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Paul do Mar

Rock platform · Salt water · in Madeira

A narrow shelf of boulder and lava under the cliffs of Madeira's western end, reached by a road tunnel, with deep water close in and a long fetch to the south-west.

Safety: cliffs and rock platforms — can cause serious injury or death.

What each one does, and what reduces it ↓

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 · 9

Also documented from the shore: Great barracuda

What these strengths mean
Established quarry
Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
Repeatedly reported
Several independent public accounts. Enough to say it happens more than once; not enough to call it a fishery.
Recorded here
At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
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.

Also associated with this ground

Recorded as present here without a documented method or strength behind them.

Ballan wrasse

Fish documented nearby, not here

Nothing below has been documented at Paul do Mar 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.

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

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.

  • Spinning

    Casting an artificial lure and retrieving it so that it moves like something alive — the most direct form of lure fishing.

  • Jigging

    Working a weighted lure with a rising-and-falling motion, usually vertically, so it behaves like a wounded or fleeing baitfish.

The ground and the water

The ground
A narrow shelf of boulder and lava under the cliffs of Madeira's western end, reached by a road tunnel, with deep water close in and a long fetch to the south-west.
Exposure
A west-facing shelf under high cliffs with a long Atlantic fetch and no shelter, and swell that arrives without local warning.

Safety

Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death

The north coast is cliff-bound and takes Atlantic swell with almost no shelf to dissipate it, so waves at exposed platforms are larger and less regular than the wind suggests. The sheltered south coast on the same day gives no warning of it.

What reduces it: Check swell rather than wind, and check it for the coast you are going to rather than for the island. Watch a platform for a sustained period before committing. Never fish a position you could not leave immediately.

Rules and access

FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Madeira is an autonomous region of Portugal with its own fisheries administration, and recreational sea and underwater fishing are licensed regionally rather than by the mainland directorate. Species, size, quantity and gear measures apply and change, and marine protected areas around the archipelago constrain access independently. Check the current position with the regional fisheries directorate before going.

Who holds the answer:

  • The Regional Directorate for Fisheries of Madeira, which licenses and regulates recreational sea and underwater fishing in the archipelago.
  • The port authority, for access to harbour structures.
  • The Regional Directorate for Fisheries of Madeira, for recreational licences, sizes and species rules
  • The managing authority of any marine protected area or nature reserve, whose zoning governs what is permitted inside it
  • The regional forestry and nature-conservation authority, for the levadas and the mountain streams
  • Harbour and port authorities, for access to quays, moles and slipways

Nearby fishing

Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.

Paul do MarPorto MonizSeixalRibeira Brava, MadeiraCâmara de LobosThe Funchal waterfrontPorto da Cruz, MadeiraPorto Novo, Madeira
Paul do Mar and the publicly documented places around it. Approximate positions, not marks. Positions are approximate by design — they are capped at about a hundred metres and describe where a named public place is, not where fish are and not a mark. Everything plotted here is also listed below.

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
  • Fishing Madeira, and jigging and popping the Azores islands — GT Fishing (Practitioner report)Relied on for: That the named Madeiran locations are fished from the shore or from a boat for the species given, and the technique and season the operator attaches to each.FishingHQ's interpretation of what it saysPassage read and verified
  • Importance of recreational shore angling in the archipelago of Madeira (northeast Atlantic) — Scientia Marina (CSIC), vol. 84 no. 4, 2020 (Scientific literature)Relied on for: The catch composition of the Madeira archipelago's recreational shore fishery by species and by share of the estimated annual total, from a 2017 creel survey of 653 anglers.States this directlyPassage read and verified

How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.

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