Porthleven Harbour, lots of walls to fish from.
Porthleven is just west of Helston on the B3304, it is a convenient fishing spot for children and wheelchair users with easy access to many walls for fishing into the harbour. Fishing is best for three hours over high tide for the inner part of the harbour although you can fish from the long pier on the left at low tide, fishing into the harbour entrance. Parking is free alongside the harbour if you can find a spot, there is also a pay and display car park.
The nearest tackle shop is on the road towards Penzance at Germoe, TR20 9AE, Newtown Angling Centre, which sells bait including ragworm and lugworm.
Toilets are up a side road to your left as you walk as you walk along the village side of the harbour passing shops,a pub and cafés, others at the base of the church seen in the picture below near the start of the breakwater.
Porthleven, the inner harbour.
Float fishing along the weedy and rocky fringes of the harbour walls will get you wrasse, there are some big wrasse in here especially from the end of the long pier. Wrasse are thugs, they are strong fighters and will dive for cover when hooked, if they get into the rocks and weed you will most likely lose them.... so hold onto the rod at all times and get ready to keep the fishes head up out of the rough. If they get jammed in the rough it is worthwhile giving them a bit of slack line; they will sometimes swim out of the snag.
Small pollack are also caught, if you are prepared to lose a few weights, drop a bait straight down the wall on a simple paternoster rig, the hook length should be short and a foot or so above the weight to keep the bait up out of the weed. Keep hold of the rod ! Fish such as pout, scorpion fish and others skulk along the wall so keep your hooks small (size 2 or less) and see what is down there. Flatfish such as flounder and turbot can be caught by casting out onto the cleaner ground out in the harbour entrance. Rockling and eels, silver and conger, can be caught. Baits are ragworm for the wrasse or flounder, fish bait of any kind seems to catch anything else. Float fishing for mackerel and gar in season is popular all around the harbour. Be aware of boat traffic, they have right of way so reel in when boats need to pass. The seaward side of the long arm is very rocky and is not good for fishing, leave that area for the kids who surf the breakers that form as the swell passes over the rock table here.
Small pollack are also caught, if you are prepared to lose a few weights, drop a bait straight down the wall on a simple paternoster rig, the hook length should be short and a foot or so above the weight to keep the bait up out of the weed. Keep hold of the rod ! Fish such as pout, scorpion fish and others skulk along the wall so keep your hooks small (size 2 or less) and see what is down there. Flatfish such as flounder and turbot can be caught by casting out onto the cleaner ground out in the harbour entrance. Rockling and eels, silver and conger, can be caught. Baits are ragworm for the wrasse or flounder, fish bait of any kind seems to catch anything else. Float fishing for mackerel and gar in season is popular all around the harbour. Be aware of boat traffic, they have right of way so reel in when boats need to pass. The seaward side of the long arm is very rocky and is not good for fishing, leave that area for the kids who surf the breakers that form as the swell passes over the rock table here.
The long arm of the harbour wall at low tide, note the rocky weedy fringe.
There is a long beach to the left which runs to Loe Bar, bass are the quarry along this section but fishing is only possible when the other beach users leave in the evening. Loe Bar is a fishy spot but a cliff walk/scramble is required to get there.
Angling shops nearby,
Angling shops nearby,
Last Stop Tackle Shop, Haelarcher Farmyard, Lizard Head Ln, The Lizard
TR12 7NN Tel 07896 290869
Bait available from Lizard Rigs who are on the A3083 at Trevelyan Holiday Homes
TR12 7AS (look for BAIT sign on rhs when heading south.)
Newtown Angling Centre Newtown, Penzance TR20 9AE
not Loe Bar !
