Spearfishing in Nador — where to get in, the season, and the truth about Marchica

The first thing that comes to mind when you hear "Nador" is the Marchica lagoon: a hundred and fifteen square kilometres of calm water, the largest lagoon in Morocco, shielded from the swell by a long sand bar that opens to the sea through a single pass.

And the first thing to know, if you are carrying a speargun, is that this lagoon is not your ground. For two reasons, one practical and one legal.

Why it is not the lagoon

In practice. Marchica is shallow, its bottom is mostly sand, mud and seagrass, and its water is usually murky. Visibility there is counted in a few metres on the best days. Salinity is high, between 39.6 and 40.4 parts per thousand, close to seawater and sometimes above it, but that does not manufacture visibility. There are fish, but they are murky-water fish: grey mullet, European seabass, gilthead seabream. And shooting them in water where you cannot see three metres is not hunting, it is luck.

In law. Marchica is a classified site, a site of biological and ecological interest, listed under the Ramsar convention on wetlands since 2005. Marine activity there is regulated, and it holds aquaculture concessions and seaweed-farming projects. The farm concessions are closed to a spearfisher simply because they are private property and a concession, quite apart from fisheries law itself.

So where is the rock

In two directions, both about half an hour from the town.

East, Ras El Ma, the Cap de l'Eau. Rocky coast at the mouth of the Moulouya, water that changes fast with the wind, mixed bottom of stone and sand. It is also the answer when you go looking at Saidia and find nothing but sand end to end.

West, the Cap des Trois Fourches. This is the real ground. A long rocky headland running north, with cliffs, stone bottom and water considerably deeper and clearer than anything around it. And it is exposed: a calm day out there is worth a week elsewhere, and a windy day is not worth attempting at all.

The sea conditions page for Nador covers the town area, and the Cap des Trois Fourches and Ras El Ma pages cover the two capes. Read all three before choosing a direction, because the gap between them on the same day can be large.

The best season

June to October. The water goes above twenty degrees, the sea settles for days at a time, and visibility at the capes becomes fair to good.

September and October are the two months to plan for: the water is still warm from summer, the crowds have gone, and the passing fish are moving.

Winter is difficult: water around sixteen degrees, and northerly and easterly winds dirty everything and shut both capes.

Water temperature

Nador by season: about 16 degrees in winter, 17.5 in spring, 24 in summer, 21.5 in autumn. Which means summer here is among the warmest water on the Moroccan Mediterranean, and winter is genuinely cold.

In practice: 5 mm from November to May, 3 mm in August and September. The wetsuit page and the day's water temperature are on the spot page.

The wind is what really decides

At Nador the big swell does not often come from far away. The local wind makes it. One strong easterly day is enough to dirty Ras El Ma, and a northerly shuts the Cap des Trois Fourches.

So read the wind first, then the chop, then the swell. And if you see a windless day in the forecast, cancel whatever you had planned and go, because days like that do not come round often.

The fish

At the capes: white seabream and two-banded seabream on the stone, common dentex above the rocky bottom, brown meagre in the cracks, red porgy along the sand edges, common octopus under the stones and European conger in the deep holes.

Passing through in season: bluefish, leerfish and Atlantic bonito.

Dusky grouper is still there but has become rare on this coast. Its page explains why, and what leaving it means.

Every page gives the legal size and the identification. The minimum sizes table is read before the shot.

Closed areas

The port and its channels, the surroundings of installations, military areas, supervised beaches in season, and the farm concessions in the lagoon. The border with the neighbouring zone to the north is sensitive ground: you do not go near it with a speargun and it is not a conversation to have on the spot. The detail is on the regulations page.

The permit

Maritime fisheries delegation of Nador. The procedure and the documents are in the permit guide. And if you plan to hunt at Ras El Ma or the Cap des Trois Fourches, ask in the same visit whether the district is the same one.

In short

Nador is a lagoon town, but its spearfishing is not in the lagoon. Take the road east to Ras El Ma or west to the Cap des Trois Fourches, choose your day on the wind rather than the swell, and ask the delegation about Marchica instead of guessing. The two capes give more than anyone who has not tried them expects.