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Start Point

Headland · Salt water · in The Cornish and Devon coasts

A long narrow ridge of mica schist running out into the Channel with a lighthouse at its tip, deep water on both sides and a strong race off the end.

Safety: moving water and currents — can cause serious injury or death. One more point applies 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.

Ling · Atlantic cod

Fish documented nearby, not here

Nothing below has been documented at Start Point 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

  • Thick-lipped grey mullet — documented at Bolt Head and the Salcombe rock; The Salcombe estuary; Torquay harbour (+6 more)
  • European flounder — documented at Newton Ferrers and the Yealm; The Salcombe estuary; Whitsand Bay and Tregantle (+5 more)
  • European plaice — documented at Whitsand Bay and Tregantle; The Salcombe estuary; Slapton Sands and Torcross (+3 more)
  • Small-spotted catshark — documented at Budleigh Salterton; Babbacombe and Oddicombe; Hopes Nose (+3 more)
  • Pouting — documented at Budleigh Salterton; Babbacombe and Oddicombe; Hopes Nose (+1 more)
  • Whiting — documented at Babbacombe and Oddicombe; Hopes Nose; Whitsand Bay and Tregantle (+1 more)
  • Common sole — documented at The Salcombe estuary; Slapton Sands and Torcross; Sidmouth (+1 more)
  • Garfish — documented at Babbacombe and Oddicombe; Hopes Nose; Brixham breakwater (+1 more)
  • Black seabream — documented at Hopes Nose; The Salcombe estuary; Berry Head
  • 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.

  • 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.

Baits and lures for these fish

The baits and lures each of the fish above is commonly taken on, from that fish’s own page. This is what works for the fish, not a report of what people use on this particular water — local knowledge and the conditions on the day still decide.

Baits

Lures

The ground and the water

The ground
A long narrow ridge of mica schist running out into the Channel with a lighthouse at its tip, deep water on both sides and a strong race off the end.

Safety

Moving water and currents — Can cause serious injury or death

A powerful race extends some distance off the point where the Channel stream is squeezed round the schist ridge, with overfalls that build on the tide.

What reduces it: Plan from the tidal stream table, keep clear of the point on a run tide, and avoid the race entirely with wind against stream.

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

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.

Start PointPrawle PointSlapton Sands and TorcrossThe Salcombe estuaryBolt Head and the Salcombe rockThe Dart estuaryBrixham breakwaterBerry HeadTorquay harbour
Start Point 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

  • 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.

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