Peninnis Head
Headland · Salt water · in The Isles of Scilly
The southern point of St Mary's: a low granite headland of weathered, rounded boulders and tors running out to a lighthouse, with gullies and ledges between them and no beach on either side of the point itself. The ground drops away hard — the water a short cast off the head is far deeper than anything comparable on the mainland's granite coast — which is why it is fished as a deep-water mark from a shore stance. The rock is the fishing: the boulder fields, holes and weed either side of the point are wrasse ground, and the drop-off at the end is where the pollack are.
Safety: cliffs and rock platforms — 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
- Characteristic of this water
- This water is strongly identified with this species by the sources that cover it.
- Regular local target
- Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
- Recorded here
- At least one credible public account of this species being caught here. That is all it means.
- 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.
How people fish it
Practised here: Sea fishing, Lure fishing.
Methods the sources name for this ground. Each one is explained in full on its own page.
- Light rock fishing
Ultralight lure fishing from the shore with tackle rated in single grams — a discipline that catches the fish everybody else steps over, and one FishingHQ held every component of and had never named.
- 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
- The southern point of St Mary's: a low granite headland of weathered, rounded boulders and tors running out to a lighthouse, with gullies and ledges between them and no beach on either side of the point itself. The ground drops away hard — the water a short cast off the head is far deeper than anything comparable on the mainland's granite coast — which is why it is fished as a deep-water mark from a shore stance. The rock is the fishing: the boulder fields, holes and weed either side of the point are wrasse ground, and the drop-off at the end is where the pollack are.
- Exposure
- Open to the south and west with the Atlantic behind it and nothing between here and Biscay. There is no shelter at the point in any southerly weather, and the granite is described by the islands' own guidance as particularly hazardous during and after rain.
- Depth
- Deep very close in. This is the property that defines the mark and the reason it is named for experienced anglers rather than for a first session: a short cast reaches water that on most English granite would need a boat.
- Tide and flow
- A large range for the size of the islands — the local guidance gives a rise and fall of up to twenty feet — over ground that changes character completely between states of tide.
Through the year
The wrasse and pollack ground fishes through the year rather than closing down in winter, which is unusual for a British rock mark and is consistent with the oceanic water the archipelago sits in. A published account of two February days here took wrasse to five pounds. Two days is an observation and not a season, and it is recorded as one.
Safety
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Long-period Atlantic ground swell reaches exposed granite ledges with no shelf to bleed its energy and independently of local wind, arriving in sets. The rock is rounded, weeded and drops into deep water, so a person swept off has no shallow margin and little to grip.
What reduces it: Read the swell forecast including the period rather than the wind forecast, watch a mark through several full set cycles from above the wet line, choose a position with a way up behind it, wear a buoyancy aid, and do not fish exposed ledges alone.
Worse when:
- With Atlantic ground swell running under calm bright conditions, which is the combination that misleads visitors.
- At the outer points and the western ground, where there is no shelter of any kind.
Boat safety — Can cause serious injury or death
The shallow granite platform between and around the islands is strewn with unmarked rock, drying ledge and reef, invisible in a ripple. Tidal streams between the islands run strongly and produce overfalls over shallow ground.
What reduces it: Keep to known passages, go slowly on unfamiliar water, obtain local knowledge of the ground and the streams before travelling at speed, and plan passages around the state of the tide.
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.
Particular to this water: Sea angling in England needs no rod licence, and that is the end of what is simple here. The archipelago has its own inshore fisheries authority with its own byelaws, much of the coast and the surrounding water carries conservation designation, and several of the headlands are nature reserves. Nothing on this page states that any ground may be fished, and no size, bag or gear limit is published here, because the byelaws are revised and FishingHQ does not track them. Ask the Isles of Scilly IFCA.
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 Isles of Scilly Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, which makes and enforces inshore byelaws for these waters.
- Natural England and the site management bodies, where a marine or coastal designation affects anchoring, access, collection or disturbance.
- The Duchy of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust, as landowner and manager for much of the land and shore.
- The harbour authority, for navigation, moorings and access.
- The local authority and the Food Standards Agency framework, for shellfish harvesting area classification.
- The Isles of Scilly Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, which makes and enforces the inshore fisheries byelaws for the archipelago and is a separate body from Cornwall IFCA
- The Council of the Isles of Scilly, which administers the authority and the islands' land
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Old Town Bay — under 2 km · Bay
- St Mary's Harbour and quay — under 2 km · Harbour wall
- The Daymark, St Martin's — 5–10 km · Headland
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
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.