From The Pleasure Pier, Weymouth.
Someone with a great sense of humour named this The Pleasure Pier.
My understanding of pleasure does not include vandalism, graffiti, litter and decrepit dirty semi-abandoned buildings*. The fishing can be quite good and it is a place you can fish when the weather is too bad to fish the nearby Chesil Beach.In winter you can fish the Harbour side of the pier, wrasse, pout, dogfish and pollack are fairly abundant after dark along with whiting in winter and the occasional bass. Float fishing is popular during the summer for mackerel and garfish. Do look out for boat traffic and reel your lines in out of their way, long casting is not really required as the fish may be directly under you. This is a popular venue for species hunters and lrf anglers.
This is one of a few venues in the UK where you can catch squid from the shore, not the little calamari squid, but half metre long squid that make good eating ( I cannot say how good as, thankfully, I have never been so hungry as to try to eat one.) The squid usually arrive in late September to early November.
There are no facilities nearby. The nearest tackle shop is near the Town Bridge. Car parking is adjacent to the fishing, (pay and display free after 6pm) you can fish from the sea wall at the car park and around behind the Tower, the water is fairly shallow here but a variety of species can be caught. Gilthead bream have put in an appearance in recent years and tub gurnard can sometimes be caught by setting a float to drag the strip of mackerel bait along or near the sea bed. Mackerel can be caught at night here on occasions, the shoals will be on the surface and can be caught with a float set very shallow.... if the wind is from behind you then the float and weight can be dispensed with and the bait 'freelined' on the surface.
The Car Park wall, Weymouth Pleasure Pier.* Update Mar 2020, the buildings on the pier have now been demolished taking away any shelter from the weather. The tower which was built in the corner of the car park has now been removed too so it is as the photo above, as it used to be.
4 comments:
what time of the year do the squid usually show up around the pleasure pier?
squid usually around from late September into early November but like all fish movements can be variable...sometimes early, sometimes late.
Do you need a fishing license to fish there during the day?
no licence is needed to fish in any sea surrounding the UK, you need one to fish for migratory game fish such as salmon or sea trout within 3 miles of the shore but in effect this means that if you catch one of these you should return it.
also see http://haddock-fishyfishy.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/rod-licence-scam.html
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