Sardina del Norte, Gran Canaria
Harbour wall · Salt water
A small north-west harbour below Gáldar with a stone mole, a sheltered sand bay beside it and steep rock immediately outside, reached from the mole by stone steps into the water.
Safety: boat traffic and being seen — 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 · 2
Spearfishing · 2
What these strengths mean
- Repeatedly reported
- Several independent public accounts. Enough to say it happens more than once; not enough to call it a fishery.
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
- 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 Sardina del Norte, Gran Canaria 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.
Widely documented on this ground
Documented at three or more neighbouring places, fished a way this place is also fished. That is a pattern about the ground rather than about any one mark, and it is the closest this site comes to saying you will probably meet a fish somewhere nothing has been written about.
From the shore
- Mediterranean parrotfish — documented at El Confital; Melenara and Taliarte; Puerto de Mogán (+2 more)
- Atlantic horse mackerel — documented at The Arinaga coast, Gran Canaria; Playa de Arinaga, Gran Canaria; Castillo del Romeral, Gran Canaria (+2 more)
- Bogue — documented at Melenara and Taliarte; Puerto de Mogán; Maspalomas and El Pajar
- Salema porgy — documented at Melenara and Taliarte; Puerto de Mogán; Maspalomas and El Pajar
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
- Comber — documented at El Confital; The La Aldea coast
- Dusky grouper — documented at El Confital; The La Aldea coast
- Greater amberjack — documented at The Arinaga coast, Gran Canaria; Puerto de Mogán
- Red porgy — documented at El Confital; The La Aldea coast
- European squid — documented at Playa del Cabrón, Gran Canaria
- Striped red mullet — documented at Maspalomas and El Pajar
Spearfishing
- Dusky grouper — documented at El Confital; The La Aldea coast
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.
The ground and the water
- The ground
- A small north-west harbour below Gáldar with a stone mole, a sheltered sand bay beside it and steep rock immediately outside, reached from the mole by stone steps into the water.
- Exposure
- Sheltered from the prevailing north-easterly by the corner of the island it sits behind.
- 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
Boat traffic and being seen — Can cause serious injury or death
Summer small-craft traffic on this coast is heavy and fast, and a swimmer, breath-hold diver or small float is nearly invisible from a planing hull until it is too close to alter course.
What reduces it: Carry a surface marker buoy with a dive flag and keep it directly above the diver, work inside marked zones where they exist, and leave water where traffic is heavy rather than trying to be seen in it.
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.
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
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, and underwater fishing is licensed separately again. This is an owned and operated structure: whether angling is allowed on it, when and on what terms is the operator's decision and is frequently seasonal. Check both with the Canary regional fisheries authority and with the harbour 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.
- The Agaete coast, Gran Canaria — 5–10 km · Cliff coast
- The La Aldea coast — 10–25 km · Cliff coast
- Gran Canaria — 10–25 km · Island
- El Confital — 10–25 km · Rock platform
- The Avenida Marítima, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria — 25–40 km · Promenade
- Melenara and Taliarte — 25–40 km · Harbour wall
- Puerto de Mogán — 25–40 km · Harbour wall
- The El Burrero breakwater, Gran Canaria — 25–40 km · Breakwater
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 regional angling guidance sites — Various Canary-based angling and island guidance publishers (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Island-by-island Spanish-language guidance naming the coasts, moles, harbours and beaches that are fished from the shore in the Canaries, and the species presented as local shore species at them.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Canary Islands angling community and forum material — Public Canary angling forums and community postings (Practitioner report)Relied on for: Public Canary angling community accounts naming specific marks and describing the ground at them, treated as evidence that a mark is genuinely fished and as nothing else.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation 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
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-20.