Harbours and Quays on the Pembrokeshire Coast Harbours and estuaries can provide unique sea angling opportunities, and with supervision they can be excellent places to start youngsters off. Here is a selection of the harbour and quay venues that Pembrokeshire has to offer: |
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Saundersfoot Harbour
This is a good float fishing summer venue, with mackerel garfish, scad (horse mackerel) and mullet dominating the catches. Any fish bait will tempt the mackerel, but use bread as the bait for mullet. Ledgering is a better tactic for flounders and dabs, and it is usually the best method for the bass and dogfish too; they readily taike peeler crab, or fish strip baits such as mackerel. In winter codling and whiting move in to the harbour, and lugworm is then a very effective bait.
Saundersfoot is near the south-east corner of Pembrokeshire, and the harbour is a central feature of the town.
Location Map: Saundersfoot Harbour...
Tenby Harbour
The harbour wall at Tenby can get very crowded in summer, and so night fishing is generally much better than fishing during the daylight hours, but even in daytime for a couple of hours either side of high tide you can expect to catch mackerel, garfish and black bream. The best fishing is around the peak of a spring tide. Spinners and feather rigs are ideal here, but for mullet it's better to switch to float-fished bread, keeping a still as you can, because the fish often come close to the harbour wall.
Lugworm and ragworm will take whiting, flounders and dabs while peeler crab is generally more effective when the bass are in, and for an hour or so either side of the peak on spring tides a fish bait cast far out from the end of the harbour wall will get you into water deep enough to contact the occasional thornback ray. A drop net is essential for landing these bigger fish.
Tenby, in south Pembrokeshire, is accessed via the A478, and a road runs south-east down from the town to the harbour.
Location map for Tenby Harbour...
Hobbs Point
The water close inshore is deep enough (an with plenty of snaggy old wrecks) to atract and hold conger eels, and night fishing with squid baits or fish strips can be very productive in summer. From late spring through summer and autumn, bass also come in on the flooding tide, while in winter you can expect to catch codling. Ragworm is an excellent all-purpose bait for this area, where there are also plenty of whiting, flounders and dabs.
Hobbs Point, on the southern side of the channel into Pembroke Dock, is a mile to seaward of where the Pembroke Ferry berths.
Location map for Hobbs Point...
Neyland Pontoon
Flounders, bass and mullet are the main target species when fishing from the public pontoon at Neyland. Because there is a fair bit of boat traffic into and out of nearby Pembroke Dock as well as Neyland Marina.
Float-fished bread can be effective for mullet provided you (and anyone around you) keep still and avoid banging the pontoon - they are very shy fish and easily spooked.
Fish strips or better still peeler crab baits will tempt the bass, whereas for flounders it's hard to beat either lugworm or (best of all) small ragworm.
Neyland is on the northern side of the channel into Pembroke Dock, and the public pontoon is sited just to the south of the marina entrance and almost directly opposite Hobbs Point.
Location map for Neyland Pontoon...
Fishguard Quay (Lower Town)
The little River Gwaun flows out to sea through Lower Town, Fishguard, and there it is possible to fish from the harbour wall downstream of the A487 roadbridge. Bass, mullet and flounders are the main quarry, and some care is needed to avoid hooking mooring ropes or snagging around buoys. The bottom is mud, but weed can be a bit of a nuisance particularly when a spring tide is flooding and ebbing.
Location map for Fishguard Quay (Lower Town)...