Flamborough Head and the North Landing
Headland · Salt water · in The Yorkshire coast
A chalk headland — the only chalk sea cliff in northern England — projecting six kilometres into the North Sea, with wave-cut chalk platforms, caves, stacks and boulder aprons beneath cliffs of up to a hundred metres. The chalk gives clean white ground and unusually clear water for the east coast.
Safety: cliffs and rock platforms — can cause serious injury or death. 3 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 · 2
What these strengths mean
- Established quarry
- Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
- 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.
Atlantic mackerel · European sea bass · European lobster · Edible crab
How people fish it
Practised here: Sea fishing, Spearfishing.
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.
The ground and the water
- The ground
- A chalk headland — the only chalk sea cliff in northern England — projecting six kilometres into the North Sea, with wave-cut chalk platforms, caves, stacks and boulder aprons beneath cliffs of up to a hundred metres. The chalk gives clean white ground and unusually clear water for the east coast.
- Exposure
- The headland divides two coasts with different weather. The north face is exposed to northerlies and sheltered from the south; the south face is the reverse. That is the single most useful practical fact about the place.
- Depth
- Moderately deep close under the head; shallow and heavily broken over the platforms and boulder aprons.
- Tide and flow
- Streams accelerate hard around the point and produce broken water off the end on a run tide. Access to most of the platforms is tide-limited.
Through the year
Cod in the colder months, wrasse and mackerel through summer, and a long-established shellfish fishery around the head.
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.
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Chalk is a soft, jointed, frost-shattered rock and these cliffs fail regularly. Fresh falls appear on the platforms below throughout the year, and the cliff edge above is undercut in places.
What reduces it: Do not fish or stand directly beneath a chalk face, keep well back from the cliff edge above, and treat freshly fallen material on a platform as evidence that more is coming rather than as evidence the fall has happened.
Tides and being cut off — Can cause serious injury or death
The flood fills the ground behind an angler before it covers the ground in front, so the water arrives between them and the shore while the position they are standing on is still dry.
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.
Cold water shock — Can cause serious injury or death
The North Sea here is cold for most of the year and this fishery is weighted to autumn and winter, frequently at night. Immersion produces an involuntary gasp and loss of breathing control within seconds, which removes the ability to swim or to climb out.
What reduces it: Wear a buoyancy aid rather than carry one, do not fish alone, carry a means of calling for help on the person, and tell somebody the mark and the return time.
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.
- Bridlington North Pier — 5–10 km · Pier
- Filey Brigg — 10–25 km · Ledge
- Hornsea — 10–25 km · Beach
- Cayton Bay — 10–25 km · Bay
- Scarborough South Bay pier — 25–40 km · Pier
- Scarborough Marine Drive — 25–40 km · Promenade
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
- 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
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.