Castletown and Keiss beaches
Beach · Salt water · in Caithness and the north coast
Two firm sand beaches on the Caithness north and east coasts, both backed by flagstone country and both with the local sandstone showing in flat slabs at their ends. Clean ground with hard rock at the margins.
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 · 4
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 Castletown and Keiss beaches 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
- Saithe — documented at Thurso Bay and Scrabster
- Brown trout — documented at Thurso Bay and Scrabster
- Short-spined sea scorpion — documented at Thurso Bay and Scrabster
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
- Two firm sand beaches on the Caithness north and east coasts, both backed by flagstone country and both with the local sandstone showing in flat slabs at their ends. Clean ground with hard rock at the margins.
- Exposure
- Open north at Castletown and east at Keiss; between them they cover both quarters.
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
Tidal streams through narrow water run hard enough to overwhelm a small boat and to make a person in the water uncatchable. Overfalls stand up where the stream meets wind or shoaling ground, and the transition from workable to dangerous happens over minutes rather than hours as the tide turns.
What reduces it: Do not take a small boat into a race without knowing the times of slack water for that specific gate. Wear flotation. Fish from the shore where the ground allows it rather than from a boat that has to hold position in the stream.
Worse when:
- Wind against tide, which stands the water up into steep breaking overfalls
- Springs, when the stream runs at its hardest
- An engine failure, where a drift becomes a race transit with no way out of it
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Low limestone and shale ledges reached by a descent from a cliff top, fished from a platform that is wet, sloping seaward and lower than it looks from above. A sea that was manageable on arrival can put water across the whole platform, and the way back up is a climb rather than a walk.
What reduces it: Look at the state of the sea from the top before committing to the descent, and look at the forecast for the whole session rather than for the hour. Know where the exit is and how long it takes. Do not fish a ledge alone. Wear a buoyancy aid: a person in the water at the foot of a cliff cannot be reached quickly from the land.
Worse when:
- A rising swell during the session, so the descent was safe and the ascent is not
- Wet weed and algae on the platform, which are as slippery as ice on limestone
- A big spring tide, which reaches ledges that a neap leaves dry
Rules and access
FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Sea angling in Scotland is not rod-licensed, but access rights under the Scottish Outdoor Access Code carry responsibilities, and harbour, local authority, marine conservation and fisheries measures all apply and all change. Check the current position with the Marine Directorate, the harbour or local authority and the land manager before going.
Who holds the answer:
- The Scottish Government Marine Directorate, for sea fisheries measures in Scottish waters.
- The harbour authority or land manager, for access to the structure or the ground.
- The local authority, for shellfish harvesting classification.
- The Scottish marine and fisheries authorities, for sea fisheries rules, minimum sizes, protected areas and species restrictions.
- The relevant district salmon fishery board, for anything concerning migratory salmon and sea trout.
- The local authority environmental health service, for shellfish harvesting classification and closures.
- The harbour authority for any working harbour, which is operational infrastructure rather than public space.
- The body managing any conservation designation on the stretch concerned.
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Dunnet Beach — 5–10 km · Surf beach
- Thurso Bay and Scrabster — 10–25 km · Bay
- The Thurso — 10–25 km · River reach
- Duncansby Head and the Pentland Firth — 10–25 km · Tidal race
- Wick — 10–25 km · Harbour wall
- Longberry Rock — 10–25 km · Rock mark
- Scapa Flow — 25–40 km · Bay
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
- British Sea Fishing: Scottish shore marks — British Sea Fishing (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Which species are fished for at each named Scottish shore mark and how the fishing divides between the winter and the summer half of the year.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.