Caswell and Langland
Bay · Salt water · in The Gower and Carmarthen Bay
Two small sandy bays cut into the limestone of the east Gower, each with rock at both horns and clean sand between. The rock is what is fished; the sand is what the bass come over.
Safety: cliffs and rock platforms — can cause serious injury or death. 3 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 · 5
European sea bassEstablished quarry1 placeCaswell and LanglandOver bayObserved May–Oct
Atlantic mackerelSeasonal1 placeCaswell and LanglandOver bayObserved Jun–Sept
GarfishSeasonal1 placeCaswell and LanglandOver bayObserved Jun–Sept
Ballan wrasseRecorded here1 placeCaswell and LanglandOver bay
PollackRecorded here1 placeCaswell and LanglandOver bay
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.
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.
- 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.
- Spinning
Casting an artificial lure and retrieving it so that it moves like something alive — the most direct form of lure fishing.
- 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 small sandy bays cut into the limestone of the east Gower, each with rock at both horns and clean sand between. The rock is what is fished; the sand is what the bass come over.
- Exposure
- Open south into the Bristol Channel, with the headlands giving some shelter inside each bay.
- Tide and flow
- Large range; the rock at each horn fishes at different states from the sand between.
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.
| Species | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| European sea bass — established quarry, recorded in May, June, July, August, September, October. | ||||||||||||
| Atlantic mackerel — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Garfish — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. |
Recorded here with no season stated: Ballan wrasse, Pollack.
Safety
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Anglers are swept from rock platforms by individual large sets rather than by the average sea, which means the conditions that kill people frequently look survivable for the twenty minutes before they arrive. Wet rock, weed and a swell running onto a sloping platform remove any chance of recovery.
What reduces it: Watch the water for a full set cycle before committing to a position, know the escape route and how long it takes, wear a flotation aid rather than carry one, never fish a platform alone, and treat a rising swell forecast as a reason not to go rather than a reason to be careful.
Tides and being cut off — Can cause serious injury or death
On the great intertidal sandflats of the Burry Inlet, a very large tidal range across level ground becomes an enormous horizontal advance. The flood fills the channels first and spreads outward, so water appears between a person and the shore while the sand they stand on is still dry.
What reduces it: Do not go out onto the sands without local knowledge of that specific ground and tide, set a leaving time from the tide rather than from the gathering or the fishing, and treat water appearing behind you as the signal to go immediately.
Worse when:
- On spring tides, when the range is greatest and the advance fastest.
- In fog or failing light, when the flats offer no landmarks at all.
Slips, trips and falls — Can cause serious injury or death
The limestone platform is deeply fissured, holed, undercut and riddled with caves and blowholes. Voids are invisible under water or weed, some sections are structurally unsound, and a fall onto sharp limestone lacerates rather than bruises.
What reduces it: Wear footwear with real grip and ankle support, move deliberately and in daylight where possible, keep off undercut ground and away from blowholes, and treat the walk across the platform as part of the hazard rather than the approach to it.
Cold water shock — Can cause serious injury or death
The water here is cold for most of the year, and an immersion produces an involuntary gasp and loss of breathing control within seconds — which decides the outcome rather than swimming ability afterwards.
What reduces it: Wear a buoyancy aid rather than carry one, do not fish alone on the rock or the flats, and carry a means of calling for help on the person.
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.
- Natural Resources Wales, which administers rod licensing, freshwater and migratory fisheries, cockle fishery regulation and conservation designations in Wales.
- The Welsh Government, for sea fisheries measures and marine policy in Welsh waters.
- The local authority and the Food Standards Agency framework, for shellfish harvesting area classification and closures.
- The relevant site management bodies, where a coastal or estuarine designation affects access, vehicles or collection.
- The harbour authority at each port, for access to and fishing from harbour structures.
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Mumbles Head — 2–5 km · Rock mark
- Mumbles Pier — 2–5 km · Pier
- Swansea Bay — 5–10 km · Bay
- Swansea West Pier — 5–10 km · Pier
- Oxwich Bay — 5–10 km · Bay
- Port Talbot breakwater — 10–25 km · Breakwater
- Port Eynon Point — 10–25 km · Headland
- Aberavon Sands — 10–25 km · Surf beach
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
- Fishing in Wales — sea fishing marks and location guides — Angling Trust (Angling or fisheries organisation)Relied on for: Welsh sea fishing marks: the ground, the species targeted at each, the mode, the state of tide and the weather preconditions, as set out by the national angling body's own Welsh resource.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.