St Govan's Head
Rock mark · Salt water · in Pembrokeshire and the south-west Wales coast
Vertical Carboniferous limestone cliffs of forty to fifty metres above deep water, with a chapel wedged into a cleft and a coast of stacks, arches and blowholes either side. Hard, sharp, well-fractured rock throughout.
Safety: cliffs and rock platforms — can cause serious injury or death. 4 more points apply here.
FishingHQ describes what this place is, not whether you may fish it. Access, permits and who to ask.
Also associated with this ground
Recorded as present here without a documented method or strength behind them.
Pollack · Ballan wrasse · Conger eel · Atlantic mackerel · European sea bass
Fish documented nearby, not here
Nothing below has been documented at St Govan's Head 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
- Small-spotted catshark — documented at Tenby South Beach; Hobbs Point; St Brides Bay (+1 more)
- Bull huss — documented at St Brides Bay; Tenby South Beach
- Dab — documented at Tenby South Beach
- Atlantic cod — documented at Tenby South Beach; Hobbs Point; Goodwick breakwater
- Whiting — documented at Tenby South Beach; Hobbs Point; Goodwick breakwater
- Garfish — documented at Giltar Point; Hobbs Point
- Thornback ray — documented at Tenby South Beach; Hobbs Point
- Black seabream — documented at Tenby South Beach
- Blonde ray — documented at Tenby South Beach
- Starry smooth-hound — documented at Tenby South Beach
- Thick-lipped grey mullet — documented at Hobbs Point
- European flounder — documented at Tenby South Beach; Hobbs Point
- Pouting — documented at Tenby South Beach; Goodwick breakwater
- Saithe — documented at Goodwick breakwater
- Tub gurnard — documented at Tenby South Beach
- Turbot — documented at Tenby South Beach
From a kayak
- Atlantic cod — documented at Solva
- Cuckoo wrasse — documented at Solva
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.
- 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
- Vertical Carboniferous limestone cliffs of forty to fifty metres above deep water, with a chapel wedged into a cleft and a coast of stacks, arches and blowholes either side. Hard, sharp, well-fractured rock throughout.
- Exposure
- South-facing and open to the Celtic Sea, taking Atlantic swell that has crossed the whole approach with no shelter.
- Depth
- Deep immediately below the cliffs, which is the characteristic that makes this a shore mark at all.
- Tide and flow
- Strong streams along the coast with a race off the head on the ebb.
Through the year
Pollack and wrasse through the warmer months, conger over the rough ground, bass and mackerel in summer.
Safety
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Anglers are swept from rock platforms by individual large sets rather than by the average sea, which means the conditions that kill people frequently look survivable for the twenty minutes before they arrive. Wet rock, weed and a swell running onto a sloping platform remove any chance of recovery.
What reduces it: Watch the water for a full set cycle before committing to a position, know the escape route and how long it takes, wear a flotation aid rather than carry one, never fish a platform alone, and treat a rising swell forecast as a reason not to go rather than a reason to be careful.
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Access is by steep exposed descent to ledges above deep water with no beach, no shallow water and no way out except back up the way you came.
What reduces it: Do not descend a route you cannot see the whole of, do not fish a ledge alone, and treat a rising swell as a reason to leave immediately rather than to move up.
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.
Moving water and currents — Can cause serious injury or death
Tidal streams through the sounds run faster than a kayak can paddle or a small outboard can push against, and produce standing waves, boils and overfalls on springs. A craft that enters the acceleration is committed to wherever the stream takes it.
What reduces it: Plan every movement around the state of the tide before the wind. Know when the stream turns at the specific sound rather than at a distant standard port. Do not attempt a sound on spring tides. Treat visible overfalls as a boundary and allow a wide margin, since their position moves through the tide.
Worse when:
- Spring tides, when the streams run hardest and the overfalls are largest.
- Wind against tide, which stands the race up into breaking water.
Fishing alone — Can cause injury needing treatment
Much of this coast lies inside an active military range with published firing times, and access is closed when the range is live. Being on the range during firing is a hazard of an entirely different kind from the sea.
What reduces it: Check the current firing times and access arrangements with the range authority before going, and treat closures as absolute.
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.
Particular to this water: This ground carries conservation designations that constrain access, vehicles, bait collection and disturbance independently of any fishing rule.
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.
- Welsh Government, for sea fisheries policy and measures in Welsh waters, which differ from English ones.
- Natural Resources Wales, for marine and freshwater licensing, designation and enforcement in Wales.
- The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority and the relevant island or reserve managers, where access, landing and disturbance are constrained by designation.
- The Milford Haven Port Authority, for navigation, access and exclusion within the haven.
- The Food Standards Agency and the local authority, for shellfish harvesting area classification and biotoxin closures.
- The Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the RNLI, for safety guidance on this coast.
- The Castlemartin range authority, whose firing schedule governs access to this coast.
- The national park authority, for coastal access.
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Stackpole Quay — 2–5 km · Harbour wall
- Freshwater West — 10–25 km · Beach
- Hobbs Point — 10–25 km · Jetty
- Milford Haven waterway — 10–25 km · Estuary
- Giltar Point — 10–25 km · Headland
- Tenby South Beach — 10–25 km · Surf beach
- Saundersfoot — 10–25 km · Harbour wall
- Broad Haven and Little Haven — 10–25 km · Beach
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
- Rock fishing safety and the declared lifejacket areas of New South Wales — NSW Department of Primary Industries and Surf Life Saving NSW (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Rock-platform fishing hazards, the mechanism by which anglers are swept from platforms by sets rather than by average conditions, and the measures that address it.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- RNLI water safety guidance: cold water shock and Float to Live — Royal National Lifeboat Institution (Water-safety or diver-training authority)Relied on for: Cold water shock, immersion response and the advice to carry a means of calling for help on the person.States this directlyPassage read and verified
How FishingHQ labels evidence is explained in the evidence policy. Last reviewed 2026-08-16.