and the one where the entry and exit are the dangerous part.

  • Aspetto (waiting)

    Descending, settling on the bottom and waiting for fish to come to you — the technique that produces most of the large fish taken by shore divers.

  • Kayak fishing

    A platform rather than a technique: quiet, shallow-draught access to water no other craft reaches, bought at the price of exposure, and a discipline where the decision not to launch is part of the skill.

The ground and the water

The ground
Some 140 bare karst islands, islets and reefs in the central Croatian Adriatic, almost without soil or fresh water, with white limestone above the surface and vertical cliffs on the seaward side dropping into deep clear water.
Exposure
The seaward crowns take the open Adriatic and the bora — a violent cold downslope wind from the north-east that arrives with very little warning — while the inner channels are sheltered.
Depth
Deep on the outer side where the cliffs continue below the surface, shallower in the sheltered channels between the islands.

Through the year

Dived and fished through the warm half, with the bora the event that decides a day in any season.

Safety

Drowning and immersion — Can cause serious injury or death

Mediterranean rock shores drop into deep water within a body length of the edge, so a slip puts somebody into water they cannot stand up in, frequently with no beach within reach and nobody in sight.

What reduces it: Wear a flotation aid rather than carry one, fish rock ground with somebody else, carry a means of calling for help on the person, and treat wet or weeded rock at the water's edge as unusable rather than as careful ground.

Weather and lightning — Can cause serious injury or death

The bora descends from the mountains behind this coast as a violent, gusty, cold north-easterly that can arrive in a few minutes and raise a short vicious sea in water that was calm, in an archipelago with long crossings between shelter.

What reduces it: Treat a bora forecast as a reason not to leave shelter rather than a reason to hurry, plan crossings so that a lee is always reachable, and take local judgement about the wind seriously.

Shallow water blackout and breath-hold loss of consciousness — Can cause serious injury or death

Warm, clear, comfortable water lengthens dives, and hypoxic blackout gives no warning symptoms at all. Hyperventilation suppresses the urge to breathe without adding oxygen, and the diver loses consciousness with no signal that would prompt them to surface.

What reduces it: One up, one down on every dive without exception, with the buddy watching the ascent and the first thirty seconds after it from close enough to reach the diver. Take proper surface intervals, and never dive after hyperventilating.

Worse when:

  • In exceptional visibility over a wall with a fish in sight, which is precisely when a diver stays down longer than intended.
  • Diving alone, which is the common factor in freediving fatalities.

Boat traffic and being seen — Can cause serious injury or death

Summer boat traffic is heavy, fast and largely recreational, and a diver's head in a chop is close to invisible from a moving vessel. Propeller injuries are catastrophic.

What reduces it: Use a surface marker buoy with a flag that is genuinely visible, stay with it rather than ranging away from it, and surface beside the float when an engine is approaching.

Rules and access

FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Croatia sells recreational sea fishing licences for fixed periods — a day, several days, a year — and treats underwater fishing as a separate category with its own licence, its own minimum age and its own prohibitions, including on the use of breathing apparatus. Protected areas, national parks and species measures apply on top and change. Check the current position with the ministry responsible for fisheries before going.

Particular to this water: This ground lies in or beside a marine protected area whose zoning constrains fishing, diving, anchoring and collection independently of any licence, with rules that differ between zones and boundaries that are not visible from the water. Underwater fishing is licensed and regulated separately from rod fishing throughout this jurisdiction, with its own age, equipment and distance requirements, and holding a rod licence is not permission to spearfish.

Who holds the answer:

  • The Croatian ministry responsible for fisheries, which issues recreational sea and underwater fishing licences.
  • The national park or nature park administration, where the water is inside one.
  • The port authority, for access to structures.
  • The Croatian ministry responsible for agriculture and fisheries, which issues recreational and sport fishing licences and sets catch limits and species restrictions.
  • The national park or nature park authority for the island group concerned, where fishing is prohibited or restricted independently of any licence.
  • The harbour master's office, for navigation, anchoring and the rules applying to small craft.
  • The local licence vendor or tourist office, which issues the time-limited recreational licences and is where the current categories can be established.

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
  • FAO Species Identification Guides for Fishery Purposes and the FAO Species Catalogues — Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Identification, distribution and habitat association of the fishes and invertebrates of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
  • FishBase: a global information system on fishes — Froese, R. and D. Pauly, eds. — FishBase Consortium (Scientific institute)Relied on for: Recorded distribution, depth range and habitat association of the species named for this ground.States this directlyPassage read and verified
  • RNLI water safety guidance: cold water shock and Float to Live — Royal National Lifeboat Institution (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Cold water shock and the immersion response, tidal cut-off, and water-safety guidance for shore anglers and small-craft users. Cited for the mechanism, which does not vary by coast.States this directlyPassage read and verified

How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-18.

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