Ballinamona
Surf beach · Salt water · in The Wexford coast
A clean sand beach on the Wexford Irish Sea coast north of Curracloe, low and featureless with the offshore banks a long way out.
Safety: cold water shock — can cause serious injury or death. 2 more points apply here.
FishingHQ describes what this place is, not whether you may fish it. Access, permits and who to ask.
What you can catch here
Documented at this place, grouped by how you would be fishing, with how strongly the sources support each one. This is what has been written down, not a forecast, and being listed is never permission to fish.
From the shore · 6
European flounderEstablished quarry1 placeBallinamonaOver surf beach
European sea bassEstablished quarry1 placeBallinamonaOver surf beach- Small-spotted catsharkEstablished quarry1 placeBallinamonaOver surf beach
- Starry smooth-houndEstablished quarry1 placeBallinamonaOver surf beachAround Apr–Jul
Thornback rayEstablished quarry1 placeBallinamonaOver surf beach- DabRecorded here1 placeBallinamonaOver surf beach
What these strengths mean
- Established quarry
- Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
- Places, accounts and sources are counted separately
- A fish documented once at each of six marks is still documented once at each of six marks. Breadth is reported as a place count and never raises the strength, and sources are deduplicated across places so one publisher covering a whole coast counts as one. A fishery account is a source describing the fishing; a recorded catch is a report of a specific catch. They are counted apart because they are not the same evidence.
Fish documented nearby, not here
Nothing below has been documented at Ballinamona itself. Each one has been documented at a named place on the same ground, and the places are listed with it. Treat this as what the water around here holds rather than as a catch list for this mark.
Widely documented on this ground
Documented at three or more neighbouring places, fished a way this place is also fished. That is a pattern about the ground rather than about any one mark, and it is the closest this site comes to saying you will probably meet a fish somewhere nothing has been written about.
From the shore
- Bull huss — documented at Morriscastle Strand; Curracloe Beach; Hook Head
- Pollack — documented at Hook Head; Carnsore Point; The Coombe, Tacumshin
- Atlantic cod — documented at Curracloe Beach; The Coombe, Tacumshin; Morriscastle Strand
- Atlantic mackerel — documented at Hook Head; Kilmore Quay; The Coombe, Tacumshin
- Ballan wrasse — documented at Hook Head; Carnsore Point; The Coombe, Tacumshin
Also documented at neighbouring places
One or two accounts each, on the ground around here. Enough to know the fish is caught in these waters; not enough to say anything about this place.
From the shore
- Conger eel — documented at Hook Head; Carnsore Point
- Saithe — documented at The Coombe, Tacumshin; Carnsore Point
- Thick-lipped grey mullet — documented at Wexford Harbour and the Slobs; Kilmore Quay
- Whiting — documented at The Coombe, Tacumshin; Carne and the Rosslare shore
- Black seabream — documented at Kilmore Quay
- Brown trout — documented at The Coombe, Tacumshin
- Common stingray — documented at Morriscastle Strand
- Corkwing wrasse — documented at Carnsore Point
- Spurdog — documented at Morriscastle Strand
How people fish it
Practised here: Sea fishing.
Methods the sources name for this ground. Each one is explained in full on its own page.
- Surfcasting
Casting heavy baited tackle from a beach into surf — a method defined by distance, by tide, and by reading water that all looks the same.
- Ledgering
Fishing a bait on the bottom held by a weight, with no float — the simplest way to fish at distance, in depth, or in wind.
The ground and the water
- The ground
- A clean sand beach on the Wexford Irish Sea coast north of Curracloe, low and featureless with the offshore banks a long way out.
- Exposure
- Open east to the Irish Sea and dependent on an easterly for its surf.
Through the year
The directory is specific here in a way it is not elsewhere: the smooth-hound fishing is at night, in spring and early summer, and it falls away afterwards for reasons the page says are not understood.
Safety
Cold water shock — Can cause serious injury or death
UK coastal and inland water is cold enough for most of the year to trigger the involuntary gasp and the loss of swimming ability that decides most immersion deaths, and it does so within the first minute, long before hypothermia is relevant.
What reduces it: Wear a buoyancy aid rather than carry one, carry a means of calling for help on the person rather than in a bag, and plan on the assumption that an unplanned entry into the water is survivable only if somebody knows immediately.
Moving water and currents — Can cause serious injury or death
Narrow sounds, estuary mouths, harbour entrances and channel edges run hard on the tide, and the water moving through them is a whole bay emptying and filling through a gap. Somebody who enters that water is carried, not swum, and shingle and sandbanks shift under the current.
What reduces it: Treat the state of the tide as part of the mark rather than as a timing detail. Do not wade a channel edge. Stay off shifting banks on a making tide.
Tides and being cut off — Can cause serious injury or death
Tidal islands, causeways, strand crossings and rock gullies that are dry ground at low water flood on the tide, and the water arrives behind the angler rather than in front of them. The Irish west and south coasts carry a large number of these and several are the ordinary way onto a mark.
What reduces it: Work out the tide for the day before walking out, and work out the exit rather than the entrance. Set an alarm for the turn. Never assume a crossing that was dry on the way out will be dry on the way back.
Rules and access
FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Sea angling in Ireland is not generally licensed, but access rights, landowner permission, harbour and local authority rules, conservation designations and national fisheries measures all apply and all change. Check the current position with Inland Fisheries Ireland, the harbour or local authority and the landowner before going.
Particular to this water: One of several beaches on this stretch used regularly for club competitions. Whether an event is running is a matter for the organisers.
Who holds the answer:
- Inland Fisheries Ireland, which administers angling and fisheries protection.
- The harbour or local authority, for access to structures and the shore.
- Inland Fisheries Ireland, for freshwater fisheries, for salmon and sea trout licensing and tagging, and for the sea angling conservation measures it administers.
- The government department responsible for the marine, and the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, for sea fisheries measures, minimum sizes, bag limits and protected species.
- The National Parks and Wildlife Service, where a designation constrains access, disturbance or collection.
- The Food Safety Authority of Ireland and the shellfish classification and biotoxin monitoring programme, before anything filter-feeding is taken.
- The harbour authority, local authority, club or landowner controlling the specific structure or shore, whose permission is theirs to give and is not stated here.
- The Irish Coast Guard and the RNLI, for safety guidance on this coast.
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Curracloe Beach — 5–10 km · Surf beach
- Morriscastle Strand — 5–10 km · Surf beach
- Wexford Harbour and the Slobs — 10–25 km · Estuary
- Rosslare Strand — 10–25 km · Surf beach
- Carne and the Rosslare shore — 25–40 km · Beach
- Carnsore Point — 25–40 km · Rock mark
- The Coombe, Tacumshin — 25–40 km · Beach section
- Kilmore Quay — 25–40 km · Harbour wall
Sources for this place
- Sea Angler — Bauer Media (Specialist angling publication)Relied on for: Long-running published description of British sea angling practice by region, ground type and named mark.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- General angling website restatements of established technique — Various (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Widely restated public descriptions of which places are conventionally fished and how, recorded as practitioner consensus rather than as scholarship, and not relied on for access, permission or any current rule.Background and mechanism onlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- Sea Angling in Ireland: the shore marks of Wexford — Sea Angling Ireland (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: A practitioner shore directory describing this mark's ground, species, methods, baits and the character of the access.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.