Half-Day Fishing Trip on Sao Miguel Island
February isn’t the ideal time of year for fishing in the Azores, but the weather is comfortable enough to get out on the water (in the 60’s) and there are still plenty of fish to be caught. Summer is when sport fishing is at its peak and people are hauling in massive marlins. This was not our experience, but spending a half day out on the water with some incredible views would have been worth it even if we came up completely empty handed.
We booked a half-day tour out of Vila Franca do Campo on the south side of Sao Miguel Island through Azorsea Adventures. It was a clear sunny morning and the captain, Felipe, began by taking us trolling for barracuda…no luck. We cruised around for at least an hour and it started to seem like we had just picked the wrong day to go fishing. We soon abandoned the prospect of catching barracuda and relocated to a prime grouper hot spot where we began jigging. It wasn’t long before we started pulling up one grouper after another, most of whose eyes had popped out of their heads from the change in pressure since they were swimming so deep. They weren’t huge, and their eyes made them look pretty bizarre, but we were happy to be catching something. Eventually we caught a small barracuda so our original mission to catch a barracuda ended up not being a complete failure.
Underwater Volcano
On the way back to Vila Franca do Campo, Felipe took us to his “secret beach” where he had supposedly discovered underwater volcanic activity. He wasn’t kidding either. The fish finder on his boat started lighting up red when we passed over certain areas and we could clearly see the bubbles rising out of the sand. He even had a book on Azorean volcanoes that credited him for the discovery. It was pretty incredible.
Ilheu da Vila Franca
He then took us past the Ilheu da Vila Franca, the prominent volcanic island just off the coast of Vila Franca do Campo. The island is the tip of a submerged volcano and it has been the venue for the Red Bull cliff diving competition. People come here to swim in the inlet during the summer, but even just circumnavigating the island made for an unexpected highlight of our fishing trip.