Burnham on Sea, Somerset.

Burnham on Sea, looking north towards the Lower Light.

Burnham on Sea is muddy, sticky slippy mud, and is not a place for children. The beach is shallow and the tide run can be fierce on the bigger tides. There is quite often weed in the water that has come down the river, This beach is usually fished from low tide back up to high and then only on the smaller tides, Be prepared to move your kit back frequently as the tide marches up the beach at quite a pace. Watch out for the tide coming behind you if you are near the boating pool; it won't be deep enough to be a danger but you will get your boots full. You can park along the sea front road, and go down onto the beach; or drive on through the town to Trinity Rise or Allendale Road and walk ( or rather tiptoe through the dog poo) down the paths to the beach. These paths will bring you out to the Lower Light which is the white object in the photo in the distance.
Distance casting is not always required here, fish such as flounder, bass, eels and sole can be close in looking for food disturbed by the incoming tide. Cod and congers are the main target here, at times it can be difficult not to catch a conger. Dogfish are also present in numbers. Best baits are ragworm, squid and fishbaits. A technique that can score is to tie a big hook above a small hook, the small hook is baited. When a whiting is hooked, leave it wriggling, this will attract a conger and the big hook should deal with the conger as it takes the livebait. A thirty centimetre whiting is just a snack to these eels. The one below is about seven kilo, they come much bigger than this.

A cross conger, in the mud, in the dark, in the rain; it has taken a whiting livebait

Be careful when unhooking these congers they have teeth and attitude, they bite !

At high tide on the big tides it is possible to fish from the sea wall, south of the slipway on the Esplanade and around towards the Sailing Club.

There is a webcam positioned to look towards the Pier, which in reality is just an amusement arcade on stilts over the beach. Tackle shops are Thyers by the mini roundabout in Highbridge . There was a tackle shop in Burnham on Sea but I cannot confirm if it is open now.

One more tip, I use a kid's plastic sledge to transport my gear across the mud; and it provides a platform out of the mud to put stuff when you are fishing. It is easy to move back with the tide using the sledge. People do look at you a bit funny when you take the sledge out of the car though.