As I often go out to sea on a dive boat when I’m in Tenerife, I see many local Tenerife fishermen, either fishing on a boat out at sea or using a rod and reel from the coast to catch their evening meal.

I am always astounded at the ‘ingenuity’ of the local Tenerife fishermen who have over the years honed their talents to become supreme hunters, whether its using empty water bottles as buoys or turning up at the most inaccessible of places to fish they never cease to amaze me .

This ingenuity was demonstrated on a recent trip to Playa San Juan where I came across local men fishing from the rocks. They were using Sea Urchin as bait, sending a free-diver (complete with protective gloves) down to collect the creatures and bring them to shore, a practise the local dive school would approve of because the Sea Urchin has become the scourge of the diver.

These ‘sea hedgehogs’ if left unchecked, will devastate their environment, creating what biologists call an urchin barren, an area that is devoid of macro-algae (which they feed upon) and associated fauna.

In some areas of Tenerife, there is now a noticeable reduction in the number of fish that we see on dives where the Sea Urchin has taken over areas. Divers do their bit, often when they are doing their ‘safety stop’ (usually a 3 min stop at 5m) they will use dive knifes to break open a few urchins, as soon as the fish notice, they are in for a feast on their favorite delicacy.

Where they have cleared an area of Urchins, the fish soon come back, so for me (as a Diver), not only did I find the local Tenerife fishermen’s use of the Urchin as bait inventive, I also appreciated the fact that using Urchins would be a win – win situation for the fishermen because it helps encourage more fish into the area.