Porthmeor and Carbis Bay
Beach · Salt water · in The Cornish and Devon coasts
Two contrasting St Ives beaches: Porthmeor facing north-west into the full Atlantic swell with granite headlands at both ends, and Carbis Bay a mile east facing east into the sheltered water of the bay. The same town, opposite conditions.
Safety: cold water shock — 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 · 7
- Small-spotted catsharkEstablished quarry1 placePorthmeor and Carbis BayOver beach
Atlantic codSeasonal1 placePorthmeor and Carbis BayOver beachObserved Jan–Feb, Nov–Dec
European flounderSeasonal1 placePorthmeor and Carbis BayOver beachObserved Jan–Feb, Nov–Dec
European plaiceSeasonal1 placePorthmeor and Carbis BayOver beachObserved Jun–Sept
European sea bassSeasonal1 placePorthmeor and Carbis BayOver beachObserved Jun–Sept- Small-eyed raySeasonal1 placePorthmeor and Carbis BayOver beachObserved Jun–Sept
TurbotSeasonal1 placePorthmeor and Carbis BayOver beachObserved Jun–Sept
What these strengths mean
- Established quarry
- Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
- 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.
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.
- Surfcasting
Casting heavy baited tackle from a beach into surf — a method defined by distance, by tide, and by reading water that all looks the same.
- 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.
The ground and the water
- The ground
- Two contrasting St Ives beaches: Porthmeor facing north-west into the full Atlantic swell with granite headlands at both ends, and Carbis Bay a mile east facing east into the sheltered water of the bay. The same town, opposite conditions.
- Exposure
- Porthmeor is fully open north-west to the Atlantic; Carbis Bay is sheltered and faces east into St Ives Bay. The pair covers both conditions.
Through the year
Plaice, turbot, bass and rays in summer; flounder and cod in winter.
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. | ||||||||||||
| European flounder — seasonal, recorded in November, December, January, February. | ||||||||||||
| European plaice — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| European sea bass — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Small-eyed ray — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Turbot — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. |
Recorded here with no season stated: Small-spotted catshark.
Safety
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.
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 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
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- St Ives harbour and piers — under 2 km · Harbour wall
- Hayle estuary — 5–10 km · Estuary
- Penzance and Mousehole — 10–25 km · Harbour wall
- Newlyn North Pier — 10–25 km · Pier
- Cape Cornwall — 10–25 km · Headland
- Porthleven — 10–25 km · Harbour wall
- Sennen Cove — 10–25 km · Cove
- The Helford — 25–40 km · Estuary
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: south coast and south-west England shore marks — British Sea Fishing (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Which species are fished for at each named shore mark on the English south and south-west coast, and in which season.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.