The Great Orme
Headland · Salt water · in The Welsh coast and Anglesey
A massive Carboniferous limestone headland with vertical cliffs, caves and a wave-cut platform, giving deep water close in and the hardest ground on the north Wales coast.
Safety: moving water and currents — can cause serious injury or death. One more point applies 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
- 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 The Great Orme 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
- European flounder — documented at Point of Ayr and Talacre; Rhyl; The Conwy estuary (+3 more)
- Starry smooth-hound — documented at Point of Ayr and Talacre; Rhyl; Dinas Dinlle
- Thick-lipped grey mullet — documented at The Conwy estuary; Caernarfon and the Menai south entrance; The Welsh Dee at Mostyn and Flint
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 The Welsh Dee at Mostyn and Flint
- Thornback ray — documented at Point of Ayr and Talacre; Dinas Dinlle
- Whiting — documented at Rhyl; The Welsh Dee at Mostyn and Flint
- European plaice — documented at The Welsh Dee at Mostyn and Flint
- Black seabream — documented at Caernarfon and the Menai south entrance
- Common sole — documented at The Welsh Dee at Mostyn and Flint
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.
- 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
- A massive Carboniferous limestone headland with vertical cliffs, caves and a wave-cut platform, giving deep water close in and the hardest ground on the north Wales coast.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atlantic mackerel — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Ballan wrasse — seasonal, recorded in May, June, July, August, September, October. |
Recorded here with no season stated: Conger eel, Pollack.
Safety
Moving water and currents — Can cause serious injury or death
Tidal races and overfalls form and disperse with the state of the tide, producing standing waves and fast confused water where flat water was an hour earlier. Small craft caught in a race on the wrong state face conditions that paddling or a small engine will not overcome, and a person swept from rock into a running stream is carried away from the entry point immediately.
What reduces it: Plan against tidal stream timing rather than against wind alone; obtain local knowledge of when each piece of water runs and when it is slack; never launch a small craft near a race without that information; and treat the state of the tide as the go or no-go variable it is here.
Worse when:
- Spring tides, when the streams run hardest
- Wind against tide, which stands the water up steeply
- Any small craft, and kayaks in particular, whose speed is a fraction of the stream's
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Rock platforms on the north and west put an angler beside deep, fast-moving water, sometimes with a descent that is much harder to reverse than to make. Immersion here is compounded by the stream, which removes any prospect of climbing out where you went in.
What reduces it: Watch a mark for a long period before committing; wear a buoyancy aid; never fish rock alone; plan the exit for a worse sea than the one you arrived in; and know whether the mark is cut off by the tide.
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.
- The Welsh environmental and fisheries authority, for licensing, sea fisheries rules and enforcement in Wales
- The relevant local authority, for byelaws and for shellfish harvesting classification and closures
- The body managing any marine protected area on the stretch concerned
- The harbour authority for working harbours and the relevant landowner for access points
- The coastguard, for tidal stream and safety information, and local charter skippers whose knowledge of the races is operative safety information
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Llandudno Pier — 2–5 km · Pier
- The Conwy estuary — 5–10 km · Estuary
- Colwyn Bay — 10–25 km · Bay
- Penmon Point — 10–25 km · Headland
- Beaumaris Pier — 10–25 km · Pier
- Red Wharf Bay — 10–25 km · Bay
- The Conwy at Llanrwst — 10–25 km · River reach
- Rhyl — 10–25 km · Beach
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
- Sea fishing in north Wales — the mark guide — Turner's Tackle (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The mark-by-mark north Wales index: which species each named mark on Anglesey, the Llŷn and the mainland coast produces, with the ground, the bait, the state of tide and the method.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- British Sea Fishing: Welsh shore marks — British Sea Fishing (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The mark-by-mark Welsh shore guide: species, bait, season and ground at each named mark.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.