Lagoa das Sete Cidades, São Miguel
Lake · Fresh water · in The Azores
Two joined freshwater lakes filling a volcanic caldera at the western end of São Miguel, separated by a low isthmus carrying a road and a bridge, with wooded and steep caldera walls all around them.
Safety: boat safety — can cause serious injury or death. 2 more points apply here.
FishingHQ describes what this place is, not whether you may fish it. Access, permits and who to ask.
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 · 4
European perchRecorded here1 placeLagoa das Sete Cidades, São MiguelOver lakeObserved Mar
Largemouth bassRecorded here1 placeLagoa das Sete Cidades, São MiguelOver lakeObserved Mar
Northern pikeRecorded here1 placeLagoa das Sete Cidades, São MiguelOver lakeObserved Mar
RoachRecorded here1 placeLagoa das Sete Cidades, São MiguelOver lakeObserved Mar
What these strengths mean
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
- 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: Coarse fishing.
Methods the sources name for this ground. Each one is explained in full on its own page.
- Spinning
Casting an artificial lure and retrieving it so that it moves like something alive — the most direct form of lure fishing.
- 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.
The ground and the water
- The ground
- Two joined freshwater lakes filling a volcanic caldera at the western end of São Miguel, separated by a low isthmus carrying a road and a bridge, with wooded and steep caldera walls all around them.
- Exposure
- Enclosed by the caldera and sheltered from the sea entirely, though the wind funnels along the water when it blows down the crater.
- Depth
- A caldera lake: steep-sided, deep in the middle, with shallow margins and weed where the ground shelves in.
Through the year
Fishable through the year, with the practical constraint being the weather over the caldera rather than any run of fish.
The months the sources attach to each species here. Where a species carries no season it is listed underneath rather than assumed to run through the year.
| Species | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| European perch — recorded here, recorded in March. | ||||||||||||
| Largemouth bass — recorded here, recorded in March. | ||||||||||||
| Northern pike — recorded here, recorded in March. | ||||||||||||
| Roach — recorded here, recorded in March. |
Safety
Boat safety — Can cause serious injury or death
The banks and seamounts that produce the fishing are open-ocean ground far from shelter, sometimes with the nearest alternative harbour on a different island, and Atlantic conditions can deteriorate faster than a small craft can cross that distance.
What reduces it: Treat a seamount trip as offshore passage-making rather than as a fishing outing. Go in a boat and with people equipped for it, set a turn-round decision on the forecast before leaving, and carry the means to call for help from beyond VHF range of land.
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Swell reaches the islands from any direction with no shelf to dissipate it, so waves at exposed lava platforms are larger and less regular than the wind suggests and arrive in sets rather than steadily.
What reduces it: Check swell rather than wind and check its direction. Watch a platform for a sustained period before committing to it, and never fish a position you could not leave immediately.
Sun, dehydration and fatigue — Can cause injury needing treatment
Long summer sessions on shadeless rock produce dehydration and heat exhaustion, and both degrade judgement and coordination well before they produce collapse, on ground where both are what keep somebody safe.
What reduces it: Carry substantially more water than the session appears to need, fish the ends of the day rather than the middle of it in high summer, and treat shade and a stopping time as part of the plan.
Rules and access
Licence
A sport fishing licence is required for inland waters in the Azores, issued by the regional forestry and land-management directorate rather than by the national body.
Permission to fish
Partly geographic. Freshwater fishing in the Azores is permitted in lagoons, and only São Miguel and Flores have any — the directorate publishes which waters are open, and that list is the answer rather than a general right.
FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Fresh water in the Azores is a set of volcanic crater lakes under regional administration, several of them stocked and several inside protected landscapes. Permission, seasons and methods are set regionally and change. Check with the regional environment and fisheries authorities before going.
Who holds the answer:
- The regional environment authority, for the crater lakes and the protected landscapes around them.
- The Regional Directorate for Fisheries of the Azores, for recreational licences and the rules on sizes, species and gear
- The managing authorities of the archipelago's marine protected areas and seamount closures, whose boundaries govern what may be done inside them
- The regional environment authority, for the crater lakes and the protected landscapes containing them
- Charter skippers and dive centres, for current practice and for where the closure boundaries actually run
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Mosteiros, São Miguel — 2–5 km · Rock platform
- Ponta Delgada harbour, São Miguel — 10–25 km · Harbour wall
- Rabo de Peixe, São Miguel — 10–25 km · Harbour wall
- Praia das Milícias, São Miguel — 10–25 km · Beach
- Ponta da Costa, São Miguel — 10–25 km · Rock mark
- The São Miguel coast — 25–40 km · Cliff coast
- Porto de Pescas da Caloura, São Miguel — 25–40 km · Harbour wall
- Lagoa de São Brás, São Miguel — 25–40 km · Lake
Sources for this place
- Species hunting adventures on São Miguel — a two-part March diary at named marks — Something Fishy Going On (angling blog), 2022 (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That this mark is fished from the shore on light tackle, the ground and access described from it, and the species taken there in March.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Pesca desportiva em águas interiores — the Azores inland fishing regime — Direção Regional dos Recursos Florestais e Ordenamento Territorial, Governo dos Açores (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That sport fishing in Azorean inland waters is practised on São Miguel and Flores only, is permitted in lagoons, and requires a licence issued by the regional directorate.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Freshwater Fishes of the British Isles — HarperCollins (New Naturalist 75), 1992 (Reference work)Relied on for: Distribution, habitat requirement, ecology and life history of European freshwater fishes, including the species named for this water.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 surface waters, including hydromorphological modification, barriers to migration and the pressures recorded on the water body.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-25.