Weymouth, Ringstead Bay.

Ringstead Bay, at low tide, showing reefs.

If you take the Wareham road from Weymouth, the A353, you will pass through Osmington; on the right is a 'drop away' turning just before the road goes up under some trees. Follow this narrow lane through a little village and as you go up a fairly steep hill you will see the turning to Ringstead Bay on your right. If you find a National trust car park, you have gone too far. Parking is in a field quite near the beach, it is free in winter but an attendant will take money from you in summertime. There is a cafe and shop which is open only during the holiday season and a toilet block, newly built, to the rear of the shop. Walk past the shop, the lane turns to the right and shortly after you will see a steepish ramp down to a shallow shingle beach. You will see from the photographs that there are reefs just out to sea. This affects the fishing in two ways, firstly the reefs hold wrasse, bass etc but are very snaggy; secondly the reefs make waves and waves attract surfers who will appear from nowhere to enjoy them. Fishing is best done to the west past where the reef ends, if walking along the access lane pass by the ramp and after the 'green' in front of a cottage you will see a rudimentary path, slippery, steep and uneven down to the beach. It is easier to walk along the beach from the ramped access.

Ringstead Bay, looking west from the 'green'

The rough ground here means that wrasse, dogfish, bass and bullhuss are possible along with the usual pout and other small species. In winter whiting and codling can be added to the list, and as near any reef or rough ground a conger eel is not out of the question.

Float fishing for gar, scad, mackerel and bass can be done here in the summer. Nearest tackle shop is the Weymouth Angling Centre.

Approximate Tide Times for the next 7 days

.

Crabbing, Crab species.

A common shore crab.

If you go crabbing then the shore crab is the crab you are most likely to catch, its colour varies from brown, green and sometimes orange or red. The crab changes its shell periodically as it grows; the shell does not grow so the crab sheds it and grows another. If the crab is just ready to pop off its old shell it is called a peeler crab ( because you can peel off the shell and the leg coverings). Peeler crabs make good bait for most species of fish, they usually hide under stones and weed at this stage as they are vulnerable to predators. When the shell comes off there is a short period before the new shell hardens, the crab is now a softy or jelly crab and is also excellent bait. You are not likely to catch peeler or soft crabs, you have to hunt them out at low tide. Wrasse and other fish will eat hardback crabs with no bother, some cod are found to be stuffed with them when gutted.

A Velvet Swimming Crab.

As you can see, the Velvet Swimming Crab is a much more handsome fellow than the shore crab. It is covered in a velvet coat that catches the sunlight to make varying colours. The legs are flattened as an adaption to help it swim in the water. These are not as common as the shore crab but they nip just as hard, and they are usually very aggressive...

Stage one in picking up a crab.

Use your index finger to press firmly enough on the crab to stop it scuttling away. Not too hard or you will damage the crab.

Stage two in picking up a crab.

Having got the crab pinned down, place your middle finger and thumb on opposite sides of the shell and pick the crab up. He cannot get at you; if you are a child you can now terrorise little sisters, mothers, grannies etc with the crab, but remember it is a living creature, not a toy. Don't harm it and put it in a bucket and/or put it back in the sea at the end of your crabbing expedition.

Spider crab

This spider crab is about 40cm across and they grow much bigger, you will need a big bucket to keep these in. This example has lost a claw, this is quite common, it will grow a new one eventually. Spider crabs are vey docile compared with other crabs. The shell is spikey and uncomfortable to hold. Spider crabs nip off hooks and make bottom fishing nearly impossible during the summer along large stretches of the south coast. They are edible, most are exported to the continent if caught commercially.

Squat Lobster (Munida rugosa)

You may find a funny looking crab-like creature with very long claws and long antennae, this is the squat lobster. These grow a body about 10cm long but you are likely to catch specimens very much smaller.

.Hermit Crab

The Hermit Crab does not bother to make a shell on its body, it makes a home in a suitably sized whelk shell or similar and must find a bigger shell at intervals as he grows out of each shell. The crab will draw himself right back into the shell using his armoured claws as a defence. This crab makes a top bait for many larger species of fish and for this purpose can be removed easily from its shell by immersing it in fresh water.

There is another common crab, the Edible crab, when I can catch one in a drop net I will post a photograph.

.

Chesil Beach, Abbotsbury.

Abbotsbury, looking east towards Portland.

The beach at Abbotsbury is a nationally recognised mark, all manner of fish are caught here and it can get crowded when there are cod around in winter or mackerel in the summer..
Turn off the coast road from Weymouth to Bridport ( B3157) on a bend at the bottom of a steep hill that is signposted to the Subtropical Gardens. Go past the gardens and car parks to the end of the lane, there is a car park on your left. An attendant will take money from you in the tourist season but not in winter. There is a toilet block in the car park. Access to the beach is made easier by the boarded walkway to the crest of the bank, after this it is loose shingle; the beach is quite steeply banked and gives access to deep water.

Abbotsbury Beach, looking west.

Experienced anglers tend to trudge off towards the cottages to the west or The Dragon's Teeth to the east. The dragons teeth are a line of shaped concrete anti-tank blocks that remain from WWII. Debate rages whether the fishing is much better but at least you do not have mackerel feathers, hooks and leads whizzing around. You will be fishing onto clean, mainly snag free ground and you can fish fairly light in summer.

The Dragon's Teeth are just visible above the trees in the right foreground.

Shops and cafés are about a mile along the road in the village of Abbotsbury, There is a Swannery to see at Abbotsbury if you get bored with fishing. The nearest tackle shop is Weymouth Angling near the Town Bridge. If you are travelling here from the west then pick up bait in West Bay.
The usual Chesil comment applies here.....do not even think about going onto the beach to fish with a big sea running

Tide Times at Abbotsbury for the next 7 days

Tackle, "Haddock's Rig"

Component parts of Haddock's Rig.

If you have arrived here from a search site looking to set up a standard float rig then click here, this post concerns a cheaper home-made rig that you will no doubt try when you have lost a few shop bought rigs. I found that when float fishing near to piers and rocks, you will almost always lose floats. The cost of a float is not a lot but alternatives to a shop-bought rig cost a few pence to make and, as it turned out, are more versatile. I quite often want to change from float fishing to bottom fishing and the rig shown allows this change to be made in seconds; un-clip the float and put back in your tackle box, un-clip the weight and re-clip to the snap swivel you have taken the float from and you have a simple running ledger. The float is made some of the spongy foam packing pieces that come with many packaged items.  Use a sharp knife to cut the foam to about five inches long and about an inch octagonal cross section, round the ends and insert a nylon cable tie, clip up the tie and trim off the end. The float you have just made will take a standard one ounce weight. Obviously if you make the float longer and leave it almost square the float will take more weight, up to two ounces. If you are fishing lighter weights then you can scale down the size of the float accordingly.

 Another source of material is a foam kid's swimming aid, called, for some reason a 'noodle', 

I picked up one for a couple of pounds from Lidl, it is about 5'6" long and nearly 3" diameter so there are lots of floats in that ! update: Even cheaper.... I notice Poundland were selling them, they were smaller but priced, as you would expect, at a pound.

The sequence for tackling up is thread up a bead, snap swivel, bead and then tie on another snap swivel. The float goes on the snap swivel that is free to run up and down the line and the weight and hook length loop go on the tied snap swivel.... as easy as that.

A rig set up for float fishing a sand eel.

The depth that the bait will be fished at is determined by the elastic band stop knot; just thread one end of the elastic band around the line, back through the band; pull up very tight and snip off ends, like so..........

The float ( like a traditional a sliding float set-up) can then be set to fish at any depth. If I am fishing a regular spot I will tie a permanent knot as a stop at the known catching depth. Any minor adjustment, a foot or two, can be made simple by changing the hook length which is attached to the same snap swivel as the lead by a double overhand loop. The cunning part of this setup comes when dark falls, snap a starlight ( a small chemical light stick) to activate it and just push it firmly through the foam at the top of the float . The light will protrude at either side of the float and give plenty of light to track your float in the dark. Pollack, bass, scad and mackerel can be taken after dark.  revised June 2021

Weymouth, Church Ope Cove Portland

Church Ope Cove, Portland

.

Portland has a rugged coastline and there are not many marks that can be recommended for beginners or children, access can be difficult and rock marks can prove fatal for those not familiar with the dangers. There is one mark with safe but strenuous access; Church Ope Cove is reached from the village of Easton on the top of the Island, take the A354 and at the exit from the village you will see a stone arch ahead as the roads swings right. There is car park parking at the roadside near The Mermaid or a car park around the corner. Walk towards the stone arch and take the lane to the left which is signposted coast path and Church Ope.There are 153 steps down to the beach and it seems like many more on the way back; travel light but take drinks etc with you, there will not be any "running back to the car" from here! Small children of the ankle-biter kind will not find the going very easy. The beach is safe enough when you get there. Fishing is varied, sandy clean ground in the centre giving way to rocky ground at the edges. Be careful when fishing from the rocks, the walk back up is bad enough without sprained limbs.Many species of fish can be caught here with flatfish, pouting and dogfish providing most of the sport. Wrasse can be caught from the rockier fringes and float-fishing a mackerel strip can catch gar, mackerel, scad and pollock, sole are caught here in the autumn to ragworm bait.
Fishing at night can be interesting, flies hatching out from eggs laid in seaweed on the beach are attracted to the light you need for fishing; bats which live in vast numbers in the old quarries and caves come to feast on the flies.
Portland is a good place for birdwatching as migrating birds stop off for a rest here.

The nearest tackle shops are here

There are toilets on the beach but little else.

For more on fishing Portland have a look at this site.

The Solent, Eastney Beach

Eastney Beach, looking west to Southsea.

Eastney Beach is in the Eastern Solent and lies to the east of the South Parade Pier at Southsea and is reached via The Esplanade. The mark is popular in the spring as plaice tend to come inshore to feed up after spawning. The favoured spot seems to be in front of the yellow bus shelter near the St Georges Road junction but fish are caught from the whole length of the beach. This spot is probably favoured as it is easily found and there are toilets across the road by the junction and there is a matted wheelchair access strip over the shingle which makes for easy walking onto the firm shingle and sand of the inter-tidal part of the beach. There is plenty of (expensive) roadside parking and a car park about three hundred yards to the east of the yellow shelter.

Eastney Beach, looking east, low tide.

This venue can be fished at any state of the tide.In addition to the plaice, other flat fish such as flounder and dabs are caught along with the usual small species with rarer species such as gurnard turning up in summer. The beach is gently sloping and you will be fishing into fairly shallow water. There is a small tackle and bait kiosk at the pier and several others nearby such as Allan's Marine and Lock, Stock and Tackle * in Portsmouth and Southsea.

for 'rough terrain' wheelchairs.

* website down Aug '08

.

Chesil Beach, Masonic Car Park

Chesil Beach, looking west from Portland.

The 'Masonic' is a car park at the end of the causeway to the Isle of Portland. You will notice a blue painted shed which is the first building on the right hand side; go around both roundabouts and double back to get to the entrance. You will be confronted with a massive bank of shingle to climb up and over. If this looks bad just wait to you see it on the seaward side. The steep bank of rounded cobbles makes for an interesting lung bursting climb back up, taking one step forward and sliding half a step back. The beach profile changes after each big storm. Do not even think about going onto the beach with a big sea running, the waves sometimes overtop this bank. The nearest tackle shop is Weymouth Angling near the Town Bridge.
Shops, cafe and toilets are just along the road in the village of Chiswell,

Chesil Beach, The Cove.

Looking west from the Cove.

Chesil Cove is the easternmost fishing mark on Chesil Beach and is reached via the village of Chiswell. Do not take the road up the hill but take the next exit from the roundabout. There is a small road to the right, Brandy Row, where you can sometimes find a place to park. The area is popular with divers, you will have to take care ( they usually will not). The water here is deep and a short cast is sometimes all that is needed to catch. The bottom can be snaggy in places, getting more so as you move around to the left. Some hardy types hike off along this rocky shoreline to hunt big wrasse. There is a chance of almost any fish that swims in British waters here, trigger fish are not particularly rare here but expect to catch bass, pollack, dogfish and wrasse along with mackerel and gar in the summer. Best bait, ragworm, squid and fishbait. Access to the beach is easy but the beach is made up of potato sized cobbles which make walking tiring. There are shops and a café in the village, and a café, recently opened, at the Portland end of the promenade. Children cannot come to too much harm here if they are kept out of the water.

Rough ground at the end of Chesil, the start of The Isle of Portland.

The nearest tackle shops are Chesil Bait 'n' Tackle on Portland Road,
or Weymouth Angling near the Town Bridge
see here

updated 14th April 2011

Hooks for general sea fishing.

Hooks for general sea fishing.

Hooks are sized in a traditional and confusing manner. The larger the number the smaller the hook up to size 1, then /0 is added to the number and the bigger the number the bigger the hook, confused yet ?
The smallest hook you will need is a size 4, sizes then go up to size 3 size 2 and size1, then 1/0, 2/0, 3/0 4/0 and so on. The numbers go on up for hooks to hang on to congers and sharks but a selection from size 4 to 2/0 should suit most types of beach fishing.
There are also many patterns of hook, the most common is the Aberdeen hook which is a good all-rounder although the Nordic Bend hook is perhaps finer wire and sharper. Most of my species hunting fishing is done with size 4 or 2 Nordic Bend hooks.
Use fine wire hooks for targeting small stuff, they tend to be sharper and are plenty strong enough to hold most big fish you come across. Do not use stainless steel hooks, if you cannot remove the hook quickly and easily from a fish that is to be returned, just snip off the hook. The normal fine wire hook will quickly rust away in salt water and little permanent harm is done to the fish. Stainless steel hooks will not rust away. Use small long-nosed pliers or forceps to grip the shank of the hook to remove it.
Keep hooks dry and replace if the hook has been blunted by being caught on stones or rocks. Practice tying hooks and testing how strong the knot is before trusting your early tying practise to a big fish that will get away if you have got it wrong. There is a link to a page that teaches knot tying on the right under 'good sites' and here.
Getting a hook in yourself is painful, take care, if the hook is in deep it will mean a trip to the local casualty department. Do not leave hooks or line lying about, they can cause all sorts of problems with small children and other wild creatures.

Poole Harbour, Shell Bay

Shell Bay, Studland at the Poole Harbour entrance.

Shell Bay is the easternmost end of Studland Beach which stretches from here to Ballard Down. The area is owned by The National Trust, to the west is a nudist beach so don't wander too far that way. This beach is right by the Chain Ferry (so called because it hauls itself along chains which lie on the sea bed) that runs between Sandbanks and Studland and there are facilities near the toll booth and car park.
Fishing here mainly concentrates on bass and flatfish, at low tides you can see evidence of the Training Bank which is a long low bank of rocks that 'train' the tidal flow in and out of the harbour. This is a favoured area for bass.
The stream shown in the photo only appears after rainy periods and drains a lagoon into the sea.
Anglers can often be seen spinning for bass into the main current or bottom fishing ragworm or sandeel baits from the beach.

The harbour, across the road from Shell Bay.

Across the ferry approach road on the harbour side, mudflats are exposed at low tide and you can, if feeling energetic, dig bait here. The structure that is visible near the sun in this photo is an oil field installation. Wells under the harbour and drilled out to sea provide millions of pounds worth of oil a week.

For the lunatic fringe only, sign at Shell Bay.

One of the silliest signs I have ever seen, if you walk a coast path then you are bound, eventually, to reach a town on the coast ! If you really need to get to Minehead, go by car, especially if you are carrying all your fishing gear.

Poole Harbour, Sandbanks Beach.

Sandbanks Beach, low tide.

Sandbanks is a peninsula that forms the eastern arm that encloses Poole Harbour. There is a large pay and display car park adjacent. Holly Bush is on the harbour side, and to the seaward, past the toilet block and other facilities, there is a large flat sandy beach. Fishing during the day is only possible out of the holiday season or at night during the summer. Many different species can be caught from here, long distance casting is not needied. A typical evening session in the dark in March yielded bass, pouting, rockling, whiting and flounder; all caught on ragworm or sandeel fillet baits on size two hooks, cast a maximum of seventy yards out; twenty yard casts were catching fish.

The Groyne near the beach access point at low tide.

At high tide you can cover more ground by fishing from the end of one of the groynes, this one has a flat concrete top. Take care when walking down onto the rocks to retrieve tackle and fish, wet rocks are slippery.

Poole Harbour, The Haven.

The Haven, taken from the Chain Ferry from Studland

The Haven mark is easy to find, just follow the ferry signs from Poole. Parking is available very close to where you fish but it is short stay and expensive. Park on the side of the road in Panorama Road which is the road swinging back around to Poole when you get to the the ferry. The narrow entrance and the large volume of water in the harbour makes for fast tidal flow at this point. Check the tide conditions on Easytide. Where the graph line is flat there is less flow, where it is steep there will be a lot. You fish from a concrete wall, fish close in and you will not be so affected by the tide although there are weed beds and other snags on which to loose tackle. Spinning is good here with some nice bass caught on occasion. Light tackle, small hooks and baits dropped in close will give good sport with wrasse and other small species. Ragworm and mackerel or squid strips work well.There are facilities close by, a takeaway shop and toilets back up by the road junction. There are some concrete groynes around towards Sandbanks Beach that you can fish from, the same comments regarding tide strength apply. To get to these you will have to negotiate a short vertical ladder, a sloping slippery concrete apron and other obstacles. Not a venue for small children.
Float fishing for mackerel can be fun from here.
The harbour entrance is very busy with boat traffic, some boats come very close so watch your line. The constant noise of boat traffic can be annoying, some people will head for quieter venues.

Tackle shops for bait are Sea Fishing Poole at the eastern end of The Quay, the Poole Sea Angling Centre near Poole Quay or The Wessex Angling Centre on Wimborne Road...

Weights for beach fishing.

Weights for beach fishing.

The size and type of weight to use is determined by quite a few factors;

The weight should anchor the tackle to the sea bed against the force of the current to stop it drifting off down the beach to the annoyance of others fishing nearby or dragging into snags. If there is little or no current such as in Poole Harbour or at Swanage then a small smooth weight will do the job. If the smooth lead is moved by the current then a watch lead (the circular lead with bumps on it ) will give a bit more holding power. In strong currents the grip lead is used, these have grip wires which are held in place by the springiness of the wire. A strong pull on the line will pull the grip wires out of the grooves that hold them and the weight can be reeled in.
The size of the weight will also be determined by the type of fishing you are doing and the safe casting weight of your fishing rod and of the line you are using. For fishing light tackle around piers and jetties you can use small smooth leads, for open beaches in rough weather you would have to use five or six ounce leads to get any hold in the sea bed. The flow of water and wind acts on the line and tries to move the weight, the finer the line the better in this respect and allows the use of lighter weights. Lighter weights are good for at least two reasons, you will be able to feel what the fish is doing as you reel in and a small lead is cheaper to loose than a heavy one.
Sometimes when trying to cast a big bait into the wind you will need to step up the weight to overcome the wind resistance. If there are big waves you may need a bigger weight as you can then tighten the line up more to stop the rod tip moving about as much, making it easier to spot a bite.On some sandy beaches you may get good results by using a ball weight and letting the current wash the lead around to attract fish such as flounder and plaice which are attracted by movement.
Lead is not the deadly poison that environmental fascists say it is; it has been used for millennia for fishing weights. To swallow lead is not a good idea, but then neither fish nor the angler is stupid enough to do that.... especially with the sizes of weights used in sea angling. Washing your hands before eating is a good idea, but as you have been handling smelly worms and fish you would do anyway.
I have fished a few times over rough snaggy ground with a character who, when waiting for a bite, looks around the beach for stones with a hole in them. He ties on a loop of line and uses them as weights, if he loses one, it's just going back to where it came from.
Weights are marked with a number of ounces or grammes, there are about twenty five grammes to an ounce for rough calculation, or about a hundred grammes to four ounces.

update Sept 2011

If you fancy making your own leads I have added a post here

Tor Bay, Berry Head.

Berry Head, old quarry and stone loading jetty.

Berry Head lies to the west of Brixham, access is by foot only unless you are registered disabled in which case you may drive down. It surprises me how many disabled people can walk briskly down to the plarform from the lower car park after parking and spend all day at the strenuous activity of feathering for mackerel; perhaps the sea air does them some good. This is not a venue for small children, the water is deep and help a long way off. There is a car park at the top of the headland from which you can walk although it is an easier walk from the car park by Shoalstone outdoor swimming pool; go past the hotel and take a pleasant walk along the footpath up through the trees until you neet the tarmac road which leads down to the base of the old quarry and the fishing platform. Travel light, it is a bit of a slog back up this hill. Most people will be feathering for mackerel which they keep, ungutted, in a plastic bag, in the sun, for hours. Most of them will be thrown away later, what a waste. Float fish with light tackle or flick a single lure around and you will have great sport with mackerel, gar. pollock and scad. The bottom here is patchy sand rocks and weed, cod, whiting, dabs, dogfish etc are caught here in winter. Fishing a worm bait or a small sliver of mackerel on the bottom close in can get all sorts of fish but there are quite a few snags and you will loose tackle.
Please take your litter home, and if you can manage it, some that others have not taken home. This venue becomes a stinking hell hole because people discard cans, bottles, wrappers, disposable barbecues, old bait and fish.
Tip for hot days, take plenty of frozen squash or juice drinks in a cool box. This keeps you and the fish you retain cool..

Disabled allowed to drive down ( a facility much abused ), from car park a fairly steep rough track to the concrete platform.

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

Lyme Bay, Lyme Regis beaches.

The Beach, Marine Parade, Lyme Regis. The Cobb in the distance.

This beach is shingle giving way to sand weed and rocks to the east while to the western end by The Cobb, sand is imported for the anklebiters to play in. Most species can be caught here. The rocky parts are home to blennies, little wrasse and other small species to add to your list. Very busy in the summer months. Plenty of facilities nearby. This beach is less 'tackle hungry' than the other beach to the west of The Cobb.

Monmouth Beach to the west of The Cobb.

Monmouth Beach can be a tackle graveyard, be prepared to loose weights. The loss will be worth it if you can connect with a Bull Huss. The Huss is the grumpy cousin of the humble and gentle dogfish, you can tell the difference by looking for the seperated nose flaps and more visible teeth of the Huss but the fact that it tries to bite your arm off is a more obvious clue. A dogfish grows to a couple of pounds, a ten pound Bull Huss would not be rare from this beach. Baits used are squid and ragworm... lots of it for big fish.
If you are a mullet or bass specialist then the junction of this beach and The Cobb will be of interest to you. At times in the summer great piles of seaweed form here. Maggots emerging from the decaying weed are the preferred food of mullet and bass at this time and sport can be good. You should not have too much trouble with holiday makers, the smell of the decaying seaweed will drive them far away.
Shops and facilities are available by The Cobb. There is a tackle shop nearby but it is open only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at weekends. Fossils can be found on the beach and in the cliffs.
The cliffs are soft and are prone to landslips, be careful, do not climb on the cliffs they really are unstable.

Lyme Bay, Charmouth.

Charmouth, looking east.

Charmouth is off the A35 which by-passes the town. Charmouth is popular with geologists and amateur fossil hunters. At the end of the road are car parks; one in a field which is privately owned and the gates locked at nights and a smaller council car park near the shop, café and toilets. In front of the car park there is clean sand, it is possible to fish from the front of the car park over high tide. There is rough ground with weed and stones out to the east where the small river outflows which gives way to a cleaner bottom out past the café/shop cabin which opens in the summer. Fishing can be good with bass and rays on the clean ground and dogfish and bull huss on the rougher marks.

Charmouth, looking west from the concrete prom.

It is possible to fish from the concrete prom when the tide is up, it is clean ground in front but big wrasse are caught along here. Huge baits, huge hooks and patience can be rewarded with double figure bass. Further along the beach there are shallow reefs, that can be seen at low tide, with clean areas between, further on it becomes very rocky and snaggy. The tide can come right up to the cliffs along here, check tide times and heights, look for the high tide line of debris and move well before you must. There are usually plenty of people tapping away with hammers at the soft shale rocks and scree at the base of the cliffs looking for fossils, small fossils are quite common among the shingle of the upper part of the beach.
The cliffs are soft and are prone to landslips, be careful, do not climb on the cliffs they really are unstable.
Update March 2011.
Recent landslips have greatly increased the danger of fishing here during high tides, children have been trapped in soft mud and anglers report large stones, that have loosened from the clay cliff, falling near them. Not a place to fish during spring tides.... try Seatown or Eype instead.

Over high tides, from car park end or prom only

Lyme Bay, Seatown.

Seatown, looking east.

Not to be confused with the bigger place of Seaton which is further west, Seatown is reached by taking a narrow lane from the village of Chideock* on the A35 east of Bridport. The popularity of this beach as a fishing spot could be influenced by the pub next to the car park. There are public toilets by the car turning area next to the beach. In the winter months parking is free at the roadside. Like other beaches along this bit of coast, the ground in front is fairly clean with more broken ground out to either side. Out to the right is favourite for rough ground fishing.

Seatown, looking west.

Bass and small eyed rays are regularly caught along this beach, a whole sandeel is just a snack to either of these species. Dogfish and pouting are always present.

* for the 'sadder' people reading this, CHIDEOCK is the only village name in England that, when written in upper case letters reads the same if the paper is turned upside down, reversed and read from the back...... not a lot of people know that.

Lyme Bay, Eype

Eype, access steps to beach. looking east.

Eype is a tiny village just to the west of Bridport. West Bay Pier can be seen in the distance in the photograph above. Turn off the A35 at the picnic area and take the narrow windy lane signposted Lower Eype. Parking is in a field at the end of the lane. In winter this field is closed and there is no parking anywhere close to the venue. In front of the access steps to the beach there is fairly clean ground, out to the west there is more broken ground where dogfish are more commonly caught along with wrasse and bass. Rays are caught on the cleaner ground along with other species.

Eype, looking west.

There are no facilities at the beach, there is a pub back in the village or a burger bar and cafe by the picnic area back at the main road, there are also toilet facilities. The beach is safe for children but the access steps are steep and could be a problem for less mobile anglers.

Chesil Beach, Freshwater

Arial view of the Freshwater site, ©Freshwater Beach Holiday Park 2007

Freshwater is not fished much by the general public as it is private with access via a holiday camp.
For those of you camping in the area or taking your own touring caravan or camper this is a clean and convenient place to stay. Fishing can be good here, the usual Chesil species, dogfish and pouting can be caught after dark and, towards West Bay, by the first dip in the cliffs, a good cast in spring will put the bait onto mussel beds where there is a good chance of a plaice. Like most of Chesil anything or nothing may turn up....
A very child friendly spot as you will have all the facilities of a modern camping site with shop, cafe, play areas and a swimming pool. A good place to leave partner and ankle-biters to play while you sneak off fishing.

Chesil Beach, West Bexington.

West Bexington, the Lagoon behind the shingle bank.

West Bexington is east of Bridport and West Bay. Turn off the B3157 in the village of Swyre, opposite The Bull at the bottom of a hill. There is a pay and display car park at the beach but its size shrinks year by year due to erosion by the sea. There is a cafe/shop by the carpark and a toilet block at the far end of the carpark. Fishing is fairly constant along the beach but there are those who favour a hike out to where the fresh water, from the lagoon behind the shingle bank, percolates through the shingle into the sea. Walking out to remote points is not too bad here as the coastal path is level and, for the most part, compacted shingle.

West Bexington beach, looking west.

This is a steepish shingle beach and most species can be caught at some time during the year. In winter some good bags of whiting are taken here along with some good codling. Squid tends to be a good bait for all manner of species here. Fish a big bait close in for bass. In the summer the beach is packed with people feathering for mackerel. Serious fishermen tend to stay away during the summer days, prefering to fish during darkness or hiking off in either direction to find a safer spot. The combination of inexperience when casting, lead weights and tinsel covered hooks makes it rather like the Somme battlefield at Christmas. If you want to catch mackerel and enjoy the experience then use a spinning rod and a single lure.
Like all Chesil marks this is not a bathing beach, and like anywhere along here very dangerous place to be with a big sea running after a southerly or south westerly blow.