Filey Brigg
Ledge · Salt water · in The Yorkshire coast
A natural rock reef of calcareous grit running roughly a kilometre out to sea from the end of Carr Naze, with a flat scar top, deep gullies along both flanks and heavy kelp. One of the most distinctive pieces of shore-fishing ground on the English east coast because it puts an angler a kilometre offshore on foot.
Safety: tides and being cut off — can cause serious injury or death. 2 more points apply here.
FishingHQ describes what this place is. It does not say whether you may fish it: access rights, permits, licences, byelaws, closures and protected areas all apply, all differ and all change. Who to ask is below.
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 · 3
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.
- Places, catches 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.
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.
- Spinning
Casting an artificial lure and retrieving it so that it moves like something alive — the most direct form of lure fishing.
The ground and the water
- The ground
- A natural rock reef of calcareous grit running roughly a kilometre out to sea from the end of Carr Naze, with a flat scar top, deep gullies along both flanks and heavy kelp. One of the most distinctive pieces of shore-fishing ground on the English east coast because it puts an angler a kilometre offshore on foot.
- Exposure
- Wholly exposed. The Brigg is a low reef surrounded by open North Sea and there is no lee anywhere on it; a swell from any northerly or easterly quarter breaks across the whole structure.
- Depth
- Shallow and heavily broken along the reef, with deeper water off the end and in the gullies.
- Tide and flow
- The reef covers. Most of its length is fishable only either side of low water, and the sea returns along both flanks simultaneously rather than up a single face.
Through the year
Cod through autumn and winter, which is the fishery the Brigg is documented for; wrasse, mackerel and coalfish over the summer; bass increasingly through the warmer months.
Safety
Tides and being cut off — Can cause serious injury or death
The reef is a kilometre long and covers on the flood along both flanks at once, so the water arrives on both sides of an angler working the far end rather than behind them. The walk back is over wet, weeded, uneven rock in the dark for much of the cod season.
What reduces it: Read the tide table before going rather than after arriving, set a leaving time from the tide rather than from the fishing, and identify the exit and how long it takes while the ground is still uncovered.
Worse when:
- On spring tides, when more of the reef covers and covers faster.
- In any swell, which breaks across the scar top well before the predicted tide reaches it.
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.
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.
Rules and access
FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Shore angling in England 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 the relevant inshore fisheries and conservation authority, the harbour or local authority, and the landowner before going.
Particular to this water: This ground carries conservation designations that constrain access, vehicles, bait collection and disturbance independently of any fishing rule.
Who holds the answer:
- The Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority for the district, which makes and enforces inshore byelaws.
- The Marine Management Organisation, for national recreational sea fishing measures in English waters.
- The local authority and, where one exists, the harbour authority, for access, byelaws and shellfish classification.
- The relevant Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority for the district, which makes and enforces inshore byelaws including those on bait collection.
- Natural England and the site management body, where a marine or coastal designation affects access, vehicles or collection.
- The harbour authority or commissioners at each port, where fishing is from harbour structures or small craft are launched.
- The statutory harbour authority for the Humber, for navigation and access on the estuary.
- The Maritime and Coastguard Agency 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.
- Cayton Bay — 5–10 km · Bay
- Scarborough South Bay pier — 10–25 km · Pier
- Scarborough Marine Drive — 10–25 km · Promenade
- Bridlington North Pier — 10–25 km · Pier
- Flamborough Head and the North Landing — 10–25 km · Headland
- Ravenscar and the Peak rocks — 25–40 km · Rock mark
- Robin Hood's Bay — 25–40 km · Bay
- Hornsea — 25–40 km · 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
- Rock fishing safety and the declared lifejacket areas of New South Wales — NSW Department of Primary Industries and Surf Life Saving NSW (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Rock-platform fishing hazards, the mechanism by which anglers are swept from platforms by sets rather than by average conditions, and the measures that address it.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- RNLI water safety guidance: cold water shock and Float to Live — Royal National Lifeboat Institution (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Cold water shock, immersion response and the advice to carry a means of calling for help on the person.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- 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
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.