Hopes Nose
Headland · Salt water · in The Cornish and Devon coasts
A limestone promontory east of Torquay with a raised beach on top and stepped ledges below, deep water immediately off them and the Ore Stone standing offshore. One of the few English marks where red mullet and black bream are both named from the shore.
Safety: cliffs and rock platforms — 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 · 11
Conger eelEstablished quarry1 placeHopes NoseOver headland
PoutingEstablished quarry1 placeHopes NoseOver headland- Small-spotted catsharkEstablished quarry1 placeHopes NoseOver headland
Atlantic codSeasonal1 placeHopes NoseOver headlandObserved Jan–Feb, Nov–Dec
Atlantic mackerelSeasonal1 placeHopes NoseOver headlandObserved Jun–Sept
Ballan wrasseSeasonal1 placeHopes NoseOver headlandObserved Jun–Sept
Black seabreamSeasonal1 placeHopes NoseOver headlandObserved Jun–Sept
GarfishSeasonal1 placeHopes NoseOver headlandObserved Jun–Sept
Also documented from the shore: Pollack · Striped red mullet · Whiting
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, 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.
- Feathering and multi-lure traces
A string of small lures on droppers, worked in the water column — how most people in Britain and Ireland catch their first sea fish, and the method most likely to catch far more than anybody intended.
- 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 limestone promontory east of Torquay with a raised beach on top and stepped ledges below, deep water immediately off them and the Ore Stone standing offshore. One of the few English marks where red mullet and black bream are both named from the shore.
- Exposure
- Open east and south-east into Lyme Bay.
- Depth
- Deep off the ledges, which is what puts the summer species within reach from the rock.
Through the year
Mackerel, pollack, garfish, wrasse, red mullet and black bream through the summer; whiting and cod through the winter.
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 — seasonal, recorded in November, December, January, February. | ||||||||||||
| Atlantic mackerel — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Ballan wrasse — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Black seabream — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Garfish — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Pollack — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Striped red mullet — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Whiting — seasonal, recorded in November, December, January, February. |
Recorded here with no season stated: Conger eel, Pouting, Small-spotted catshark.
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.
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.
Moving water and currents — Can cause serious injury or death
The north coast's surf beaches carry strong rip currents, which run seaward through gaps in the sandbars and can take a wading angler off their feet and out beyond the surf line faster than they can walk back.
What reduces it: Do not wade deep in surf; learn to identify the calmer, darker, less-breaking channels that mark a rip and stay out of them; and if caught, do not swim against it — swim across the current parallel to the beach until out of it.
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.
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 national fisheries authority for England, for licensing of freshwater and migratory fishing and for fisheries enforcement
- The relevant inshore fisheries and conservation authority for the district, which sets and enforces local sea fisheries byelaws
- The body managing any marine protected area on the stretch concerned
- The local authority environmental health service, for shellfish classification and public health closures
- The harbour authority for working harbours and quays
- The relevant estuary or river management body, where an estuary carries its own arrangements
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Torquay harbour — 2–5 km · Harbour wall
- Babbacombe and Oddicombe — 2–5 km · Pier
- Brixham breakwater — 5–10 km · Breakwater
- Berry Head — 5–10 km · Headland
- Teignmouth — 5–10 km · Estuary mark
- The Dart estuary — 10–25 km · Estuary
- Exmouth and the Exe estuary — 10–25 km · Estuary
- Budleigh Salterton — 10–25 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
- British Sea Fishing: south coast and south-west England shore marks — British Sea Fishing (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Which species are fished for at each named shore mark on the English south and south-west coast, and in which season.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.