Red Wharf Bay
Bay · Salt water · in Anglesey
A very large, very flat sand bay on the east of Anglesey that empties almost completely at low water, with a channel running out at its north end. Worm ground: the sand is soft, clean and productive, and the tide crosses it fast.
Safety: tides and being cut off — 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 · 5
What these strengths mean
- Established quarry
- 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.
- 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.
The ground and the water
- The ground
- A very large, very flat sand bay on the east of Anglesey that empties almost completely at low water, with a channel running out at its north end. Worm ground: the sand is soft, clean and productive, and the tide crosses it fast.
- Exposure
- Open east and north-east; well sheltered from the prevailing weather.
- Tide and flow
- The bay dries over a very large area and the flood crosses the flat sand quickly, which is the hazard as well as the fishing.
Safety
Tides and being cut off — Can cause serious injury or death
The flood fills the ground behind an angler before it covers the ground in front, so the water arrives between them and the shore while the position they are standing on is still dry.
What reduces it: Read the tide table before going rather than after arriving, set a leaving time from the tide rather than from the fishing, and identify the exit and how long it takes while the ground is still uncovered.
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Rock marks on the north and west coasts take swell generated over a long Irish Sea fetch, and a set considerably larger than the prevailing sea can arrive without warning. Falls from wet rock and being swept from a platform are the mechanisms.
What reduces it: Watch a mark for a full set before committing to it. Wear a buoyancy aid on any rock platform. Never fish a rock mark alone in swell, and treat a forecast that mentions swell separately from wind as the one that matters.
Worse when:
- Swell arriving from a distant system in otherwise calm local conditions
- Rising tide on a platform with a single exit
- Night fishing on unfamiliar rock
Rules and access
FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Shore angling in Wales 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 Natural Resources Wales, the harbour or local authority, and the landowner before going.
Who holds the answer:
- Natural Resources Wales, which administers marine and fisheries regulation in Welsh waters.
- The local authority and, where one exists, the harbour authority, for access, byelaws and shellfish classification.
- The national fisheries authority for Wales, for sea fisheries measures, licensing and enforcement.
- The inshore fisheries and conservation body for the area, for local byelaws, closed areas and gear restrictions.
- The food safety authority and the local authority, for shellfish bed classification and closures, which change continually.
- The harbour authorities and the port authority for the strait, for navigation, launching and access.
- The maritime and coastguard agency and the lifeboat service, for safety information and rescue in an area with genuine tidal hazard.
- The landowner, club or fishery, for permission to fish any freshwater on the island.
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Moelfre rocks — 5–10 km · Rock mark
- Beaumaris Pier — 5–10 km · Pier
- Penmon Point — 5–10 km · Headland
- The Menai Strait and the Swellies — 10–25 km · Tidal race
- Point Lynas — 10–25 km · Headland
- Llyn Alaw — 10–25 km · Reservoir
- Caernarfon and the Menai south entrance — 10–25 km · Tidal channel
- Cemaes Bay — 10–25 km · Bay
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: Welsh shore marks — British Sea Fishing (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Mark-by-mark Welsh shore angling: which species are fished for at each named mark, in which season, and with which baits and methods.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.