Where fishing happens
Fishing places
Coasts, rivers, lakes and named marks — what the ground is, what is documented caught there, how people fish it, and who to ask before you go.
Being listed here is not permission to fish. What that meansClose
Access, fishing rights, seasons, licences, local bylaws and permitted methods vary and can change. Check current access, permission, local regulations, closures and restrictions before you travel or fish. FishingHQ describes what the ground is and names who holds the answer; it does not hold the answer itself.
Find the authority for a jurisdiction · What FishingHQ does and does not cover
Looking for a tackle shop, a day-ticket fishery or a charter? FishingHQ lists a small number of fishing businesses — researched rather than advertised, and each showing when somebody last checked it.
Find a place by what you want to catch
735 places carry documented catches with the mode and the strength of the evidence recorded. Filter by fish, by how you fish, or by the kind of ground. Everything outside this filter is still on the map and in the list further down.
735 places match, 586 in view. Marks close together are drawn as one circle with a count on it — zoom in to separate them. The list has every one of them.
Positions are approximate by design and the zoom is bounded so they stay that way. They describe where a named public place is, not a mark, and being listed is not permission to fish.
Browse by part of the world
Every area below lists its coasts, systems and named places in full, without needing a map. Individual marks are currently European; the regions and destinations are worldwide.
- Britain and IrelandThe densest fishing geography FishingHQ holds: a temperate archipelago with an enormous tidal range, a coastline out of all proportion to its area, and freshwater running from chalk stream to hill loch.78 regions · 800 places
- Atlantic islandsMacaronesia — the Canaries, Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verde. Deep water within sight of the shore, warm all year, and the reason a northern angler's winter has somewhere to go.6 regions · 111 places
- Nordic and BalticNorway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and the Baltic: cold, clear, deep and, in the Baltic, barely salt at all — which changes which fish are where.9 regions · 28 places
- Mediterranean and Black SeaAlmost no tide, clear water, and a species list that shares little with the Atlantic a few hundred miles west. Where European spearfishing is most established, and most tightly regulated.19 regions · 26 places
- Continental EuropeFrance, Iberia's Atlantic side, the Low Countries, Germany and the rivers and lakes of central Europe — big tides on the ocean coast, and a freshwater tradition unlike the British one.16 regions · 39 places
- AfricaFrom the Atlantic surf of Morocco and the Western Cape to the reef and current systems of the Indian Ocean coast.16 regions · 24 places
- North AmericaAlaska to Florida: the widest range of freshwater and saltwater fishing under one broad regulatory pattern of state and provincial licensing.10 regions · 7 places
- Caribbean and Central AmericaFlats, reef and blue water within a short run of each other, and the home of most of what saltwater fly fishing was invented for.3 regions
- South AmericaThe Amazon and Paraná basins, the Patagonian rivers, and the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.4 regions
- Australia and New ZealandTemperate to tropical across one country, and in New Zealand the trout fishery that other trout fisheries are measured against.5 regions
- Asia and the Indo-PacificThe centre of marine biodiversity, the deepest traditions of fishing anywhere, and the widest gap between what is fished and what is written down in English.13 regions
- Pacific islandsHawaii and the island groups of the central and south Pacific.1 region
Other ways in
- Location explorer — places near a town, ordered by distance, filtered by what you can catch, discipline and water. Your position never leaves your browser.
- All fishing regions — the full alphabetical list of destination records.
- Habitats — the kinds of water rather than the named places, if what you are really asking is what an estuary is like.
- Authority finder — who to ask about licences, closures and permission, by jurisdiction.
FishingHQ describes geography. It does not hold access agreements, permits, ownership or current closures, and it does not track them — see what we do and do not cover.