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Caernarfon and the Menai south entrance

Tidal channel · Salt water · in The Welsh coast and Anglesey

The southern entrance to the Menai Strait, crossing the shifting sand bar of Caernarfon Bar between drying banks, with a strong stream and a channel that is re-buoyed as it moves.

Safety: moving water and currents — can cause serious injury or death. One more point applies here.

What each one does, and what reduces it ↓

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 · 5

What these strengths mean
Established quarry
Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
Seasonal
Well supported, and concentrated in part of the year rather than spread through it.
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.

Also associated with this ground

Recorded as present here without a documented method or strength behind them.

Thornback ray · European plaice

Recorded here, but not a species to target

These are recorded here and are not quarry. Each is either assessed as Critically Endangered or protected by statute in this jurisdiction, and taking one may be prohibited outright — elsewhere every rod-caught fish must be returned. Read the species page and check the current rules with the authority before fishing.

European eel

Fish documented nearby, not here

Nothing below has been documented at Caernarfon and the Menai south entrance 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.

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

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.

  • 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.

  • Spinning

    Casting an artificial lure and retrieving it so that it moves like something alive — the most direct form of lure fishing.

  • Kayak fishing

    A platform rather than a technique: quiet, shallow-draught access to water no other craft reaches, bought at the price of exposure, and a discipline where the decision not to launch is part of the skill.

The ground and the water

The ground
The southern entrance to the Menai Strait, crossing the shifting sand bar of Caernarfon Bar between drying banks, with a strong stream and a channel that is re-buoyed as it moves.

Through the year

The months the sources attach to each species here. Where a species carries no season it is listed underneath rather than assumed to run through the year.

The months in which each profiled species is recorded as quarry at this location.
SpeciesJFMAMJJASOND
European sea bass — seasonal, recorded in May, June, July, August, September, October.
Thick-lipped grey mullet — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September.

Recorded here with no season stated: Conger eel, European flounder, Black seabream.

Safety

Moving water and currents — Can cause serious injury or death

The bar shifts between seasons and breaks when a swell meets the ebb, and the stream through the narrow entrance at Abermenai runs at several knots.

What reduces it: Treat the bar as requiring current local knowledge and up-to-date buoyage, never cross on an ebb against a swell, and keep clear of the narrows from the shore.

Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death

Rock platforms on the north and west put an angler beside deep, fast-moving water, sometimes with a descent that is much harder to reverse than to make. Immersion here is compounded by the stream, which removes any prospect of climbing out where you went in.

What reduces it: Watch a mark for a long period before committing; wear a buoyancy aid; never fish rock alone; plan the exit for a worse sea than the one you arrived in; and know whether the mark is cut off by the tide.

Rules and access

FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Shore angling in Wales is not rod-licensed, but access rights, landowner permission, local authority and harbour byelaws, national and inshore fisheries measures, and site designations all apply and all change. Check the current position with Natural Resources Wales, the harbour or local authority, and the landowner before going.

Who holds the answer:

  • Natural Resources Wales, which administers marine and fisheries regulation in Welsh waters.
  • The local authority and, where one exists, the harbour authority, for access, byelaws and shellfish classification.
  • The Welsh environmental and fisheries authority, for licensing, sea fisheries rules and enforcement in Wales
  • The relevant local authority, for byelaws and for shellfish harvesting classification and closures
  • The body managing any marine protected area on the stretch concerned
  • The harbour authority for working harbours and the relevant landowner for access points
  • The coastguard, for tidal stream and safety information, and local charter skippers whose knowledge of the races is operative safety information

Nearby fishing

Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.

Caernarfon and the Menai south entranceDinas DinlleLlanddwyn IslandThe Menai Strait and the SwelliesTrefor pierCymyran and RhosneigrBeaumaris PierRed Wharf BayMoelfre rocks
Caernarfon and the Menai south entrance and the publicly documented places around it. Approximate positions, not marks. Positions are approximate by design — they are capped at about a hundred metres and describe where a named public place is, not where fish are and not a mark. Everything plotted here is also listed below.

Sources for this place

  • JNCC species and habitat conservation advice — Joint Nature Conservation Committee (Conservation authority)Relied on for: Description, designation and habitat characterisation of the named coastal and marine features of the United Kingdom, and the species characteristically associated with them.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
  • Cefas science, advice and data on marine and freshwater environments — Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: Marine environmental science for UK shelf seas: sediment characterisation, estuarine process, shellfish bed distribution, tidal range and the monitoring that describes them.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
  • Sea fishing in north Wales — the mark guide — Turner's Tackle (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The mark-by-mark north Wales index: which species each named mark on Anglesey, the Llŷn and the mainland coast produces, with the ground, the bait, the state of tide and the method.States this directlyPassage read and verified

How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.

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