Stonehaven
Harbour wall · Salt water · in The Moray Firth
A stone harbour in a shingle bay between two hard conglomerate headlands, with deep water off the points and heavy reef ground beneath the cliffs south towards Dunnottar.
Safety: cliffs and rock platforms — 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 · 1
From a boat · 5
What these strengths mean
- Established quarry
- Fishing sources describe this as a normal local target here, not merely as caught.
- 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.
- 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.
Also associated with this ground
Recorded as present here without a documented method or strength behind them.
Atlantic cod · Ballan wrasse · Conger eel · European lobster
Fish documented nearby, not here
Nothing below has been documented at Stonehaven 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
- European flounder — documented at Montrose and the South Esk
- European plaice — documented at Montrose and the South Esk
- European sea bass — documented at Montrose and the South Esk
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.
- 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 stone harbour in a shingle bay between two hard conglomerate headlands, with deep water off the points and heavy reef ground beneath the cliffs south towards Dunnottar.
Through the year
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 mackerel — seasonal, recorded in June, July, August, September. | ||||||||||||
| Atlantic mackerel — repeatedly reported, recorded in August. |
Recorded here with no season stated: Haddock, Ling, Saithe, Whiting, Dab, Pouting.
Safety
Cliffs and rock platforms — Can cause serious injury or death
Rock ledges and boulder ground with deep water close in are the productive shore fishing here, and North Sea swell arrives on them in sets. A ledge dry for twenty minutes gives no information about the next wave, and being swept off rather than falling in is the mechanism.
What reduces it: Watch a mark through several full set cycles before committing, choose a position with a way up behind it, wear a buoyancy aid on the rocks, and do not fish exposed rock alone.
Worse when:
- In an easterly airflow, which has a long open fetch onto this coast and no shelter.
- In the dark, when a set cannot be seen coming, which is when much of this fishing is done.
Cold water shock — Can cause serious injury or death
The water here is cold in every month and air temperature is a poor guide to it. Immersion produces an involuntary gasp and loss of breathing control within seconds, removing the ability to swim or to climb out onto weeded rock.
What reduces it: Dress for the water rather than the day, wear a buoyancy aid rather than carrying one, carry a means of calling for help on the person, and tell somebody the mark and the return time.
Rules and access
FishingHQ does not know the current access position here. Sea angling in Scotland is not rod-licensed, but access rights under the Scottish Outdoor Access Code carry responsibilities, and harbour, local authority, marine conservation and fisheries measures all apply and all change. Check the current position with the Marine Directorate, the harbour or local authority and the land manager before going.
Who holds the answer:
- The Scottish Government Marine Directorate, for sea fisheries measures in Scottish waters.
- The harbour authority or land manager, for access to the structure or the ground.
- The local authority, for shellfish harvesting classification.
- Marine Directorate of the Scottish Government, for sea fisheries measures, conservation designations and marine licensing in Scottish waters.
- The district salmon fishery board for the river concerned, which administers salmon and sea trout fishing on each of the rivers entering this firth.
- The proprietor, estate or angling association that holds the fishing rights, since freshwater and migratory fishing rights in Scotland are private and permission is required.
- NatureScot and the relevant site management bodies, where a marine or coastal designation affects access or activity.
- The harbour authority or trust at each port, for access to and fishing from harbour structures.
- The local authority and the Food Standards Scotland framework, for shellfish harvesting area classification.
Nearby fishing
Other publicly documented places within about 40 km, by distance. Positions are approximate public geography and are never exact marks.
- Crawton — 2–5 km · Rock mark
- Inverbervie beach — 10–25 km · Beach
- Gourdon harbour — 10–25 km · Harbour wall
- The River Dee at Banchory — 10–25 km · River reach
- Girdle Ness and Cove Bay — 10–25 km · Rock mark
- The Don mouth — 10–25 km · Estuary mark
- The River Don at Kemnay — 25–40 km · River reach
- Montrose and the South Esk — 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
- Public fishing video with an explicitly stated location — Various public video platforms (Practitioner report)Relied on for: A dated public video whose uploader states, in their own written description or title, that this named ground was fished from a kayak.States this directlyCitation checked — the work exists and is described correctly
- FISHMAG Scotland east and west coast sea fishing guides — FISHMAG (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: The mark-by-mark Scottish shore guides, east and west: which species are fished for at each named mark, with the bait, the state of tide, the season and the ground.States this directlyPassage read and verified
- Sea fishing in Scotland, area by area — Clyde Outboard Services, in collaboration with Glasgow Angling Centre (Credible secondary source)Relied on for: Scottish sea fishing by coastal area and by mode — which species a drift or an anchored boat produces off each stretch of 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.