Monday 22 January 2007

Weymouth Stone Pier

The Stone Pier, Weymouth, from the Pleasure Pier.

The Stone Pier lies at the end of the short peninsula called the Nothe which is dominated by the Nothe Fort; pay and display car parking can be found at the top of The Nothe which is signposted from the road leading out of Weymouth towards Portland. Car park attendants are zealous in their pursuit of motorists, don't overstay your expensive ticket.
This is a child friendly spot to fish, however kids of ankle-biter size will need to be closely supervised as the railings are widely spaced.
This is a good place for species hunting, many and varied little fish can be caught on simple tackle and without the need to cast far. Use a small piece of ragworm or a sliver of fish bait on a fine wire hook of size four or smaller; I favour a small sliver of sand eel over mackerel as I seem to have more success with it. Use a simple rig tied without swivels and expensive bits as you will lose tackle in the weed and snags; drop the baits in close to the wall, watch for bites and react quickly as the fish will dive for cover in the snags. Bottom fishing out from the end, or towards the town is onto fairly clean ground and a great many species can be caught using ragworm or fish baits such as mackerel, herring, sandeel or squid..
Long casts are not required and put you at risk of losing your tackle to boat traffic as they travel in and out of the harbour. Boats have the right of way, reel in if one is heading for your line.
The seaward side of the pier has extensive kelp beds and although some big wrasse, bass and conger can be caught tackle loss will be high.
Best all round bait will be ragworm and mackerel or squid. Float fishing for mackerel, bream and garfish is the most popular type of fishing in the summer. It is also possible to catch both black bream and gilthead bream.
The juniors from the local fishing club have their competitions here on Monday evenings during the summer, the matches are very well attended and are a confusion of boys and girls rushing about to get their fish recorded and to get back to fishing.... competition is intense !
If you are near Weymouth and want to start sea fishing the club will give you a great start with help and advice.
The nearest tackle shop is the Weymouth Angling Centre near the Town Bridge.


During the summer months there is a café and snack bar on the landward end of the pier with a toilet block adjacent.

Disabled anglers can best access the pier along a level path from the town along Nothe Parade, there is wheelchair access from the Nothe car park, head towards the fort and turn left.... but the path is steep and uneven where tree roots have lifted and cracked the tarmac.



updated 9th June 2014

2 comments:

Billy Short said...

Nice blog mate, only just found this via WSF.

Unknown said...

This is brilliant, I think. I am looking for lrf spots within reach of ross on wye! This site really helps with so much detail. Thanks