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Plymouth Breakwater

Breakwater · Salt water · in The Cornish and Devon coasts

A 1.5-kilometre detached stone breakwater lying across the mouth of Plymouth Sound, with deep water on the seaward side, a rubble apron, and the sheltered Sound behind. Not connected to land: it is reached by boat only.

Safety: boat safety — can cause serious injury or death. 4 more points apply here.

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 · 5

What these strengths mean
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.
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.

Black seabream

Fish documented nearby, not here

Nothing below has been documented at Plymouth Breakwater 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 Newton Ferrers and the Yealm; The Salcombe estuary; Whitsand Bay and Tregantle (+5 more)
  • Thick-lipped grey mullet — documented at Bolt Head and the Salcombe rock; The Salcombe estuary; Torquay harbour (+5 more)
  • Small-spotted catshark — documented at Babbacombe and Oddicombe; Hopes Nose; Whitsand Bay and Tregantle (+4 more)
  • European plaice — documented at Whitsand Bay and Tregantle; The Salcombe estuary; Slapton Sands and Torcross (+2 more)
  • Whiting — documented at Babbacombe and Oddicombe; Hopes Nose; Whitsand Bay and Tregantle (+1 more)
  • Pouting — documented at Babbacombe and Oddicombe; Hopes Nose; Whitsand Bay and Tregantle
  • Garfish — documented at Babbacombe and Oddicombe; Hopes Nose; Nare Head (+3 more)
  • Thornback ray — documented at The Salcombe estuary; The Plymouth rock marks; The Tamar estuary

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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Spinning

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

  • Kayak fishing

    A platform rather than a technique: quiet, shallow-draught access to water no other craft reaches, bought at the price of exposure, and a discipline where the decision not to launch is part of the skill.

The ground and the water

The ground
A 1.5-kilometre detached stone breakwater lying across the mouth of Plymouth Sound, with deep water on the seaward side, a rubble apron, and the sheltered Sound behind. Not connected to land: it is reached by boat only.
Exposure
Built to take the full south-westerly swell into the Sound and does so. The landward side is the most sheltered deep water on this coast, which is the entire reason the structure exists.
Depth
Deep on the seaward face and in the entrances; moderate and sheltered inside.
Tide and flow
Streams run along both faces and through the eastern and western entrances either side of it.

Through the year

Pollack and wrasse over the structure year-round with a warm-season peak, mackerel and bream in summer, conger at night, bass from spring to autumn.

Safety

Boat safety — Can cause serious injury or death

The structure is detached and reached only by boat, has no shelter, no exit and no easy landing, and lies across the swell entering the Sound. A change in conditions strands people on it or prevents recovery.

What reduces it: Treat any visit as a boat operation with a weather window rather than as a fishing trip, do not land in a swell, and have a plan for conditions deteriorating while you are on it.

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.

Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death

Atlantic groundswell arrives from storms thousands of miles away, on days that are locally calm and sunny, and it comes in sets in which one wave runs far higher than the rest. Anglers are swept from rock platforms that had been dry for twenty minutes, into deep water with no shelf to climb out onto and frequently with a long, hard climb back to the access path.

What reduces it: Check the swell forecast rather than the wind forecast; watch any mark for a long period before committing, and assume the sets you have seen are not the largest; never fish rock alone; wear a buoyancy aid; and plan the exit for the sea state you might have rather than the one you arrived in.

Worse when:

  • Any Atlantic swell forecast on the north coast, regardless of local wind
  • Rising tide, which brings the sets progressively higher up the platform
  • Descents that are hard to reverse, wet rock and weed, and darkness
  • Stretches with no mobile coverage, where raising the alarm is not possible

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.

Boat traffic and being seen — Can cause injury needing treatment

The entrances either side carry commercial and naval traffic on fixed routes through constricted water.

What reduces it: Know where the channels are, keep clear, and never assume a large vessel can alter course for you.

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: This is an owned and operated structure. Whether angling is allowed on it, when, from where and on what terms is the operator's decision, is frequently seasonal, and changes without notice.

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
  • The Queen's Harbour Master and the port authority, for navigation and access within the Sound.

Nearby fishing

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

Plymouth BreakwaterMount BattenRame Head and Penlee PointThe Plymouth rock marksNewton Ferrers and the YealmWhitsand Bay and TregantleThe Tamar estuaryLooeTalland Bay
Plymouth Breakwater and the publicly documented places around it. Approximate positions, not marks. On a narrow screen the plot is wider than the screen and scrolls sideways inside its frame. 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
  • 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
  • Met Office shipping forecast, inshore waters forecast and marine warnings — Met Office, United Kingdom (Government fisheries body)Relied on for: That inshore waters forecasts, sea state and swell are the operative inputs for shore and small-craft decisions in these waters.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly

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

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