North Sunderland Point
Headland · Salt water · in The north-east England coast
The whinstone point north of Seahouses harbour, with hard dolerite ledges stepping into deep water and the Farne Islands offshore. Rough ground and the tidal stream between the shore and the islands running past it.
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 · 3
What these strengths mean
- 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.
Fish documented nearby, not here
Nothing below has been documented at North Sunderland Point 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 Amble and the Coquet estuary; Newbiggin Bay; Spittal and Goswick (+3 more)
- Saithe — documented at Craster and Cullernose Point; Druridge Bay; Cresswell Carrs (+3 more)
- Whiting — documented at Newbiggin Bay; Blyth South Harbour breakwater; Holy Island and the Lindisfarne causeway (+2 more)
- European sea bass — documented at Holy Island and the Lindisfarne causeway; St Mary's Island, Whitley Bay; Spittal and Goswick (+2 more)
- Atlantic mackerel — documented at Craster and Cullernose Point; Embleton Bay; Dunstanburgh Castle rocks
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 Spittal and Goswick
- European plaice — documented at Seahouses harbour
- Conger eel — documented at Craster and Cullernose Point
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
- The whinstone point north of Seahouses harbour, with hard dolerite ledges stepping into deep water and the Farne Islands offshore. Rough ground and the tidal stream between the shore and the islands running past it.
- Exposure
- Open east and north-east, with the Farnes breaking the worst of it.
Not to be confused with Seahouses harbour, which is a separate record for different ground.
Through the year
Cod in winter; pollack and wrasse in summer.
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. | ||||||||||||
| Ballan wrasse — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Pollack — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. |
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.
Tides and being cut off — Can cause serious injury or death
Scars flood from seaward and simultaneously from behind, as water rises through the gullies that cut them. The route back to the shore may be under water while the platform is still dry, which is the reverse of what somebody watching the sea in front of them expects.
What reduces it: Work out the return route and the time it is lost before going out, not after. Set a leaving time against the tide rather than against the fishing, and treat rising water in a gully behind you as the signal to go 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.
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.
- The harbour authority or commissioners, for fishing from piers, breakwaters and harbour structures, where permission is a local matter and changes.
- Natural England and the relevant protected site body, where a designation affects access or collection.
- 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.
- Seahouses harbour — under 2 km · Harbour wall
- Beadnell Bay — 2–5 km · Bay
- Bamburgh and Budle Bay — 5–10 km · Beach
- Embleton Bay — 5–10 km · Bay
- Dunstanburgh Castle rocks — 10–25 km · Rock mark
- Craster and Cullernose Point — 10–25 km · Rock mark
- Holy Island and the Lindisfarne causeway — 10–25 km · Island
- Boulmer — 10–25 km · Rock mark
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: north-east England and Yorkshire shore marks — British Sea Fishing (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Which species are fished for at each named north-east England shore mark, in which season, at which state of tide and after which weather.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.