Fishing tips for beginners part 10 The Harbour and Piers

Natural or man made these locations are very accessible and are good for cutting your teeth and as you improve your cast they can provide some great sea angling.

The fact that you generally have a solid, stable wall to fish from makes casting easy and you generally do not have to cast miles to locate the fish. Dropping your gear down the side of the wall at late evening will often produce table sized Pollock. Mackerel and Garfish are caught in huge numbers across the UK from May to late October and provide very good sport on balanced tackle, and allow you to learn how to handle, play and land fish.

A drop net is a very useful piece of equipment if you are fishing from a high wall and you hook into a sizeable fish. If you do not have a drop net or similar device play the fish out and hand line the fish up the side of the wall, taking care not to bang it against the side.

Be careful in these environments as large waves can catch you off guard and strong gusts of wind can lift your gear off the wall and empty it into the sea below. Also if it’s a busy harbour take care not to land your sinker through a £30,000 power boat

Many Harbours and Piers produce everything from Bass, Bream, Dog fish, Pollock, Cod, Wrasse, Dabs, Flounder and Plaice. Methods employed are Float fishing, Ledgering and lure fishing.