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, 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 · 3
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.
- 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.
Fish documented nearby, not here
Nothing below has been documented at Filey Brigg 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.
Widely documented on this ground
Documented at three or more neighbouring places, fished a way this place is also fished. That is a pattern about the ground rather than about any one mark, and it is the closest this site comes to saying you will probably meet a fish somewhere nothing has been written about.
From the shore
- Pollack — documented at Cloughton Wyke; Scarborough South Bay pier; Bridlington North Pier (+1 more)
- Whiting — documented at Runswick Bay; Robin Hood's Bay; Cayton Bay (+3 more)
- European flounder — documented at Robin Hood's Bay; Scarborough South Bay pier; Whitby piers (+1 more)
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
- Dab — documented at Robin Hood's Bay; Whitby piers
- Small-spotted catshark — documented at Bridlington North Pier
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.
Getting there
What public sources describe, last checked 2026-08-24. Car parks fill, services change and a path existing is not a path anybody may use — none of this is a guarantee of availability and none of it is permission to be anywhere.
- Getting to it
- The Brigg is reached from the country park on the clifftop above it, down a steep hill to the beach and then out along the rock. It is a walk from the bottom rather than a headland walked out from the top, which is what makes the tide the governing fact.
- The walk in
- Well-maintained clifftop paths, then a steep hill down to the beach, then the walk out along the Brigg itself over rock.
- Tidal access
- The Brigg is walked from the beach and covers on the flood. Tide tables are posted in the park, and the return is the leg that is planned rather than the walk out.
- Mobility
- The clifftop park has accessible parking and entrances and level paths along the top. The Brigg itself is reached only by the steep descent and the rock, and is not accessible.
Parking
Filey Brigg Country Park
Public car park · Charged
Extensive parking on grass and hard standing on the clifftop, with wheelchair accessible parking and entrances. Charged, including for blue badge holders.
Where this access information comes from
- Filey Brigg Country Park — Welcome to Yorkshire (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The clifftop parking including accessible parking and entrances, the toilets and cafe near the entrance, the descent to the beach and the posted tide tables.States this directlyPassage read and verified
What is there
Public toilets
Toilets near the country park entrance on the clifftop.
Food or shelter
A cafe near the country park entrance.
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.
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 — regular local target, recorded in November, December, January, February. | ||||||||||||
| Ballan wrasse — regular local target, recorded in May, June, July, August, September, October. | ||||||||||||
| Atlantic mackerel — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. |
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
- Cloughton Wyke — 10–25 km · Rock mark
- Ravenscar and the Peak rocks — 25–40 km · Rock mark
- Robin Hood's Bay — 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
- 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.