Kilmore Quay
Harbour wall · Salt water · in The Wexford coast
A working fishing harbour and marina on the south Wexford coast opposite the Saltee Islands, with rock at the bridge outside the harbour and a shingle strand along the coast to the east.
Safety: moving water and currents — 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 · 5
Atlantic mackerelEstablished quarry1 placeKilmore QuayOver harbour wallAround Jun–Sept
Black seabreamEstablished quarry1 placeKilmore QuayOver harbour wallAround Aug–Sept
European flounderEstablished quarry1 placeKilmore QuayOver harbour wall
European sea bassEstablished quarry1 placeKilmore QuayOver harbour wall
Thick-lipped grey mulletEstablished quarry1 placeKilmore QuayOver harbour wall
What these strengths mean
- Established quarry
- Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
- 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.
Fish documented nearby, not here
Nothing below has been documented at Kilmore Quay 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
- Small-spotted catshark — documented at Carne and the Rosslare shore; Morriscastle Strand; Ballinamona (+5 more)
- Bull huss — documented at Morriscastle Strand; Curracloe Beach; Hook Head
- Pollack — documented at Hook Head; Carnsore Point; The Coombe, Tacumshin
- Thornback ray — documented at Morriscastle Strand; Ballinamona; The Coombe, Tacumshin (+2 more)
- Dab — documented at Rosslare Strand; Morriscastle Strand; Ballinamona (+1 more)
- Starry smooth-hound — documented at Morriscastle Strand; Ballinamona; Curracloe Beach (+1 more)
- Atlantic cod — documented at Curracloe Beach; The Coombe, Tacumshin; Morriscastle Strand
- Ballan wrasse — documented at Hook Head; Carnsore Point; The Coombe, Tacumshin
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
- Conger eel — documented at Hook Head; Carnsore Point
- Saithe — documented at The Coombe, Tacumshin; Carnsore Point
- Whiting — documented at The Coombe, Tacumshin; Carne and the Rosslare shore
- Brown trout — documented at The Coombe, Tacumshin
- Common stingray — documented at Morriscastle Strand
- Corkwing wrasse — documented at Carnsore Point
- Spurdog — documented at Morriscastle Strand
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 working fishing harbour and marina on the south Wexford coast opposite the Saltee Islands, with rock at the bridge outside the harbour and a shingle strand along the coast to the east.
- Exposure
- Sheltered by the harbour arms with the Saltees offshore, on a coast that takes weather from the south and east.
- Tide and flow
- The directory gives pier fishing as restricted to high water, and the strand along the coast as a high-tide mark fished three hours either side.
Through the year
The directory records black sea bream taken from the strand in August and September, which on this coast is a warm-water arrival rather than a resident fishery.
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 — established quarry, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Black seabream — established quarry, recorded in August, September. |
Recorded here with no season stated: European flounder, European sea bass, Thick-lipped grey mullet.
Safety
Moving water and currents — Can cause serious injury or death
Narrow sounds, estuary mouths, harbour entrances and channel edges run hard on the tide, and the water moving through them is a whole bay emptying and filling through a gap. Somebody who enters that water is carried, not swum, and shingle and sandbanks shift under the current.
What reduces it: Treat the state of the tide as part of the mark rather than as a timing detail. Do not wade a channel edge. Stay off shifting banks on a making tide.
Cold water shock — Can cause serious injury or death
The water is cold enough to trigger the involuntary gasp and hyperventilation of cold water shock for most of the year, which incapacitates a swimmer in the first minute regardless of how well they swim, and it does not stop being cold in a warm summer week.
What reduces it: Wear a buoyancy aid so the first minute does not have to be survived by swimming. Fish with somebody. Know where you would get out before you need to.
Tides and being cut off — Can cause serious injury or death
Tidal islands, causeways, strand crossings and rock gullies that are dry ground at low water flood on the tide, and the water arrives behind the angler rather than in front of them. The Irish west and south coasts carry a large number of these and several are the ordinary way onto a mark.
What reduces it: Work out the tide for the day before walking out, and work out the exit rather than the entrance. Set an alarm for the turn. Never assume a crossing that was dry on the way out will be dry on the way back.
Rules and access
FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Sea angling in Ireland is not generally licensed, but access rights, landowner permission, harbour and local authority rules, conservation designations and national fisheries measures all apply and all change. Check the current position with Inland Fisheries Ireland, the harbour or local authority and the landowner before going.
Particular to this water: A busy working fishing port with a marina and charter fleet operating to the Saltees. Where a rod may be used is the harbour's decision.
Who holds the answer:
- Inland Fisheries Ireland, which administers angling and fisheries protection.
- The harbour or local authority, for access to structures and the shore.
- Inland Fisheries Ireland, for freshwater fisheries, for salmon and sea trout licensing and tagging, and for the sea angling conservation measures it administers.
- The government department responsible for the marine, and the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, for sea fisheries measures, minimum sizes, bag limits and protected species.
- The National Parks and Wildlife Service, where a designation constrains access, disturbance or collection.
- The Food Safety Authority of Ireland and the shellfish classification and biotoxin monitoring programme, before anything filter-feeding is taken.
- The harbour authority, local authority, club or landowner controlling the specific structure or shore, whose permission is theirs to give and is not stated here.
- The Irish Coast Guard 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.
- The Coombe, Tacumshin — 5–10 km · Beach section
- Carnsore Point — 10–25 km · Rock mark
- Carne and the Rosslare shore — 10–25 km · Beach
- Rosslare Strand — 10–25 km · Surf beach
- Wexford Harbour and the Slobs — 10–25 km · Estuary
- Hook Head — 10–25 km · Headland
- Passage East — 25–40 km · Tidal channel
- Dunmore East — 25–40 km · Harbour wall
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
- Sea Angling in Ireland: the shore marks of Wexford — Sea Angling Ireland (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: A practitioner shore directory describing this mark's ground, species, methods, baits and the character of the access.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.