Tor Bay, Brixham.

Brixham Harbour, loosing the light.

Brixham was at one time the most important fishing port in England. Trawlers from here went under sail to the cod fishing grounds off Newfoundland, The Grand Banks. There is still a fishing fleet based here; to the visiting angler it would appear that the purpose of the fleet is to make a lot of noise and spill diesel fuel into the harbour. Most fishing here is done on the breakwater, fishing the outside of the wall is mainly by float. The bottom is snaggy and a lot of tackle will be lost. If bottom fishing, bass, conger, wrasse, dogfish, pouting and pollack can be expected. Most people are content to floatfish for mackerel and garfish. If you are prepared to experiment on float depth ( up to thirty feet or so) you can amuse yourself species hunting; ballan, corkwing, goldsinney and rockcook wrasse can all be caught here. Fishing on the inside of the breakwater is limited by access over the rocks, if you can find a spot, summer evenings are productive for mackerel and scad on floatfished mackerel strip. Children can catch small gobies, wrasse,blennies and rockling from the stone jetty at the start of the breakwater by the lifeboat mooring. This is also a good spot for mackerel and scad. The scad tend to turn up as the light is fading.

From the rocks.

If you park in the car park in Blackball Lane you will find a few spots along the harbourside where you can fish. If you head out past the research lab buildings you will find the coast path which leads up through the trees to a grassed area; there is fairly easy access down onto the rocks here for a bit of float fishing or fishing a worm bait among the rock gullies for wrasse. The rocks can be slippery when wet. If you continue around the path you will come to a pretty little cove with a cafe and public toilets.

Brixham Harbour and breakwater, the holiday flat was clean but the window wasn't.

Fishing is not allowed in the inner harbour area but the walls will have a population of keen young crab catchers. On the seaward side of the breakwater is Breakwater beach, when the swimmers and divers have gone home this can be a sheltered and quite productive place to fish.

Brixham Bait and Tackle are on The Quay, just across the road from the replica of The Golden Hind at the innermost corner of the harbour.

from stone jetty near the lifeboat mooring