Carrickfergus
Harbour wall · Salt water
The harbour arm on the north shore of Belfast Lough beneath the Norman castle, fished from the end of the arm on the castle side over ground that is clean enough to cast short of the newer breakwater. A river mouth a kilometre further along holds large mullet shoals in the warmer months.
Safety: cold water shock — can cause serious injury or death. One more point applies 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 · 9
European flounderRegular local target1 placeCarrickfergusOver harbour wallPhoto: nbasargin, via iNaturalist, CC BY; resized and trimmed to fit
PoutingRegular local target1 placeCarrickfergusOver harbour wallPhoto: Georges Jansoone JoJan, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0; resized
SaitheRegular local target1 placeCarrickfergusOver harbour wallPhoto: Wilhelm Thomas Fiege, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; resized and trimmed to fit
- Small-spotted catsharkRegular local target1 placeCarrickfergusOver harbour wall
Atlantic codSeasonal1 placeCarrickfergusOver harbour wallAround Jan–Feb, Oct–DecPhoto: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain; resized and trimmed to fit
Atlantic mackerelSeasonal1 placeCarrickfergusOver harbour wallAround Jun–SeptPhoto: Hans Hillewaert, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; resized
Thick-lipped grey mulletSeasonal1 placeCarrickfergusOver harbour wallAround Jun–SeptPhoto: Diego Delso, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0; resized and trimmed to fit
WhitingSeasonal1 placeCarrickfergusOver harbour wallAround Jan–Feb, Oct–DecPhoto: rmjb, via iNaturalist, CC BY; resized and trimmed to fit
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Also documented from the shore: Conger eel
What these strengths mean
- Regular local target
- 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.
- How breadth is counted
- A fish documented at six marks is shown as six marks: breadth never raises the strength on its own. A fishery account describes the fishing; a recorded catch reports one specific catch. How evidence is weighed.
Also associated with this ground
Recorded as present here without a documented method or strength behind them.
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.
- Float fishing
Suspending a bait at a controlled depth beneath a buoyant indicator — the most visual, most controllable and most widely applicable method in angling.
Baits and lures for these fish
The baits and lures each of the fish above is commonly taken on, from that fish’s own page. This is what works for the fish, not a report of what people use on this particular water — local knowledge and the conditions on the day still decide.
Baits
- Fish strip and cut bait — for Small-spotted catshark, Atlantic cod, Thick-lipped grey mullet, Conger eel
- Squid and cuttlefish — for Small-spotted catshark, Atlantic cod, Conger eel
- Lugworm — for Atlantic cod, Whiting
- Peeler crab — for European flounder, Atlantic cod
- Ragworm — for European flounder, Small-spotted catshark
- Bread — for Thick-lipped grey mullet
- Crab and shellfish — for Saithe
- Sand eel — for Saithe
Also: Sea deadbaits
Lures
- Metal jigs — for Saithe, Atlantic cod, Atlantic mackerel
- Soft plastics — for Saithe, Atlantic cod
- Spinners — for Atlantic mackerel
How to catch them: Flounder fishing · Coalfish fishing · Cod fishing · Mackerel fishing · Grey mullet fishing · Whiting fishing · Conger fishing
The ground and the water
- The ground
- The harbour arm on the north shore of Belfast Lough beneath the Norman castle, fished from the end of the arm on the castle side over ground that is clean enough to cast short of the newer breakwater. A river mouth a kilometre further along holds large mullet shoals in the warmer months.
- Exposure
- Wholly sheltered inside Belfast Lough. A mark that fishes when the open coast either side of it does not.
- Depth
- Moderate depth off the arm end; shallow and soft toward the river mouth.
- Tide and flow
- Modest streams inside the lough, with the harbour arm giving usable water across most of the tide and the fishing concentrated toward high.
Through the year
Whiting in abundance through the winter with cod, flounder and pouting alongside; mackerel through the summer, when both guides say the arm becomes crowded; mullet at the marina and the river mouth in calm warm weather.
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.
| Species | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlantic cod — seasonal, recorded in October, November, December, January, February. | ||||||||||||
| Atlantic mackerel — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Thick-lipped grey mullet — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Whiting — seasonal, recorded in October, November, December, January, February. |
Recorded here with no season stated: European flounder, Pouting, Saithe, Small-spotted catshark, Conger eel.
Safety
Cold water shock — Can cause serious injury or death
General safety for this kind of ground, not a finding about this place.
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 injury needing treatment
Belfast Lough carries heavy commercial and ferry traffic and the wash from a large vessel reaches a harbour wall long after the vessel has passed, arriving as a set rather than as a single wave.
What reduces it: Keep gear and feet back from the edge of the wall when a large vessel is in the lough, and treat the quiet water after one has gone by as the part of the sequence that has not happened yet.
Rules and access
FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Sea angling access in Northern Ireland is governed by landowner permission, harbour and council byelaws, and fisheries and conservation measures, all of which change. Check the current position with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, the harbour or council, and the landowner before going.
Who holds the answer:
- The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, for sea fisheries and marine conservation in Northern Ireland.
- The harbour authority or council, for access to the structure or the shore.
- The Northern Ireland department responsible for agriculture, environment and rural affairs, which administers sea fisheries measures and marine conservation here.
- The Northern Ireland Environment Agency and the site management bodies, where a coastal or marine designation affects access or activity.
- The harbour authority at each port, for access to and fishing from harbour structures. Several of these are working fishing ports rather than public quays.
- The landowner, where access to the shore crosses land in private or National Trust ownership.
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Belfast Lough — 5–10 km · Sea loch
- Whitehead — 5–10 km · Promenade
- Islandmagee and the Gobbins — 10–25 km · Rock mark
- Bangor and Ballyholme — 10–25 km · Bay
- Larne Lough — 10–25 km · Sea loch
- Groomsport — 10–25 km · Harbour wall
- Orlock Point — 10–25 km · Headland
- Portmuck and Browns Bay — 10–25 km · Harbour wall
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 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 Antrim — Sea Angling Ireland (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: A shore-mark directory describing this mark's ground, species, methods, baits and the walk in.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- British Sea Fishing: Northern Ireland shore marks — British Sea Fishing (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: A national shore-mark guide naming this mark, its species, methods, baits and the conditions it fishes in.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.